Surface-water dynamics and land use influence landscape connectivity across a major dryland region.

Landscape connectivity is important for the long-term persistence of species inhabiting dryland freshwater ecosystems, with spatiotemporal surface-water dynamics (e.g., flooding) maintaining connectivity by both creating temporary habitats and providing transient opportunities for dispersal. Improving our understanding of how landscape connectivity varies with respect to surface-water dynamics and land use is an important step to maintaining biodiversity in dynamic dryland environments. Using a newly available validated Landsat TM and ETM+ surface-water time series, we modelled landscape connectivity between dynamic surface-water habitats within Australia's 1 million km2 semiarid Murray Darling Basin across a 25-yr period (1987-2011). We identified key habitats that serve as well-connected "hubs," or "stepping-stones" that allow long-distance movements through surface-water habitat networks. We compared distributions of these habitats for short- and long-distance dispersal species during dry, average, and wet seasons, and across land-use types. The distribution of stepping-stones and hubs varied both spatially and temporally, with temporal changes driven by drought and flooding dynamics. Conservation areas and natural environments contained higher than expected proportions of both stepping-stones and hubs throughout the time series; however, highly modified agricultural landscapes increased in importance during wet seasons. Irrigated landscapes contained particularly high proportions of well-connected hubs for long-distance dispersers, but remained relatively disconnected for less vagile organisms. The habitats identified by our study may serve as ideal high-priority targets for land-use specific management aimed at maintaining or improving dispersal between surface-water habitats, potentially providing benefits to biodiversity beyond the immediate site scale. Our results also highlight the importance of accounting for the influence of spatial and temporal surface-water dynamics when studying landscape connectivity within highly variable dryland environments.

Spatiotemporal patterns and effects of climate and land use on surface water extent dynamics in a dryland region with three decades of Landsat satellite data.

Spatiotemporal distribution and systematic quantification of surface water and their drivers of change are critical. However, quantifying this distribution is challenging due to a lack of spatially explicit and temporally dynamic empirical data of both surface water and its drivers of change at large spatial scales. We focused on one of the largest dryland basins in the world, Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), recently identified as a global hotspot of water decline. We used a new remotely sensed time-series of surface water extent dynamics (SWD) data to quantify spatiotemporal patterns in surface water across the entire MDB and catchments and to assess natural and anthropogenic drivers of SWD, including climate and historical land use change. We show high intra- and inter-annual dynamics in surface water with a rapid loss during the Millennium Drought, the worst, decade-long drought in SE Australia. We show strong regional and catchment differences in SWD, with the northern basin showing high variability compared to the southern basin which shows a steady decline in surface water. Linear mixed effect models including climate and land-use change variables explained up to 70% variability in SWD with climate being more important in catchments of the northwestern MDB, whereas land-use was important primarily in the central MDB. Increase in fraction of dryland agriculture in a catchment and maximum temperature was negatively related to SWD, whereas precipitation and soil moisture were positively related to SWD. The fact that land-use change was an important explanatory variable of SWD in addition to climate is a significant result as land-use can be managed more effectively whereas climate-mitigation actions can be intractable, with global change scenarios predicting drier conditions for the area followed by a further reduction in surface water availability.

Reconciling forest conservation and logging in Indonesian Borneo.

Combining protected areas with natural forest timber concessions may sustain larger forest landscapes than is possible via protected areas alone. However, the role of timber concessions in maintaining natural forest remains poorly characterized. An estimated 57% (303,525 km²) of Kalimantan's land area (532,100 km²) was covered by natural forest in 2000. About 14,212 km² (4.7%) had been cleared by 2010. Forests in oil palm concessions had been reduced by 5,600 km² (14.1%), while the figures for timber concessions are 1,336 km² (1.5%), and for protected forests are 1,122 km² (1.2%). These deforestation rates explain little about the relative performance of the different land use categories under equivalent conversion risks due to the confounding effects of location. An estimated 25% of lands allocated for timber harvesting in 2000 had their status changed to industrial plantation concessions in 2010. Based on a sample of 3,391 forest plots (1×1 km; 100 ha), and matching statistical analyses, 2000-2010 deforestation was on average 17.6 ha lower (95% C.I.: -22.3 ha- -12.9 ha) in timber concession plots than in oil palm concession plots. When location effects were accounted for, deforestation rates in timber concessions and protected areas were not significantly different (Mean difference: 0.35 ha; 95% C.I.: -0.002 ha-0.7 ha). Natural forest timber concessions in Kalimantan had similar ability as protected areas to maintain forest cover during 2000-2010, provided the former were not reclassified to industrial plantation concessions. Our study indicates the desirability of the Government of Indonesia designating its natural forest timber concessions as protected areas under the IUCN Protected Area Category VI to protect them from reclassification.