Land Abandonment in Russia: Understanding Recent Trends and Assessing Future Vulnerability and Adaptation to Changing Climate and Population Dynamics

Start Date:

01/10/2011

End Date:

01/09/2013

Grant Number:

08-LCLUC08-2-0002

Project Call:

Earth Observing System

Science Theme:

Predictive Land Use Modeling

Climate Variability and Change

Vulnerability, Adaptation

Drivers of Change

Regional Initiative:

Northern Eurasian Earth Science Partnership Initiative

Region:

European Russia

Europe

Solicitation:

LCLUC-08

Team members:

Person Name	Person role on project	Affiliation
Kirsten de Beurs	Principal Investigator	Wageningen University and Research, , Netherlands
Geoffrey Henebry	Co-Investigator	Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Grigory Loffe	Co-Investigator	Radford University, Radford, United States
Tatyana Nefedova	Collaborator	Institute of Geography, , Russia

Abstract:

Russia's population is projected to shrink by a staggering 29% by 2050. Differential dynamics among rural populations are correlated with ethnicity, natural condition and remoteness of large cities and constitute a key driver in the spatial disintegration of rural Russia. Currently, Russia is slowly transitioning into a country with an internal 'archipelago' of islands of productive agriculture around cities set within a matrix of much less productive and abandoned croplands. This heterogeneous spatial pattern is mainly driven by depopulation of the least favorable parts of the countryside, where 'least favorable' is some function of lower fertility of land, higher remoteness from urban markets, or both. This project investigates potential sustainable productivity of remaining croplands under climatic and demographic changes. Our aim is to improve current understanding of the interactions of climate change and the spatio-temporal impacts of agricultural reform in European Russia. We propose to model land abandonment based on (1) past abandonment estimates retrieved from satellite imagery, (2) age-structured population models, and (3) spatially structured metapopulation models using socio-demographic data, distance to major population centers, and bioclimatic potential derived from a combination of current temperature and moisture regimes retrieved from spaceborne sensors and predicted future regimes from IPCC AR4 models. We will investigate three scenarios: A1B and B1 project drastic decreases in the Russian population by 2050, but A2 projects minor changes. Our modeling approach will predict how possible future climates could influence abandonment patterns in Russia and how adaptive strategies could affect rural re-colonization and re-cultivation patterns. This work is innovative because it will treat the population dynamics of different ethnic groups as an endogenous component of the land cover land use change system and provide increased understanding of both the effect of population size and composition as well as changing climate on land abandonment patterns in Russia.

Project Research Area:

Project Documents

Year	Authors	Type	Title
2015	Kirsten de Beurs Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Using multiple remote sensing perspectives to identify and attribute land surface dynamics in Central Asia 2001–2013
2011		Publications	Ioffe, G. and Z. Zayonchkovskaya, 2011, Spatial Shifts in Population within the Moscow Region, Eurasian Geography and Economics, in press.
2010		Publications	Ioffe, G. and Z. Zayonchkovskaya, 2010 Immigration to Russia: Inevitability and Prospective Inflows, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 51(1): 104-125
2010	Kirsten de Beurs	Publications	de Beurs KM, and GM Henebry. 2010. Spatio-temporal statistical methods for modeling land surface phenology. In: (IL Hudson and MR Keatley, eds.) Phenological Research: Methods for Environmental and Climate Change Analysis. Springer: New York. Chapter 9, pp. 177-208.
2010	Kirsten de Beurs	Publications	de Beurs KM, and GM Henebry. 2010. A land surface phenology assessment of the northern polar regions using MODIS reflectance time series. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 36(Suppl. 1): S87–S110. [Special Issue on International Polar Year]
2009	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Henebry, GM. 2009. Carbon in idle croplands. Nature 457:1089-1090.
2009	Kirsten de Beurs	Publications	de Beurs KM, CK Wright, and GM Henebry. 2009. Dual scale trend analysis distinguishes climatic from anthropogenic effects on the vegetated land surface. Environmental Research Letters, 4:045012.
2009	Kirsten de Beurs Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Wright CK, KM de Beurs, ZK. Akhmadiyeva, PY Groisman, and GM Henebry. 2009. Reanalysis data underestimate significant changes in growing season weather in Kazakhstan. Environmental Research Letters, 4:045020.
2009	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Lioubimtseva E. and GM Henebry. 2009. Climate and environmental change in arid Central Asia: Impacts, vulnerability, and adaptations. Journal of Arid Environments, 73:963-977 doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2009.04.022.
2008	Kirsten de Beurs Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	de Beurs KM, and GM Henebry. 2008b. War, drought, and phenology: Changes in the land surface phenology of Afghanistan since 1982. Journal of Land Use Science 3(2-3): 95-111.
2008	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Loveland, TR, MA Cochrane, and GM Henebry. 2008. Landsat still contributing to environmental research. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23(4):182-183.
2008	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	de Beurs KM, and GM Henebry. 2008a. Northern Annular Mode effects on the land surface phenologies of Northern Eurasia. Journal of Climate 21:4257-4279.
2008	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Lioubimtseva, E. 2008. Climate Change in Turkmenistan, In: (S. G. Philander, ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change. New York: SAGE Reference, Golson Books.
2007	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Henebry, GM, and M Doubková. 2007. Land surface phenologies sensed by cooler earthlight: how passive microwave image series can reveal vegetation dynamics appropriate for landscape monitoring. In: (R.G.H. Bunce, R.H.G. Jongman, L. Hojas, and S. Weel, eds.) 25 Years of Landscape Ecology: Science Principles in Practice. Proceedings of the 7th IALE World Congress 8-12 July, Wageningen, The Netherlands. IALE Publication series 4. pp 1071-1072, volume 2.
2007	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Lioubimtseva, E. 2007. Possible changes in the carbon budget of arid and semi-arid Central Asia inferred from landuse/landcover analysis during 1981-2001. In: R Lal, M Suleimenov, BA Stewart, DO Hansen, P Doraiswami (eds.) Climate Change and Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration in Central Asia. New York: Taylor & Francis. pp. 441-452
2007	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Lioubimtseva, E. 2007. Impacts of climate change on the landscapes and human vulnerability of arid Central Asia. In: (R.G.H. Bunce, R.H.G. Jongman, L. Hojas, and S. Weel, eds.) 25 Years of Landscape Ecology: Science Principles in Practice. Proceedings of the 7th IALE World Congress 8-12 July, Wageningen, The Netherlands. IALE Publication series 4. p 936, volume 2.
2006	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Friedl, M, G Henebry, B Reed, A Huete, M White, J Morisette, R Nemani, X Zhang, and R Myneni. 2006. Land Surface Phenology. A Community White Paper requested by NASA. April 10.
2006	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Lioubimtseva E, and Cole R. 2006. Uncertainties of climate change in arid environments of Central Asia. Reviews in Fisheries Science 14(1-2): 29-50.
2005	Geoffrey Henebry	Publications	Doubková, M. and GM Henebry. 2005. Assessing land surface dynamics across the Nebraska Sand Hills using Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) data products. Pecora 16 Proceedings, paper 25.
	Kirsten de Beurs	Publications	Wright, CK, KM de Beurs, and GM Henebry. In review for NEESPI/MAIRS special issue. Combined analysis of land cover change and NDVI trends in the Northern Eurasian grain belt. Regional Environmental Change.