Region:East Africa.Focus:A review of catchment studies (n = 37) conducted in East Africa evaluating the impacts ofLand Use and Land Cover Changes (LULCC) on discharge, surface runoff, and lowflows.New hydrological insights:Forest cover loss is accompanied by increased stream discharges andsurface runoff.
Human land-use practices have been highly variable over the course of the Holocene, a diversity evident in the differentiated effects of human activity on land cover. Historically, agriculture was one of the most significant forms of land use, but even mobile hunter-gatherers transformed land cover through landscape-scale burning (Bliege Bird 2008).
Barranquilla is known as a dynamically growing city in the Colombian Caribbean. Urbanisation induces land use and land cover (LULC) changes in the city and its hinterland affecting the region’s climate and biodiversity.
Despite agricultural land abandonment threatening the food security and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, it is pervasive globally and in developing countries. Yet land abandonment is an understudied aspect of land use change in social–ecological systems.
Both research and policy recognize land systems as fundamental to human life and activities. However, these two perspectives approach land from different ends and it can be difficult to see how studied variables contribute to broader policy goals.
Forests, particularly in the tropics, are suffering from deforestation and forest degradations. The estimation of forest area and canopy cover is an essential part of the establishment of a measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) system that is needed for monitoring carbon stocks and the associated greenhouse gas emissions and removals.
In Indonesia, land cover change for agriculture and mining is threatening tropical forests, biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, land cover change is highly dynamic and complex and varies over time and space.
Urban Water Security is essential in urban planning to manage cities’ water infrastructures and strengthen their water stress resilience and adaptive capacities. Decision making, governance and socio-economic factors play important roles in achieving Urban Water Security.
Accurate and up-to-date information on land use and land cover (LULC) is needed to develop policies on reducing soil sealing through increased urbanization as well as to meet climate targets. More detailed information about building function is also required but is currently lacking.
In Indonesia, land cover change for agriculture and mining is threatening tropical forests, biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, land cover change is highly dynamic and complex and varies over time and space.
