The fluvial anthroposphere of the Wiesent River catchment, northern Bavaria, Germany: review and first results

Overbank silt-clay deposition and intensive Neolithic land use in a Central European catchment – Coupled or decoupled?

To reconstruct past environmental conditions and feedback mechanisms between human activities and the environment, geoarchives are an important scientific source of information. Especially colluvial sediments originating from soil erosion can be used to explain environmental effects of land use. Here, results of two case studies from adjacent sites in northern Bavaria are presented. The influence of weather and land use effects on accelerated soil erosion and the feedback on socio-economic and demographic effects are discussed. At ”Catena Friesen”, an 80 m long slope, the effects of land use changes and their consequences on soil erosion and soil fertility are demonstrated. Several phases of activity and stability from the Latest Neolithic to Modern times were distinguished and soil erosion quantified. The highest amount of soil loss took place in the Medieval Times by two single erosion events. With the second example ”Hainbach” the development of a 400 m long and up to 6.4 m deep gully system is described. The main phases of gully erosion took place in the 10th century and between the 14th and 18th centuries. During this time, 15 % of the catchment area was gullied. At both locations, intensive land use led to soil erosion. The extreme soil erosion in the medieval period, however, was caused by extraordinary weather phenomena. Additionally, land use patterns were responsible for the development of a gully system at Hainbach.

Exploring the dynamic relationship and coupling coordination between urban industrial co-agglomeration and intensive land use is vital to ensure high-quality urban development. Based on an industrial co-agglomeration model, a revised intensive land use model, and a coupling coordination model, this paper comprehensively measured the urban industrial co-agglomeration and intensive land use coupling coordination in eight cities in the Chengdu metropolitan area from 2004 to 2018. It was found that despite the structural adjustment of the secondary and tertiary industries during the study period, the industrial co-agglomeration in the Chengdu metropolitan area fluctuated, the intensive urban land use had spatial characteristics that were decreasing from the center to the periphery, and while the general coupling coordination level was increasing, the increase rate in each city was different. The coupling coordination between the urban industry co-agglomeration and the intensive land use was found to have “low-high-low” spatial characteristics from the southwest to the northeast of the Chengdu metropolitan area, which revealed the core position of Chengdu. Suggestions are provided to improve the industrial co-agglomeration and intensive urban land use coupling coordination.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the land use intensity and land use change type at the basin scale in the middle and lower reaches of the Hanjiang River Basin (in Hubei Province, China) by combining the Landsat TM images in 1995 and 2000 with the land use database (in scale 1:10,000) and relative data. In this study, the basic data is acquired from the interpretation of remote sensing (RS) images. The intensity of land use and the rate of change in double-directions of land use dynamics are calculated with the support of software ARC/INFO. The intensity of land use is indicated by the intensity coefficient of land use, and the transition of land use types is quantified as the rate of change in double-direction of land use types and also expressed as the transition matrix of land use types. The results are expressed in space by Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Results of this study show that (1) the intensity of land use is high in the study region, the intensity coefficients of land use in 1995 and 2000 are 260.025 and 290.526, respectively, and the intensity of development and utilization of land is trend to increscent; and (2) the rate of land use change in double directions in the whole study region is 0.52 with great spatial variation and the differentiation of land use types. In the differentiation of land use types, the unutilized land (with the rate to 4.391) is developed fast, the grassland (with 2.836) and water area (with 1.664) are disturbed severely, and these changes will influence the eco-environment in the Hanjiang River Basin and all the Yangtze Basin. The rates of the farmland and the woodland are 0.424 and 0.344, respectively, meaning that the fundamentals of regional human-environmental system are relative stable. With this study, we can conclude that (1) the patterns of land use are increasingly changing in the study region, the environmental impacts are escalated on this stage, and the further outcomes are destined to change the stability of the regional human-environmental system; and (2) the most useful method to study the present land use and its change is through the use of the RS/GIS with the land use database (in scale 1:10,000).

The contradiction between the presences of extensively use of urban land and the existence of tight supply and excess demand for land becomes more and more fierce. Consequently, how to improve the intensively use of urban land becomes a hotspot. Based on definition of sustainable and intensive use of urban land and the fact of land using in Tianjin, this paper established an evaluation system including indicators of efficiency and extent in land using, intensity of land investment and sustainable development on land. As a conclusion, this paper evaluated the intensity of urban land use in Tianjin through Fuzzy-AHP. The evaluation has shown that the intensity of urban land use in Tianjin is slightly high. Land use efficiency and land sustainable development are the most influential factors of intensity of land use. It hopes that this paper will be constructive to improve intensity of land use in Tianjin.

Urban economic structure, technological externalities, and intensive land use in China

Influencing Factors of the Levels of Intensive Use of Typical Industrial Land

Impact of land use intensity on sandy desertification: An evidence from Horqin Sandy Land, China

Soil-sediment-configurations on slopes of Central and Western Crete (Greece) and their implications for late Holocene morphodynamics and pedogenesis – A conceptual approach

Vineyards, hopgardens and recent afforestation: effects of late Holocene land use change on soil erosion in northern Bavaria, Germany

In this paper, the artificial neural network (ANN) model was used to evaluate the degree of intensive urban land use in Nanjing City, China. The construction and application of the ANN model took into account the comprehensive, spatial and complex nature of urban land use. Through a preliminary calculation of the degree of intensive land use of the sample area, representative sample area selection and using the back propagation neural network model to train, the intensive land use level of each evaluation unit is finally determined in the study area. Results show that the method can effectively correct the errors caused by the limitations of the model itself and the determination of the ideal value and weights when the multifactor comprehensive evaluation is used alone. The ANN model can make the evaluation results more objective and practical. The evaluation results show a tendency of decreasing land use intensity from the core urban area to the periphery and the industrial functional area has relatively low land use intensity compared with other functional areas. Based on the evaluation results, some suggestions are put forward, such as transforming the mode of urban spatial expansion, strengthening the integration and potential exploitation of the land in the urban built-up area, and strengthening the control of the construction intensity of protected areas.

At present, urbanization has gradually changed from denotative expansion to connotative development in China. It is urgently needed for intensive use of land resources and the construction of "compact city". However, intensive land use means less land resources to carry more urban elements, therefore people will become more and more sensitive to environmental pollution, especially atmospheric pollution. It is of great significance to study the influence of intensive land use on atmospheric pollution. Taking the central urban area of Nanchang City as a case, this study simulated the concentration of the six main atmospheric pollutants i.e. PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO and O3 by ordinary kriging interpolation firstly. Then, sixteen intensive land use variables, including the volume ratio, building density, population density, were analyzed with the partial least squares regression and path analysis in order to reveal the effects of intensive land use level on the atmospheric pollutants. The results showed that the correlations between intensive land use level and PM2.5, PM10 were the strongest, followed by O3 and NO2, and the weakest correlation was between intensive land use level and SO2, CO. The sequence of the correlation between intensive land use variables and the six main atmospheric pollutants in different sample areas was residential area> education area > business area > industrial area. The more intensive the land use was, it had greater impacts on the atmospheric pollutants. The greatest effect was on PM2.5 and PM10, followed by O3, and the least effect was on NO2. The direct, indirect, and integrated influences of intensive land use on atmospheric pollutants were generally equal. Overall, the direct influence of the intensive land use level was greater than the indirect one, among which the influence of the intensive land use level of the residential area was the strongest, followed by the business area, and the education area least. This study provided a new perspective on studying the influence of intensive land use on atmospheric environment, which would provide some reference to solve the atmospheric problems in compacted city.

• Impacts of land use intensity (LUI) on the diversity of soil communities depend on land use type. • Different agricultural practices drive soil communities composition in arable vs grassland soils. • Understudied taxa like protists are a key element of soil network responses to LUI. • Land use type, rather than LUI, influences the complexity of the soil metacommunity network. While there is an emerging body of research showing the consequences of land use intensity on soil biodiversity, most studies focus on biodiversity responses to a single or a limited number of agricultural practices in controlled settings or at a single field site, neglecting that multiple practices are simultaneously applied by farmers in real agroecosystems. The combined effects of various agricultural practices have, until now, been largely overlooked in agroecosystems. Here, we conducted a field soil sampling campaign on 87 farms with two land use types (39 arable fields and 48 grasslands) to investigate the relationship between land use intensity, determined by various agricultural practices, and multiple soil communities (bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) at regional scales. We found that land use intensity influenced the diversity and community composition of various soil taxa differently, and these impacts strongly depended on land use type. Soil fungi were most susceptible to land use intensity in both arable fields and grasslands. Specifically, irrigation and pest control were the main practices shaping soil communities in arable fields, while phosphorus and nitrogen fertilization were the main practices structuring soil communities in grasslands. Furthermore, an increase in land use intensity led to greater soil network complexity in arable fields. Our findings reveal regional on-farm patterns of land use intensity effects on various soil communities and identified key agricultural practices that structure soil communities. A key strength of this study is that these patterns can be generalized because the samples were collected from 87 farmlands where multiple agricultural practices were implemented simultaneously. Overall, this work provides a comprehensive perspective on the different responses of multiple soil communities and their associations to land use intensity in agroecosystems.

Major policy issues in Korea pertain to increases in domestic food production though intensive land use, and the improvement of farm household income by enhancing off-farm employment. This study examined the interrelationships between off-farm employment participation and land use cropping intensity. A farm survey of 3,333 farm households and secondary data were used. An integrated model of off-farm work activities and land-use intensity determination was developed. The statistical models used were a single equation regression model to estimate farm earnings function, and a simultaneous equations model contained one qualitative dependent variables to estimate a joint determination of off-farm employment and land-use cropping intensity functions. Two statistical estimation methods -- the two-stage least square (2SLS) analogue and the iterative nonlinear three-stage least square (NL3S) estimations -- were applied to estimate a simultaneous equations model. As measures of land-use intensity, the land equivalent ratio and the multiple cropping index were used. Major finding from the analyses are as follows: The results from the statistical estimation show that off-farm employment participation is negatively (statistically significant) related to farm earnings. In other words, trade-offs exist between farm earnings and off-farm employment. Also, a strong positive relationship between land-use cropping intensity and farm earnings were observed. Simultaneous equations estimations, compared to single equation estimation, provided a stronger negative interrelationship between land-use cropping intensity and off-farm employment participation. The simultaneous estimation results confirmed the consistency of the model developed for this study. In conclusion, two important policy issues presently pursued by Korean agriculture -- improvement of farm income through off-farm employment and increases in food production by intensive land use -- contain inherent goal conflicts between them. Potential policy measures that can minimize the conflicts are increased resources devoted to farmers education and farm mechanization activities.

The reuse of existing industrial spatial resources in China’s major urban agglomerations is still very unbalanced and needs more in-depth research. This study used intensive evaluation technology for industrial land in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei to evaluate Tianjin and Hebei development zones, and took the Dingzhou Economic Development Zone as an example to evaluate and analyze the intensive use of enterprise land; it suggests the influencing factors for the intensive use of development zones and the measures that can take advantage of the potential of enterprise stock land so as to provide a basis for the rationale behind upgrading industrial land structures and the efficient use of industrial land in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. The results show that the typical enterprise land use in the typical economic development zone is extensive, which suggests that the intensive use of land in the Dingzhou economic development zone is low and that there is still potential for land redevelopment. According to the classification system developed for available land, there is ample opportunity for land-use redevelopment in the development zone, especially in the area of approved but not supplied land and extended enterprise land. Therefore, the redevelopment of enterprise land could also provide a better land guarantee for industrial transfer projects in the equipment manufacturing industry. This study also offers strategies to redevelop available industrial land.