Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes

By: Nicole Mölders

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Synopsis: Wildfires, changing glaciers, deforestation, open-pit mining, increasing demands for food and bio-fuel production and the growth of megacities change our landscape. The book comprehensively reviews the current knowledge on how natural and anthropogenic land-use/cover changes affect weather, air quality and climate worldwide and explains how these changes may trigger further land-use/cover changes. It discusses how anthropogenic land-use/cover changes have affected local and regional climate and air quality since the settlement of America and the industrialisation. It addresses the topic how long-range transport of pollutants and dust of devasted areas as well as teleconnections may cause changes far away from the areas where the land-use/cover changes occurred, for which land-use/cover change may become an international issue similar to CO2. It also discusses relations to global change and future societal and scientific challenges related to land-use/cover changes.