Abstract
The Land Use Suitability (LUS) concept informs decision-making by providing stakeholders with integrated information about the economic, environmental, social and cultural consequences of land use choices. This paper addresses an application of the LUS concept: evaluating the suitability of land for sustained productivity subject to environmental constraints, as defined by water quality objectives. We refer to this application of the LUS concept as ‘Productivity within Environmental Constraints’ (PEC). A PEC assessment uses three indicators to evaluate land-water systems: 1) productive potential, describing the inherent productive and economic potential of land parcels; 2) relative contribution, describing the potential for a land parcel to contribute contaminants (relative to other land parcels) to downstream receiving environments; and 3) pressure, describing the contaminant load delivered to a receiving environment compared to the load that ensures that environmental objectives are met. The three indicators can be expressed categorically, mapped at catchment to national scales, and used to support strategic land assessments and plan land development and investment.
Highlights
Intensification of primary production to meet growing demand for food and economic well-being has the potential to degrade land, water, biodiversity and climate from farm to global scales (Foley et al, 2011; Meyfroidt, 2017)
This paper addresses an application of the Land Use Suitability concept (LUS) concept: evaluating the suitability of land for sustained productivity subject to environmental constraints, as defined by water quality objectives
A Productivity within Environmental Constraints (PEC) assessment uses three indicators to evaluate land-water systems: 1) productive potential, describing the inherent productive and economic potential of land parcels; 2) relative contribution, describing the potential for a land parcel to contribute contaminants to downstream receiving environments; and 3) pressure, describing the contaminant load delivered to a receiving environment compared to the load that ensures that environmental objectives are met
Summary
Intensification of primary production to meet growing demand for food and economic well-being has the potential to degrade land, water, biodiversity and climate from farm to global scales (Foley et al, 2011; Meyfroidt, 2017). We define the Land Use Suitability concept (LUS) as a framework for assessing the suitability of land for primary production that acknowledges and accounts for the connections between land use and economic, environmental, social and cultural impacts. In our application of the LUS concept, we use three indicators to collectively describe the suitability of land for primary production that takes into account water quality objectives in downstream receiving environments (e.g., streams, rivers, estuaries, groundwater). We refer to this application of the LUS concept as sustained Productivity within Environmental Constraints (PEC). The fourth section discusses the potential range of applications, limitations and future developments for PEC assessments
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