Mapping global patterns of land use decision-making

Žiga Malek,Peter H Verburg

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102170

Abstract

Humans have changed most of the terrestrial surface by changing land-use and land-cover. The spatial distribution and extent of land-cover changes have been studied and mapped widely, using remote sensing and geospatial technologies. Although there are numerous studies on the human decisions underlying such changes, they are limited to local case-studies. How such local-scale patterns of decision-making can be used to explain land-use change globally is unknown. Using a collection of local studies from a literature review, we studied the contextual conditions of different modes of land-use change decision-making and present global maps of the potential distribution of decision-making in land-use change. We find that decision-making in land-use can be explained, to a large extent, by the socio-economic, climatic and soil conditions of a location, captured by global data proxies of these conditions. Survival and livelihood objectives are positively associated to the spatial variation in childhood malnutrition and distance to roads, and negatively to total economic output of an area. Economic objectives on the other hand, are positively associated to total economic output, but also to the annual precipitation at the location. Similar trends are observed when looking at more detailed decision-making types: survivalist, subsistence-oriented and market-oriented smallholder decision-making types are more likely found in areas with higher poverty levels and overall lower levels of socio-economic development. The spatial distribution can be used to understand the occurrence of land-use intensification trajectories and to account for variation in decision-making in global land-use models. Finally, we provide a representation of the spread of case-studies and which contexts are poorly represented by case-studies.

Highlights

Changes to land-use and land-cover (LULCC) have altered most of the terrestrial surface, leaving < 30% of ice-free areas unaffected (Ellis et al, 2010; Luyssaert et al, 2014)
How re presentative our sample of case studies is for global variation in con textual conditions, and identified areas where more research on local scale decision-making in LULCC is necessary
Using the selected vari ables, we can explain the occurrence of survival and livelihood better than economic objectives, as can be seen by the pseudo R2 (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Changes to land-use and land-cover (LULCC) have altered most of the terrestrial surface, leaving < 30% of ice-free areas unaffected (Ellis et al, 2010; Luyssaert et al, 2014). There is growing evidence on the role of LULCC on broader scales, with substantial advances in remote sensing, statistics and models (Meyfroidt et al, 2018) Examples of such improvements range from providing more detailed information on how we use and manage cropland (Foley et al, 2011; Ramankutty et al, 2000) and forests (Hurtt et al, 2006; Schulze et al, 2019), the size of farms and agricultural fields (Lesiv et al, 2019; Samberg et al, 2016), fertilization and irri gation (Mueller et al, 2012; Siebert et al, 2005), and the observation of LULCC (Hansen et al, 2013; Song et al, 2018).

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Conclusion