Land Use Challenges Research Articles

The Role of Urban Green Spaces in Mitigating Climate Change: An Integrative Review of Ecological, Social, and Health Benefits

Urban green spaces (UGS) are increasingly recognized as essential components of cities for mitigating climate change and enhancing environmental, social, and public health outcomes. This integrative review explores the multifaceted benefits of UGS, focusing on their ecological contributions such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity support, and air quality improvement. It also highlights the social and economic benefits of green spaces, including community cohesion, enhanced property values, and opportunities for environmental stewardship. Furthermore, the review examines the positive impacts of UGS on physical and mental health, particularly in mitigating the adverse health effects of urban heat islands and climate-induced stress. The findings emphasize the critical role of UGS in creating resilient, sustainable, and livable cities. Finally, the review discusses the challenges of equitable access, land use, and maintenance while offering policy recommendations for integrating green infrastructure into urban planning.

The reptile optimized deep learning model for land cover classification of the uppal earth region in telangana state using satellite image fusion

This study addresses challenges in land use and cover identification using remote sensing (RS) imagery, focusing on the Uppal region. By leveraging deep learning models, particularly an optimized ResNext-50 architecture, we aim to enhance efficiency and accuracy in classifying land features. Our approach integrates Landsat-8 and hyper-spectral satellite data, utilizing preprocessing techniques like dark subtraction, stacking, merging, and spectral enhancement. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to streamline high-dimensional feature sets obtained from pre-processed spectral data. We further employ hybrid NSCT-FDCT fusion for integrating Landsat-8 and hyperspectral images. The resulting fused image is fed into our classification process, utilizing the modified ResNext50 (Deep Learning Architecture) model with Reptile Search Optimization for weight link optimization. Notably, our proposed method achieves impressive outcomes: 97% accuracy, 96% sensitivity, 99% specificity, 3% error, 97% precision, and a 95% Matthew Correlation Coefficient. This demonstrates the efficacy of our approach in predicting diverse land covers within the Uppal region, showcasing the potential of Landsat-8 and Hyper-spectral data for accurate land use and cover identification.

Investigation into the alkali-activation of lithium slag: A sustainable alternative to conventional cement with optimized mechanical properties

Utilizing lithium slag as a precursor for alkali-activated cementitious materials offers a sustainable alternative to conventional cement, addressing both environmental pollution and land-use challenges posed by lithium slag waste. Additionally, this practice reduces energy consumption and CO2 emissions associated with cement production. This study presents a novel methodology involving high-temperature calcination and mechanical grinding to enhance the reactivity of lithium slag. Analytical techniques, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), were employed to elucidate the mechanisms behind lithium slag's increased reactivity. Subsequently, these activated materials were used to formulate alkali-activated lithium slag cement composites (ALC). Various factors, including the calcination temperature, water-to-cement ratio, NaOH concentration, and lithium slag content, were investigated for their effects on the fluidity and mechanical properties of the mortar. Analytical techniques including XRD, scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), FTIR, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)/derivative thermogravimetry (DTG), were used to explore the hydration mechanisms. Results indicate that the optimal calcination temperature for lithium slag was 700 °C, while the optimal NaOH concentration was 1 mol/L. ALC exhibited robust mechanical properties, with compressive, flexural, and fluidity measures reaching 37.66 MPa, 10.13 MPa, and 200 mm, respectively. Predominant hydration products were found to be N-A-S-H and C-A-S-H. The production cost of 1 ton of ALC is $49.8, which is roughly 70% of the cost of producing 1 ton of OPC. Additionally, the total CO2 emissions and energy consumption of producing ALC amount to 60.56% and 64.95% respectively, compared to the total CO2 emissions and energy consumption of producing 1 ton of OPC.

PSIX-30 Results from a Statewide Needs Assessment of Iowa Beef Producers

Abstract Extension personnel routinely conduct needs assessments to develop programs addressing challenges faced by cattle producers. The objective of this project was to identify and evaluate the needs of cattle producers in Iowa. Needs assessment listening sessions were conducted by the Iowa Beef Center across six regions of the state of Iowa. A total of 54 stakeholders across the six regions participated, representing cow-calf, feedlot, veterinary, and allied industries. During each session, participants were asked to write down a list of challenges or opportunities they observed in the beef industry. Each producer was asked to share an item on their list that they perceived or experienced as the most challenging and briefly expand on the topic. Once every attendee had an opportunity to engage, the process was repeated until topics had been exhausted. Each listening session lasted approximately 2 to 3 hours. Notes from all six meetings were compiled, and major themes were aggregated. Common themes were found across all six regions, while others were only addressed within specific regions. Producers statewide addressed challenges in cattle marketing (n = 31), land use and availability (n = 22), herd health (n = 20), and feed costs (n = 19). Farm transition (n = 14), consumer education (n = 14), and animal handling and welfare (n = 8) were discussed in five of the six regions. Production profitability (n = 8) and labor (n = 5) were only addressed in four regions. Topics discussed in fewer than four regions tended to be specific to either cow-calf or feedlot enterprises. For example, traceability (n = 4) was only discussed in the northwestern and northcentral regions with a large feedlot presence. In contrast, heifer development (n = 4) was discussed in three regions with more cow-calf operations. In conclusion, this project illustrates the diversity and commonality of challenges facing cattle producers in the state of Iowa and is indicative of issues facing cattle producers nationally. Although these listening sessions were specific to Iowa cattle producers, the methods used to gain insight into challenges facing cattle producers have applications beyond Iowa. The diversity of responses reinforces the need for routine needs assessments for extension program development to address the needs of the beef industry nationally and globally.

Levelling Up UK regions: scale-related challenges of Brexit, investment and land use

ABSTRACT This paper discusses three of the key reasons why productivity growth in the UK is both so weak and also so regionally unbalanced. These reasons are Brexit, low levels of public and private investment, and the operation of the land-use planning system. In each case the national implications of these issues also have direct regional corollaries and causal mechanisms, which unless comprehensively addressed, heavily constrain the ability of Levelling Up to work. A reconsideration of the nature and scale of these issues also highlights the limited nature and scale of the current institutional and policy responses aimed at rebalancing UK productivity and prosperity.

Fair Development Transition of Lignite Areas: Key Challenges and Sustainability Prospects

As Europe transitions away from fossil fuel energy, the challenges associated with closing mines, along with restructuring mine-dependent communities, continue to reduce the rate at which this transition occurs. A large volume of research has been published during the last decade on the fair development context of mine reclamation. Using lignite mines as a case study and a properly modified analytical-hierarchy-process-based roadmapping methodological framework, the current study attempted to elucidate the key challenges and the bottlenecks that researchers view as critical to a just transition. The results indicated four critical areas that researchers expected to drive policymaking: social implications, stakeholder divergence, land-use challenges and sustainability prospects. Further, the coupling of mining operations to green strategies, such as circular economy and recycling, seems to be put forward by the academics as a viable solution to enhance the sustainability of the sector.

Ten facts about land systems for sustainability.

Land use is central to addressing sustainability issues, including biodiversity conservation, climate change, food security, poverty alleviation, and sustainable energy. In this paper, we synthesize knowledge accumulated in land system science, the integrated study of terrestrial social-ecological systems, into 10 hard truths that have strong, general, empirical support. These facts help to explain the challenges of achieving sustainability in land use and thus also point toward solutions. The 10 facts are as follows: 1) Meanings and values of land are socially constructed and contested; 2) land systems exhibit complex behaviors with abrupt, hard-to-predict changes; 3) irreversible changes and path dependence are common features of land systems; 4) some land uses have a small footprint but very large impacts; 5) drivers and impacts of land-use change are globally interconnected and spill over to distant locations; 6) humanity lives on a used planet where all land provides benefits to societies; 7) land-use change usually entails trade-offs between different benefits—"win–wins" are thus rare; 8) land tenure and land-use claims are often unclear, overlapping, and contested; 9) the benefits and burdens from land are unequally distributed; and 10) land users have multiple, sometimes conflicting, ideas of what social and environmental justice entails. The facts have implications for governance, but do not provide fixed answers. Instead they constitute a set of core principles which can guide scientists, policy makers, and practitioners toward meeting sustainability challenges in land use.

Creative re-uses: The promises and challenges of temporary land use in Calgary

Temporary land-uses (TLUs), especially on vacant land in cities, is a topic of increasing attention in Urban Studies. More specifically there is a focus on how TLUs are increasingly an area of experimentation in urban planning and policy, in part because they have been shown to be a catalyst for urban revitalization. In this paper, we explore TLUs in Calgary, Alberta. Calgary provides a noteworthy case-study for several reasons. Firstly, the city has experienced a severe recession since 2014, and while policymakers have made some effort to allow for more flexible land-uses, this has not been presented as a means to urban revitalization. Secondly, despite a concern in the creative cities' literature on the importance of creative spaces for a more vital form of urbanism, issues of land-use remain largely underexplored. In Calgary the existing legal structures around TLUs in Calgary are an important limitation on their more widespread adoption, but in this study, we also investigated local attitudes towards TLUs to see if that too was having a limiting impact in Calgary. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants, comprising a mix of local policymakers, officials, and interested citizens. We found that all the informants agreed that TLUs positively stimulate the local economy and urban life. Moreover, all agreed that government regulation and misunderstandings about the legal meaning of the word ‘temporary’ are significant barriers to increasing the adoption of TLUs across the city. However, we also found there was a clear divide between the two groups. One group viewed land-use bylaws positively, and saw it as a necessary factor for ensuring safe and quality urban development. The other group viewed land-use bylaws negatively, and the hindrance to temporary land-use adoption as yet another case of how land-use bylaws contributed to a range of urban problems. It became evident that this division is having a limiting impact on TLU adoption in Calgary and this division has to be addressed if TLUs are to expand beyond their currently limited adoption. Moreover, we found the literature on TLUs fails to capture a problematic local understanding of TLU in Calgary. The greatest barrier in Calgary appears to be a concern about the possible misperceptions, and political implications, which surrounded previous efforts to have temporary-land uses within the city.

Strategic spatial planning in emerging land-use frontiers: evidence from Mozambique

Land-use frontiers are territories with abundant land for agriculture and forestry, availability of natural resources relative to labor or capital and predisposed to rapid land-use change, often driven by large-scale land investments and capitalized actors, producing commodities for distal markets. Strategic spatial planning (SSP) represents a consolidated long-term governance practice across high- and low-income countries. One of the objectives of SSP processes is to articulate a more coherent and future-oriented spatial logic for the sustainability of land-use patterns and typologies, natural-resources protection, and investments. SSP may thus constitute a useful approach in addressing some of the challenges affecting land governance in frontier settings; to date, its potential contribution to land-use frontiers lacks explicit exploration. In this paper, we examine how SSP can play a role in governing land-use frontiers through a case-study analysis of Mozambique as an emerging frontier, located on the southeast coast of Africa. We gathered empirical evidence by interviewing experts involved in resource management, territorial planning, and development in the country. The theoretical spine of the paper builds on the literature focusing on land-use challenges and SSP. We show that emerging land-use frontiers face several challenges, such as transnational land deals and the intensification of commercial plantations. Interview data show that several structural factors are hindering the establishment of a long-term territorial development strategy. These are, among others, the short-termism of political cycles and the absence of a long-term strategic vision. Our analysis reveals that SSP processes could contribute to addressing land-use challenges in frontier contexts, such as poverty traps and land degradation spirals, should various local and distant actors join forces and marry interests. We conclude by presenting a systematic rationale, explaining how SSP could play a role in governing land-use frontiers, with a view to promoting the well-being and sustainability of rural communities.

Visualizing clustering characteristics of multidimensional arable land quality indexes at the county level in mainland China

The evaluation of the arable land ecosystem services capacity and arable land use intensity is important for recognizing regional key factors that impact the change of arable land attributes. A chronic lack of cooperation persists between these two fields of study, which makes providing sufficient information to support developing arable land use management and control policies difficult. In this study, the clustering characteristics of four arable land quality indexes have been assessed using the K-means algorithm to indicate the regional coordination between arable land resource protection and arable land use. The clustering results have been visualized using circular cartogram. This study can contribute to the identification of key regional challenges in China's arable land use and help to build the framework of other countries’ arable land protection policies.

The Promised Land: Contrasting frames of marginal land in the European Union

Appropriating marginal land is seen as a way to overcome a wide range of land-use challenges such as food-feed-fuel competition, avoiding land abandonment, and preserving nature. As a result, there is growing interest in policy and academic communities to identify, define and measure the potential of marginal land to overcome these challenges. However, multiple definitions of marginal land exist due to the various ways of framing the problems and the solutions marginal land can address. This leads to a number of competing claims on and diverging debates about marginal land. To explore the competing claims on marginal land in these frames, we performed a framing analysis of EU policy debates about marginal land. Through this analysis, we find that different actors have conflicting ways of framing what problems marginal land can address and what courses of action to take. These frames do not overcome but form part of contested land-use debates already present in Europe. Exact definitions or estimations of marginal land are unlikely to overcome land-use debates because land-use decisions are subject to the same competing claims and hence normative decisions as land-use decisions around productive land. These marginal land frames reflect a vision for how land should be used; for food, feed, fuel or nature. We argue that exact estimations of marginal land are unlikely to fix controversies on land-use due to the inherent ambiguity of marginal land. Instead, we believe that deliberative science-policy relationships are needed.

The role of indigenous practices in expanding waterbird habitat in the face of rising seas

In Hawai‘i, as is the case globally, sea level rise threatens the availability of suitable habitat for waterbirds and other coastal species. This study examines Hawaiian wetland agro-ecosystems (loʻi) as social-ecological systems that may meet human needs while expanding nesting habitat of endangered waterbirds, if restored under an Indigenous Resource Management paradigm. We applied spatial analysis to project: (1) the area of existing waterbird habitat likely lost to sea level rise by the end of the century (2100); and (2) the area of waterbird habitat potentially gained through restoration of lo‘i systems. Results show that, if loʻi offer similar or equivalent habitat value to Hawaiian waterbirds as conventionally managed wetlands, the restoration of loʻi would not only compensate for projected losses of wetland habitat due to sea level rise, but substantially contribute toward the recovery of endangered waterbirds that are currently habitat-limited. This study demonstrates capacity for contemporary Indigenous land management to address conservation and food-security needs in the Hawaiian Islands, as well as challenges of multi-objective land use and habitat restoration for endangered wetland-dependent fauna. This research further contributes toward a growing number of studies suggesting that Indigenous practices based on social-ecological frameworks offer potential to achieve sustainability and biodiversity goals simultaneously.

Economic aspects of land use in the Kyiv and suburban areas

In the article, the author has focused on analyzing the current state of land use by types of enterprises’ economic activity, regional economic and financial data to propose a new robust model for cost-effective land use planning for commercial and non-commercial enterprises. The research results can serve as an important material for the decision-making process on how to develop the land and the city areas in the context of new global economic development. It provides extensive overview of existing land use trends for Kyiv city based on analytical data and scientific assumptions. The author believes that this research will be beneficial for government organizations, local government authorities, international organizations, private institutions, and researchers. The goal of the research paper is to build a solid scientific model based on a general understanding of underlying economic challenges of efficient land use considering past data, short-term and long-term planning. The paper has an overview of city planning documentation and city statistical data in the context of real estate, urban population, economic data, including research of real estate and currency exchange rate data to median salary in Kyiv starting from the 2000s. It is important not to put too much focus on the existing models and systems, as they rely too much on the assumptions and complicated calculations that are hard to make use of in real-world planning. Instead, we build our research on real-world data and developed a forecast for the size of investment in land use, average real estate prices for the next 5 years. The paper noted an existing problem of inconsistency of the existing norms and regulations in Ukraine concerning rational and effective land use and planning, especially for local authorities and commercial organizations. The author substantiates why the economy in the context of urbanization needs a new look. The paper uses the planning of Kyiv city. It is a suitable example of a developing city, so the proposed model can be developed based on the city’s economic and land use data. This research can help solve the existing problems of urbanization in Ukraine and have a positive impact on the economic development of the city and the region.

A renewably powered Global South requires meeting interconnected cost and land-use challenges

Renewable energy costs remain prohibitively expensive in many low- and some middle-income countries in the Global South. In a recent Joule article, Matthaus and Mehling show that risk pooling can reduce these costs. However, land-use competition, an equally challenging and interconnected problem—particularly in Southeast Asia and Africa—remains, requiring both technical and financial solutions.

Water Conservation Potential of Self-Funded Foam-Based Flexible Surface-Mounted Floatovoltaics

A potential solution to the coupled water–energy–food challenges in land use is the concept of floating photovoltaics or floatovoltaics (FPV). In this study, a new approach to FPV is investigated using a flexible crystalline silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) module backed with foam, which is less expensive than conventional pontoon-based FPV. This novel form of FPV is tested experimentally for operating temperature and performance and is analyzed for water-savings using an evaporation calculation adapted from the Penman–Monteith model. The results show that the foam-backed FPV had a lower operating temperature than conventional pontoon-based FPV, and thus a 3.5% higher energy output per unit power. Therefore, foam-based FPV provides a potentially profitable means of reducing water evaporation in the world’s at-risk bodies of fresh water. The case study of Lake Mead found that if 10% of the lake was covered with foam-backed FPV, there would be enough water conserved and electricity generated to service Las Vegas and Reno combined. At 50% coverage, the foam-backed FPV would provide over 127 TWh of clean solar electricity and 633.22 million m3 of water savings, which would provide enough electricity to retire 11% of the polluting coal-fired plants in the U.S. and provide water for over five million Americans, annually.

Assessment of sustainable land management practices in Mediterranean rural regions

Sustainable land management practices can be suitable vehicles to simultaneously address the causes and consequences of land degradation, desertification, and climate change in land managed systems. Here, we assess the potential of a variety of sustainable land management practices that, beyond addressing specific and local issues, assist in tackling Mediterranean Basin-wide land-use challenges. With this work, we aim to highlight those options that simultaneously promote local and regional Basin-wide adaptation. To do that, we developed a novel multi-objective assessment that evaluates the effectiveness of 104 practices adopted within the Mediterranean Basin and documented in the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies global database. Results indicate that agroforestry and green covers in perennial woody crops can promote multiple ecosystem services while addressing climate change adaptation. We further argue that these two practices together with reforestation, assist in regulating the hydrological cycle of the Basin and in maintaining its multifunctional landscape. Lastly, we reflect on potential biophysical and socio-economic barriers and opportunities associated with the implementation of the three practices. Our approach provides a Basin-wide integrated view that facilitates the coordination of sustainable management strategies across the Mediterranean region.

Exploring the social coherence of rural landscapes featuring agroforestry intercropping systems using locals’ visual assessments and perceptions

Agroforestry intercropping systems (AIS), in which crops grow between widely spaced tree rows, can address several land-use challenges in regions of agricultural intensification and decline. Since their contribution to landscape sustainability depends on their coherence with the sociocultural dimension of landscapes, understanding the potential impacts of AIS on rural residents becomes necessary to inform planning processes and optimize their designs. We scrutinized the appreciation of landscapes featuring AIS for rural residents of two contrasted agricultural regions of Quebec (Canada), evaluated the influence of some individual characteristics and AIS design features on these appreciations, and elicited the reasons justifying landscape appreciations. Data was collected using an online questionnaire. We compared landscape scenarios featuring AIS designs to landscapes featuring common land-uses using a 10-point Likert scale. Open-ended questions elicited the reasons underlying respondents’ landscape appreciation and closed questions captured their sociodemographic profile and their attitude toward the environment. A total of 161 rural residents filled the questionnaire. The multivariate analysis showed no significant effect of any of the sociodemographic characteristics tested. The statistical analyses revealed that AIS are similarly appreciated to rural landscapes featuring forests, fallows, or cultivated fields. AIS appreciation varied with diversity and row spacing, but in intertwined, regionally contrasted ways. The qualitative analyses showed that the linear arrangement of trees, associated with artificiality, was unappreciated by respondents. Our results highlight that AIS may be socially coherent in diversified rural landscapes. Design recommendations should maximize diversity while attenuating the row effect.

Towards future land-use technologies: Life-long learning experiences on excursions

The integration of current agricultural research results including the use of the latest technologies into professional practice and university teaching requires direct exchange between employed people, students, and researchers. One possibility is the visit of research stations to observe, interpret and discuss the effects of different land-use treatments. This article explains the advantages, challenges and efforts of universities as organizers of excursions. Therefore, a pilot excursion to a well-known research station with a visit to an orchard in Central Germany with students and employees took place. Besides the numerous experiments, the challenges of agriculture in a dry climate (average yearly precipitation from 1896 to 2004 is 484mm) on the very nutrient-rich chernozem were an important topic. Our experiences from this excursion show high potential and the special value of this event to combine the practical challenges of land use with the new possibilities of research. Preparing the content of the excursion to support practical understanding and discussion with the scientists proved to be an advantage. Also useful is a follow-up session for sustainable use of the information gathered during the field trip. Of great importance is an administrative structure at the university that supports this type of teaching.

The global cropland footprint of Denmark's food supply 2000–2013

The global use of and pressure on land resources will continue to rise in tandem with the predicted rise in global population and food demand. Addressing unavoidable trade-offs between satisfying human needs and biodiversity conservation for future generations is of paramount importance when tackling the global environmental challenges of land use. Food consumption patterns are inextricably linked to land-use and land-use changes. The domestic supply and final use of food by humans and feed by animals within the borders of a country have environmental impacts overseas. Countries like Denmark, with considerably high livestock production, import “virtual” land needed to produce cereals and other fodder crops. Denmark's high meat and dairy consumption and trade levels make it a compelling case for this study. The overarching question is: how much land is required to support food and feed consumption in Denmark? This paper assesses the global cropland footprint of Danish food and feed supply from 2000 to 2013 using a consumption-based physical accounting approach. In addition to domestic croplands for local food and supply, we estimate the hectares of cropland displaced in other countries to satisfy Danish demand for food and feed in this period. Secondly, we calculate Denmark's global cropland requirements for the supply of specific livestock products, namely; pork, eggs, beef, milk, and mutton. Globally, animals provide a third of the protein in human diets and agricultural GDP. The total global cropland footprint of Danish food and feed supply decreased by 18% from 1568 kha in 2000 to 1282 kha in 2013 because of a reduction in the consumption of ruminant livestock products. A high share of this reduction can be attributed to increased local self-sufficiency in feed supply as opposed to rising food imports. The share of cropland used for feed in total cropland declined by 5% whereas the share of cropland used for food increased from 28% in 2000 to 32% by 2013. Our findings suggest that reducing domestic meat consumption coupled with local self-sufficiency policies for both food and feed supply could be a means of lowering ecological degradation in exporting countries.

Проблеми становлення ринкового обігу земель сільськогосподарського призначення в Україні

Проблеми становлення ринкового обігу земель сільськогосподарського призначення в Україні