Thermokarst is a typical process that indicates widespread permafrost degradation in
yedoma landscapes. The Lena-Aldan interfluvial area in Central Yakutia in eastern Siberia is
now facing extensive landscape changes with surface subsidence due to thermokarst
development during the past few decades. To clarify the spatial extent and rate of
subsidence, multiple spatial datasets, including GIS and remote sensing observations,
were used to analyze the Churapcha rural locality, which has a typical yedoma landscape in
Central Yakutia. Land cover classification maps for 1945 and 2009 provide basic
information on anthropogenic disturbance to the natural landscape of boreal forest and
dry grassland. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) with ALOS-2/PALSAR-2
data revealed activated surface subsidence of 2 cm/yr in the disturbed area, comprising
mainly abandoned agricultural fields. Remote sensing with an unmanned aerial system also
provided high-resolution information on polygonal relief formed by thermokarst development
at a disused airfield where InSAR analysis exhibited extensive subsidence. It is worth noting
that some historically deforested areas have likely recovered to the original landscape
without further thermokarst development. Spatial information on historical land-use change
is helpful because most areas with thermokarst development correspond to locations where
land was used by humans in the past. Going forward, the integrated analysis of geospatial
information will be essential for assessing permafrost degradation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84279 |
| Date | 24 March 2023 |
| Creators | Iijima, Yoshihiro, Abe, Takahiro, Saito, Hitoshi, Ulrich, Mathias, Fedorov, Alexander N., Basharin, Nikolay I., Gorokhov, Alexey N., Makarov, Victor S. |
| Publisher | Frontiers Research Foundation |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 2296-6463, 750298 |
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