Land use and land cover changes along the China-Myanmar Oil and Gas pipelines - Monitoring infrastructure development in remote conflict-prone regions.

Autor: Aung TS; Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Asia Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America., Fischer TB; Environmental Assessment and Management Research Centre, Geography and Planning, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.; Research Unit for Environmental Science and Management, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North West University (Potchefstroom Campus), Potchefstroom, South Africa., Buchanan J; Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Asia Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2020 Aug 19; Vol. 15 (8), pp. e0237806. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Aug 19 (Print Publication: 2020).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237806
Abstrakt: Energy infrastructures can have negative impacts on the environment. In remote and / or sparsely populated as well as in conflict-prone regions, these can be difficult to assess, in particular when they are of a large scale. Analyzing land use and land cover changes can be an important initial step towards establishing the quantity and quality of impacts. Drawing from very-high-resolution-multi-temporal-satellite-imagery, this paper reports on a study which employed the Random Forest Classifier and Land Change Modeler to derive detailed information of the spatial patterns and temporal variations of land-use and land-cover changes resulting from the China-Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipelines in Ann township in Myanmar's Rakhine State of Myanmar. Deforestation and afforestation conversion processes during pre- and post-construction periods (2010 to 2012) are compared. Whilst substantial forest areas were lost along the pipelines, this is only part of the story, as afforestation has also happened in parallel. However, afforestation areas can be of a lower value, and in order to be able to take quality of forests into account, it is of crucial importance to accompany satellite-imagery based techniques with field observation. Findings have important implications for future infrastructure development projects in conflict-affected regions in Myanmar and elsewhere.
Competing Interests: No authors have competing interests.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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