Monitoring Forest Change in Landscapes Under-Going Rapid Energy Development: Challenges and New Perspectives | Land Portal

Resource information

Date of publication: 
October 2014
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
10.3390/land3030617
License of the resource: 
Copyright details: 
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article.

The accelerated development of energy resources around the world has substantially increased forest change related to oil and gas activities. In some cases, oil and gas activities are the primary catalyst of land-use change in forested landscapes. We discuss the challenges associated with characterizing ecological change related to energy resource development using North America as an exemplar. We synthesize the major impacts of energy development to forested ecosystems and offer new perspectives on how to detect and monitor anthropogenic disturbance during the Anthropocene. The disturbance of North American forests for energy development has resulted in persistent linear corridors, suppression of historical disturbance regimes, novel ecosystems, and the eradication of ecological memory. Characterizing anthropogenic disturbances using conventional patch-based disturbance measures will tend to underestimate the ecological impacts of energy development. Suitable indicators of anthropogenic impacts in forests should be derived from the integration of multi-scalar Earth observations. Relating these indicators to ecosystem condition will be a capstone in the progress toward monitoring forest change in landscapes undergoing rapid energy development.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Pickell, D. Paul
Gergel, E. Sarah
Coops, C. Nicholas
Andison, W. David

Publisher(s): 

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