Editing Land use (section)

=== Decline of the Aral Sea ===
[[File:AralSea1989_2014.jpg|thumb|Remote sensing images show changes to the extent of the [[Aral Sea]] from 1989 (left) to 2014 (right).]]
The rapid decline of the [[Aral Sea]] is an example how local-scale land use and land change can have compounded impacts on regional climate systems, particularly when human activities heavily disrupt natural climatic cycles, how land change science can be used to map and study such changes.<ref name=":03">{{Cite journal |last1=Turner |first1=B. L. |last2=Lambin |first2=Eric F. |last3=Reenberg |first3=Anette |date=2007-12-26 |title=The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=104 |issue=52 |pages=20666–20671 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0704119104 |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=2409212 |pmid=18093934 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In 1960, the Aral Sea, located in Central Asia, was the world's fourth largest lake.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Middleton |first=Nick |title=The Global Casino: An Introduction to Environmental Issues |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-315-15840-2 |location=London & New York |pages=179–182}}</ref> However, a water diversion project, undertaken by the [[Soviet Union]] to irrigate arid plains in what is now [[Kazakhstan]], [[Uzbekistan]], and [[Turkmenistan]], resulted in the Aral Sea losing 85% of its land cover and 90% of its volume.<ref name=":6" /> The loss of the Aral Sea has had a significant effect on human-environment interactions in the region, including the decimation of the sea's fishing industry and the [[Soil salinity|salinization]] of agricultural lands by the wind-spread of dried sea salt beds.<ref name=":03" /><ref name=":6" /> 

Additionally, scientists have been able to use technology such as [[NASA]]'s [[Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer|Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)]] to track changes to the Aral Sea and its surrounding climate over time.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-09-24 |title=World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea |url=https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/AralSea |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210320113542/https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/AralSea |archive-date=2021-03-20 |access-date=2021-03-08 |website=earthobservatory.nasa.gov |language=en}}</ref> This use of modeling and satellite imagery to track human-caused land cover change is characteristic of the scope of land change science.