Chapter 7 - Drivers of land use and land cover changes in South America. A review focused on drylands

Abstract

This study presents a state of the art and a systematic review of literature that identifies the driving forces of land use/cover change (LUCC) and aims to move the discussion forward on the role of social actors in the direct and indirect drivers of land use change in the drylands of South America. Specifically, this review focuses on the characterization of how LUCC studies have addressed the factors driving territorial transformations in drylands, and their main related physical-biological and socioeconomic consequences. In this regard, there are on the one hand studies focused on describing the processes of land use changes from frameworks that are generally qualitative and poorly spatialised. On the other hand—particularly in South America—there are studies that delve into LUCC with very precise descriptions in the spatial context, but do not always manage to articulate a social and cultural approach that incorporates the qualitative explanations that we find in the first type of studies.