A Conceptual Model for Land System Dynamics as a Coupled Human–Environment System

Richard Aspinall,Michele Staiano

doi:10.3390/land6040081

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual model of land as a coupled human–environment system. Land use and land cover are incorporated as elements of the human and environment system respectively. Drivers and associated processes that influence land use, land cover, and land system dynamics are incorporated within a set of sub-systems. The model includes consideration of driving sub-systems as a set of capital funds and flows, and how these are influenced by linkages between processes in the human (socio-economic) and environment systems and sub-systems. The model is consistent with existing models of the biophysical earth system used by the land change, earth system sciences, and socio-ecological systems communities. The purposes of the model are to provide (i) a holistic framework within which descriptions, models and analyses that focus on various components of land can be placed to describe and explain land systems and land system changes; and (ii) a guide for the development of more fully integrated and interdisciplinary understanding, analysis and study of land use and land cover dynamics, with explicit focus on relationships between human and natural systems.

Highlights

Land cover, and the associated dynamics of land systems present fundamental challenges for the sciences that aim to support an understanding of land use and land change [1,2,3]
We present a conceptual model for land systems as coupled human–environment systems
A long record of case studies of land use and land cover change [1,2], meta-analyses of the land change literature [26,27,28], and synthesis papers [3,15,29], have identified a number of elements and principal characteristics exhibited by land systems that might usefully be incorporated into a general model of land systems

Summary

Introduction

Land cover, and the associated dynamics of land systems (including change in cover and use and combining human and environment systems’ processes) present fundamental challenges for the sciences that aim to support an understanding of land use and land change [1,2,3]. The close correspondence, but not formal equivalence, between land uses (e.g., forestry) and land cover (e.g., woodlands) has led to the combined and somewhat interchangeable study of use and cover in land systems science, notably in programs such as the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme/International Human. A formal systems specification might guide the development of more fully integrated and interdisciplinary models of land use and land cover dynamics with explicit focus on relationships between human and environment systems. Cycles [24,25]. (that model represents all human activity and land use as a single box with a single connection to other elements of the (global) Earth System, a linkage that gives an appearance of lesser significance than recognition of the Anthropocene would imply [15].)

Elements for a Conceptual Model of Coupled Human–Environment Systems for Land

Systems Model

Discussion

Conclusions