Urban Forest Cover: Change and Response to Climate

DOI

10.2991/aer.k.211029.003How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Urban forest growth; forest mapping; forest change detection; air temperature; Ulaanbaatar

Abstract

Since 1990, due to Mongolia’s transition to a free market economy, the migration of the population to cities, especially to the capital, has rapidly increased. As a result, urban lands are expanding, forest use around the cities is becoming more chaotic, and the impact of urbanization on forests is increasing. Impacts of natural and social factors, such as climate change and social transformations on suburban forests have been increasing over the last decade, which threatens urban green spaces as well as leads to the degradation of peri-urban natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. Therefore, urgent need to identify changes in urban forest areas over the past 30 years in connection with climate change have drawn attentions of scientists and policy makers in recent years. The purpose of this study was to identify urban forest cover changes of Ulaanbaatar city and define changes in forest characteristics in relation to climatic factors. In this study, both field measurement and remote sensing methods are used for developing map of urban forest cover change. Results show that the urban forest area of Ulaanbaatar was 96.3*10³ hectares in 1989, but as of 2019, the total forest area has decreased to 84.4*10³ hectares. Also, there is a weak negative correlation between the annual growth rate of trees and the air temperature in May-August, suggesting that this decline may be related to climate change. The findings from this study will contribute to further improvements in forest resource management, and formulations of climate change adaptation measures.

Copyright

© 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Bayartulga Altankhuyag
AU  - Delgerjargal Dugarjav
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/11/01
TI  - Urban Forest Cover: Change and Response to Climate
BT  - Proceedings of the Environmental Science and Technology International Conference (ESTIC 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 14
EP  - 19
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/aer.k.211029.003
DO  - 10.2991/aer.k.211029.003
ID  - Altankhuyag2021
ER  -