Impact of Climate Change on Land and Water Systems

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land–Climate Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 2267

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Soil and Catchment Science | Water and Catchments, Department of Environment and Science, Queensland Government, Brisbane 4000, Australia
Interests: agroecosystems modelling; soil physics; hydrology; land surface processes; climate change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

(1) Introduction, including scientific background and highlighting the importance of this research area.

As the global climate continues to change, we are witnessing profound alterations in the Earth's land and water systems. This Special Issue delves into these ramifications, with an explicit focus on hydrology and soil processes, such as water harvest, greenhouse gas emissions, soil moisture, soil carbon, soil erosion, and their monitoring, modeling (process-based, statistical, AI), and management. Increases in global GHG emissions are affecting global temperatures (IPCC, 2014a), the water cycle, and elevating CO2. Due to changes in the global climate, with associated increases in the return period, size, and duration of extreme high-temperature events, subsequent heat stresses are predicted (and are already happening) to occur, along with changes in rainfall and rainfall extremes (IPCC, 2014a). All these changes cause an increasing water scarcity across the globe (Gosling and Arnell, 2016). At a landscape scale, these changes impact the biophysical process and alter water–soil–plant–animal interactions (Ghahramani and Bowran, 2018), soil moisture dynamics (Holsten et al., 2009), and soil degradation (Klik and Eitzinger, 2010), all affecting the productivity and quality of agricultural production and consequently food security at a larger regional and global scale (Wheeler et al., 2013).

The impending repercussions of these amplified processes are multi-fold. For example, they include the increased frequency/magnitude of extreme events, loss of fertile topsoil, reduced agricultural productivity, alteration of aquatic ecosystems, and increased risk of erosion.

This Special Issue brings together research exploring these topics, attempting to deepen our understanding of the interactions between climate change and land and water systems. We aim to foster dialogue on exploring impacts and proactive adaptation strategies and innovative mitigation approaches, driving toward the sustainable management of our increasingly vulnerable environments under a changing climate. Through broad collaboration and knowledge sharing, we strive to prepare ourselves for the evolving challenges of climate change.

(2) Aim of the Special Issue and how the subject relates to the journal scope.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) which provide insights into the impact of climate change on land and water at different scales, preferably with a systemic approach. This will cover (but is not limited to) the application of modeling in water and climate change (process-based, statistical, AI), water harvest, flood, GHG emissions, soil moisture, soil carbon, soil health, and soil erosion, as well as their monitoring, modeling, and management.

(3) Suggested themes and article types for submissions.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

  • Climate change: impact, adaptation, mitigation, GHG emissions;
  • AI application in climate change and water sciences;
  • Surface hydrology: water harvest, irrigation, flood affected by climate change;
  • Soil health, e.g., carbon, moisture affected by climate change;
  • Soil erosion affected by climate change, hillslope erosion, gully, stream bank, sediment disasters, e.g., mudflow, debris flow.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Afshin Ghahramani
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • climate change impact
  • water
  • climate change adaptation
  • soil
  • hydrology
  • erosion
  • landscape

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 24895 KiB  
Article
“It Will Be a Desert”: Extreme Weather and the Effects of Climate Catastrophe on Vulnerable Riparian Spaces in Nairobi, Kenya
by Olivia Howland
Land 2024, 13(7), 913; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land13070913 - 23 Jun 2024
Viewed by 384
Abstract
Urban riparian spaces are notoriously vulnerable, and pressure on water resources is growing. In the context of a fast-growing urban population and a lack of state-level structures and services to deal with water and sanitation, these spaces—including both land and water—are rapidly being [...] Read more.
Urban riparian spaces are notoriously vulnerable, and pressure on water resources is growing. In the context of a fast-growing urban population and a lack of state-level structures and services to deal with water and sanitation, these spaces—including both land and water—are rapidly being degraded. Ongata Rongai, a satellite town in the Nairobi Metropolitan Area, is one of these spaces. Traditional livelihoods exist cheek-by-jowl with modern life; livestock are watered at the rivers, lions frequent the riverbanks, large commercial farms extract water for crops, industrial factories release heavy metal contaminants into the rivers, and rapidly constructed poor-quality apartment blocks with no provision for human waste release untreated sewage and dump trash into the rivers. Compounding these anthropogenic impacts is that of climate change. Riparian spaces have become sites where humans and animals fight for access to water and riparian space, and rain becomes less reliable or frequent, yet at other times, these spaces experience flash flooding and catastrophic water levels leading to the destruction of land. This study explores the dynamics of a rapidly changing riparian environment which finds itself dominated by urbanity, under the increasing pressure of anthropogenic climate change using a One Health perspective. This study contributes much needed human voices to a growing body of literature led by indigenous Kenyan scholars, calling for urgent structural level action to conserve urban riparian zones for the benefit of human and non-human actors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate Change on Land and Water Systems)
18 pages, 13047 KiB  
Article
The Contribution of Saline-Alkali Land to the Terrestrial Carbon Stock Balance: The Case of an Important Agriculture and Ecological Region in Northeast China
by Lei Chang, Tianhang Ju, Huijia Liu and Yuefen Li
Land 2024, 13(7), 900; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land13070900 - 21 Jun 2024
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Abstract
Saline-alkali land is an important component of terrestrial ecosystems and may serve as a carbon sink but its net contribution to the overall terrestrial carbon sink is unknown. Using methods recommended by the IPCC, this study evaluates the impacts of interconverting saline-alkali and [...] Read more.
Saline-alkali land is an important component of terrestrial ecosystems and may serve as a carbon sink but its net contribution to the overall terrestrial carbon sink is unknown. Using methods recommended by the IPCC, this study evaluates the impacts of interconverting saline-alkali and non-saline-alkali land on terrestrial carbon stocks by measuring two major carbon pools (soil organic carbon and vegetation carbon) in the saline-alkali land of China’s Songnen Plain. Distinct phases in the evolution of the region’s terrestrial carbon stock were delineated, factors contributing to transitions between phases were identified, and the effects of changes in the saline-alkali land carbon stock on the overall terrestrial carbon sink were estimated. Between 2005 and 2020, the region’s saline-alkali land carbon stock initially increased, then declined, and finally increased again. However, the overall terrestrial carbon stock decreased by 0.5 Tg (1 Tg = 1012 g), indicating that the increase in the saline-alkali land carbon stock was due primarily to expansion of the saline-alkali land area. The conversion of non-saline-alkali land to saline-alkali land was a carbon-emitting process; consequently, in areas undergoing saline-alkali land change, the lower carbon density bound was equal to the carbon density of unconverted saline-alkali land and the upper bound was equal to the carbon density of unconverted non-saline-alkali land. In general, changes in the carbon stock of saline-alkali land correlated negatively with changes in the overall terrestrial carbon stock. The conversion of saline-alkali land into grassland and cropland through biochar improvement and the planting of saline-tolerant crops (Leymus chinensis, salt-tolerant rice) has a positive effect on promoting the enhancement of terrestrial carbon stocks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate Change on Land and Water Systems)
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24 pages, 30659 KiB  
Article
Land Cover Changes and Driving Factors in the Source Regions of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers over the Past 40 Years
by Xiuyan Zhang, Yuhui Yang, Haoyue Gao, Shu Xu, Jianming Feng and Tianling Qin
Land 2024, 13(2), 259; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land13020259 - 19 Feb 2024
Viewed by 881
Abstract
As a climate-sensitive region of the Tibetan Plateau, the source regions of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (SRYYRs) urgently require an analysis of land cover change (LUCCs) over a long period, high temporal resolution, and high spatial resolution. This study utilizes nearly 40 [...] Read more.
As a climate-sensitive region of the Tibetan Plateau, the source regions of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (SRYYRs) urgently require an analysis of land cover change (LUCCs) over a long period, high temporal resolution, and high spatial resolution. This study utilizes nearly 40 years of land cover, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), climate, and geomorphological data, applying methods including a land transfer matrix, slope trend analysis, correlation analysis, and landscape pattern indices to analyze the spatial and temporal changes, composition, layout, and quality of the local land cover and the factors. The findings reveal that (1) the land cover area change rate was 8.96% over the past 40 years, the unutilized land area decreased by 24.49%, and the grassland area increased by 6.37%. The changes were obvious at the junction of the two source regions and the southeast side of the source region of the Yellow River. (2) the landscape pattern was more centralized and diversified. The number of low-cover grassland patches increased by 12.92%. (3) The region is still dominated by medium- and low-cover vegetation, with the mean annual NDVI increasing at a rate of 0.006/10a, and the rate of change after 2000 is three times higher than previously. (4) The degree of land cover change is greater in the middle altitudes, semisunny aspects, steepest slopes, and middle-relief mountains. Additionally, 76.8% of the region’s vegetation growth is dominated by mean annual temperatures. This study provides fundamental data and theory for understanding LUCCs and the driving factors in alpine plateau regions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate Change on Land and Water Systems)
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