Environmental Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategy Formulation for the Land Use and Land Cover Change(3/3)

The rapid developments of urbanized areas, which are being gradually sprawled to their neighboring regions including farmlands, have jeopardized our national food self-sufficiency rate and regional ecosystems. Therefore, it is a crucial issue to assess the impacts of land use and land cover (LULC) change on the environment. This research proposes a three-year plan, with aim to develop a systematic evaluation methodology, in order to assess the environmental impacts (including physiographic, hydrologic, thermal environment, and energy consumption) with aerospace science and technology and remote sensing technology for the Northern part of Taiwan (including Taoyuan, Taipei, and New Taipei cities). The first-year objective is to implement temporal and spatial observations and geographic information analysis for the LULC change by means of continuous, large-scale, and multi-period aerial and satellite imageries as well as technologies of spatial information, theory analysis, and strategy management of Taiwan Global Earth Observation System of Systems (TGEOSS). Regarding the second-year objective, it is proposed to continue with an evaluation model developed by retrieval algorithm and data mining technique and calibrated by in-situ data, for the purpose of evaluating the impact of LULC change on environment. The third-year objective is then to establish environmental indices for the study area, based on the simulation and analyzed results. The mentioned regional environmental indices will be used to quantify the degree of environmental impact by the spatial estimation method of data processing and statistical computing. At the end of this research project, it is to propose: (1) strategies regarding environmental adaptation for the study area; (2) standardizing procedures of environmental assessments and improving the support system of decision-making processes, in order to provide relevant agencies with a practical reference for future operations.