Research.EastWestCenter.Org/MMSEA

The Role of Land-cover Change in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia in Altering Regional Hydrological Processes Under a Changing Climate

This research uses multi-scale, multi-temporal remotely sensed data and derived products along with an array of ground-based, hydrological measurements and spatially-explicit, regional climate and watershed models to characterize and understand the relationships between land-cover/land-use change (LCLUC) and hydrologic processes in montane mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) and their interactions with the effects of global climate change. MMSEA is a region of great biological and cultural diversity that has come under scrutiny because of deforestation, land degradation, and the conversion of traditional agricultural practices to permanent agriculture. These human-induced changes have important implications for biodiversity, watershed hydrology, local and regional meteorological processes, and global climate change.

The project involves land-cover characterization, LCLUC simulation, and climate/hydrological measurement and simulation across a range of scales. We will focus our observations within two study watersheds, each approximately 100 km2, in the southern part of China's Yunnan Province (Nam Ken watershed) and in northern Thailand (Mae Sa watershed). These sites provide a cross-section of the varied political-cultural influences on land cover and land use (LCLU) in MMSEA, and represent a range of levels of current development and trajectories of future land-cover change. Moreover, the field sites are important nodes along the corridor of the proposed Chiang Mai-Kunming Highway, a major construction project running through southwestern China, northern Laos and western Burma, and northern Thailand which is certain to initiate rapid land-cover conversion and result in profound environmental and economic change in the region.

Participants, Affiliations, & Project Roles

Land cover / Land use: Jefferson Fox and John B. Vogler
East-West Center, Honolulu, HI

Watershed-scale modeling: Bart Nijssen
Hydrology, University of Arizona

Regional-scale modeling: Omer Sen and Yuqing Wang
International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii

Field Observations: Thomas Giambelluca, Alan Zieglar and Michael Nullet
Geography, University of Hawaii

General Circulation Model: Gerald Meehl
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO

Linkage with GEWEX GAME-Tropics: Taikan Oki
Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo and
Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto

Coordination of Field Observations
Thailand: Chatchai Tantasirin, Kasetsart University
Laos: Sithong Thongmanivong Faculty of Forestry, National University of Laos
China: Xu Jianchu, Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge (CBIK), Kunming

NASA Grant ID: NNG04GH59G
NASA Project Number: IDS/03-0365-0079