Reviews and syntheses: influences of landscape structure and land uses on local to regional climate and air quality

摘要

The atmosphere and the land surface interact in multiple ways, for instancethrough the radiative-energy balance, the water cycle or theemission and deposition of natural and anthropogenic compounds. By modifying theland surface, land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) and land managementchanges (LMCs) alter the physical, chemical, and biological processes of thebiosphere and therefore all land–atmosphere interactions, from local toglobal scales. Through socio-economic drivers and regulatory policies adoptedat different levels (local, regional, national, or supranational), humanactivities strongly interfere in the land–atmosphere interactions, and thoseactivities lead to a patchwork of natural, semi-natural, agricultural, urban,and semi-urban areas. In this context, urban and peri-urban areas, which havea high population density, are of particular attention since landtransformation can lead to important environmental impacts and affect thehealth and life of millions of people. The objectives of this review are tosynthesize the existing experimental and modelling works that investigatephysical, chemical, and/or biogeochemical interactions between land surfacesand the atmosphere, therefore potentially impacting local/regional climate andair quality, mainly in urban or peri-urban landscapes at regional and localscales. The conclusions we draw from our synthesis are the following. (1) Theadequate temporal and spatial description of land use and land managementpractices (e.g. areas concerned, type of crops, whether or not they areirrigated, quantity of fertilizers used and actual seasonality ofapplication) necessary for including the effects of LMC in global and evenmore in regional climate models is inexistent (or very poor). Not taking intoaccount these characteristics may bias the regional projections used forimpact studies. (2) Land–atmosphere interactions are often specific to thecase study analysed; therefore, one can hardly propose general solutions orrecommendations. (3) Adaptation strategies, proposed afterclimatic impacts on the targeted resource have been derived, are oftenbiased as they do not account for feedbacks on local/regional climate.(4) There is space for considering atmospheric chemistry, throughland–atmosphere interactions, as a factor for land management, helping tomaintain air quality and supporting ecosystem functioning. (5) There is alack of an integrated tool, which includes the many different processes ofimportance in an operational model, to test different land use or land management scenarios at the scale of a territory.