General Land Research Articles

Development Derailed: Policy Uncertainty and Coordinated Investment

We quantify the sensitivity of investments to policy uncertainty by drawing on the Northern Pacific’s massive land grant and the ensuing political battle that generated significant uncertainty to title from 1879 to 1894. Focusing on irrigation because of its high asset specificity, our analysis exploits the spatially exogenous extent of the grant to identify causal effects on investment, inclusive of spillovers to secure land because coordinated investment is generally necessary to capture the scale economies of irrigation. We find that the uncertainty significantly deterred and delayed irrigation investment in Montana, which lowered the state’s economic activity by up to 5 percent. Large numbers of settlers are occupying such [railroad grant] lands, and it is important to them to know whether they can receive their titles from the United States, or whether they will be required to purchase from the railroad companies. The prevailing uncertainty necessarily retards improvements and impairs values. (Noah C. McFarland, General Land Office Commissioner, US Department of the Interior 1882, p. 11)

Land Use Change in the Cross-Boundary Regions of a Metropolitan Area: A Case Study of Tongzhou-Wuqing-Langfang

Since the 1980s, metropolitan areas have increased worldwide due to urbanization and regionalization. While the spatial integration of the labor and housing markets has benefitted the development of cities within metropolitan areas, they have also brought great challenges for land governance; this is particularly evident in cross-boundary regions due to the complex relations between the markets and the regulations and between governments at different levels. Extensive research has been conducted on the city-level analysis of socioeconomic integration, land use development, and urban governance within metropolitan areas; yet, it is insufficient for understanding the intricate interplay between the various forces in such regions. This study aims to reveal the dynamics of land use change from 1990–2020 and its driving forces in the recent decade in the Tongzhou-Wuqing-Langfang (TWL) region—a typical cross-boundary area between Beijing, Tianjin, and the Hebei Metropolitan Area—using Landsat imagery. We employed the land-use dynamic degree, kernel density analysis, principal component analysis, and multiple linear regression to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of land use change and its driving factors at the district/county level. The results show that the general land use changes from cultivated and forest land to urban and rural construction land across the region. The speed of the trend varies considerably over time between different areas as the land use policies and regulations of each local government change. The population growth and the tertiary and secondary industry growth are the main driving factors for the change in construction land across the whole TWL region, while the urbanization rate and fixed asset investment have different impacts across the cross-boundary region. The results suggest that expanding the integration of land use policies and regulations in the cross-boundary region is urgently required.

VGI-based spatial data infrastructure for land administration

The general public and land administration organizations have long recognized the need to establish and record legal ownership of property and land. To create land ownership records, developing countries have recently begun to public participation methods. For this purpose, a move to the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to aggregate heterogeneous geospatial information about the property and create interoperability between organizations and stakeholders is unavoidable. Solutions for public participation must also be provided. Designing and developing a model under the SDI policy, based on an open-source architecture, and based on volunteered geographic information (VGI) and citizen-wide participation in collecting rights-based spatial data is the subject of this study. Volunteered Rights-based Spatial Data Infrastructure (VRSDI) is a framework that was proposed and implemented in this study to help with the low-cost, high-speed voluntary collection of land and property legal information and land management in Iran. VRSDI assists people in defining land and property ownership rights, detecting potential disputes, seizures, or conflicts with neighbors, as well as their limits and obligations for land management through rights-based spatial data. VRSDI was conceptualized and implemented using a Software as a Service (SaaS) approach, including solutions for data and service quality control based on the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. It benefits from an open-source multi-tier architecture and powerful components, including the AJAX engine, the VGI engine, the service adapter, and the Workflow engine. Also discussed is policymaking for the effective adoption of VGI in a VRSDI and solutions for spatial accuracy measurement and quality control. The findings demonstrated that an approach like this might lead to integrated land management by including citizens and the government.

‘Compiled from Official Records’: Mapping Kansas Territory before the Civil War

ABSTRACT Tension between pro- and anti-slavery factions during the delineation and mapping of Kansas Territory in the 1850s, as Euro-American settlement moved west of the Mississippi River, permeated local politics and commerce. Despite the standardized surveying system employed by the U. S. General Land Office, this tension was reflected in township or sectional state maps that were produced during this time period. Using government surveys and reports documenting the progress of township surveys, commercial map publishers and land agents produced maps with the purpose of promoting quick land sales and profits. Yet the profit motive is not the only one apparent in these maps, and the history of their production is rife with intriguing stories involving conflicts of interest for government employees and the pro- and anti-slavery politics that dominated this critical period in U. S. history.

Sustainable Land Use Dynamic Planning Based on GIS and Symmetric Algorithm

The general land use planning is to arrange all kinds of land use behaviors in an orderly manner, and its own disorder will inevitably affect the scientific and authoritative nature of the general land use planning, which makes the effect of land management unsatisfactory. The reason is that there are differences in the spatial scale of general land use planning, which makes the analysis of land information not comprehensive enough. Therefore, this paper puts forward the dynamic planning of sustainable land use based on GIS and symmetry algorithm. The collected land information is preprocessed by ArcGIS, and the land remote sensing images are classified by decision tree combined with ENVI (Visual Image Environment), using local sparse coding to extract land use features, with enhancement and reconstruction of remote sensing images using symmetric algorithm. On this basis, the factors that limit the spatial expansion of land are analyzed, and the land planning is completed by substituting them into Arc Map software. Experiments show that the average accuracy rate of this method for land planning reaches 91.22%, which can effectively complete land planning.

Новые данные об окружении Н. С. Лескова в Орловской губернии

The article reveals unknown pages of the biography of the writer N. S. Leskov’s father — S. D. Leskov, as well as the Strakhov family, close acquaintances of the Leskovs. The article contains biographies of the prototypes of N. S. Leskov’s characters, his estate neighbors in the Kromsky district. For the first time, data are presented on the previously unknown possessions of the Leskov family in the Kromsky district of the Oryol province. After the departure of the Leskovs from the province, they still owned small plots of land that connected the family with their native lands. The author of the article analyzes numerous documents from the State Archives of the Orel Region, the General Land Survey of the Kromsky District of the Oryol Province, on the basis of which observations are made of relatives, acquaintances, estate neighbors of the Leskov family. The paper shows how life facts of different importance and scale were used and generalized by the writer, getting into his creative laboratory.

Historical forests of the Black Hills, South Dakota, USA, determined using General Land Office surveys

Forests in the western United States generally have increased in tree density since Euro-American settlement, particularly through increases in fire-sensitive species, such as spruces, firs, and junipers. Like most areas, the Black Hills region in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming was logged for forest products and underwent agricultural conversion before historical forests were documented. To supplement historical reconstructions and accounts, we compared tree composition and densities (diameters ≥12.7 cm at 1.37 m above ground height) from historical General Land Office (GLO) records (years 1878 to 1915) and current Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) tree surveys (years 2011 to 2016) in the Black Hills Highlands of South Dakota. For composition, ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa P. Lawson & C. Lawson) decreased from 95% to 86% of all trees, with a consequent increase specifically of white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) from 1.5% to 6.7% of all trees. Ponderosa pine currently is smaller in mean diameter by 7.4 cm, while white spruce is larger in mean diameter by 2.4 cm than historically. When the 35% of historical survey points without recorded trees were excluded, historical tree densities indicated an overall forested structure of savannas and open woodlands with tree densities ranging from 66 trees ha–1 to 162 trees ha–1. However, historical forests of the Black Hills incorporated dense stands. Tree densities have increased two- to more than four-fold, to 311 trees ha–1 currently. These comparisons provide another source of information, paralleling changes documented in surface fire-dependent pine and oak forests throughout the United States, of transitions in forest composition and structure since Euro-American settlement.

Экономические примечания к Генеральному межеванию по Устьсысольскому уездукак источник по социально–экономической истории Коми края в первой половине XVIII века. История проведения, описание и вопросы датировки

Based on the materials of Economic Notes to the General Land Survey of UstSysolsk Uyezd, the problems important for the socio-economic condition of the territory are considered, such as total population, sex composition of the population, the number of yards in settlements, the size of arable land, hay mowing, soil and forests quality, the boundaries of volosts (by geographical objects), occupation of residents. The analysis of the source was carried out and an attempt to date it was made.

АЛГОРИТМ ТОЧНОЙ ПОСАДКИ МУЛЬТИРОТОРНЫХ БЕСПИЛОТНЫХ АВИАЦИОННЫХ СИСТЕМ НА СТАНЦИЮ АВТОНОМНОЙ ЗАРЯДКИ

In this article, we propose an algorithm for accurately landing multirotor (quadcopters, hexacopters, etc.) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at an autonomous charging station. This article also presents methods for locating the charging station and landing the UAV at night. Section 1 describes the general sequential landing procedures. Section 2 describes methods for detecting the ArUco marker and evaluating its position and orientation using the OpenCV computer vision library and shows the recognition result. In section 3, the precise landing algorithm is analyzed in detail, and a block diagram of the algorithm is given. Section 4 discusses the integration of the night vision camera into the landing algorithm.

Application of GIS (Geographical Information System) in The Management of Waqf Lands in Selangor

A study was undertaken to search for opportunities to apply Geographical Information System (GIS) into the management and administration of waqf institution. Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) is a trustee responsible to manage waqf property affairs in Selangor. It was reported that recently in Selangor, there are 832 recorded lots of land bequeathed by the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS). Out of these, 517 falls under general waqf land category and the remaining are under specific waqf land category. These lands are used as construction sites for mosques, orphanages and schools. Waqf property should be managed systematically so that the property can be utilized for developing Islamic society. Waqf property data should be updated in a systematic manner as it can ease managing and planning, so that it can be fully used. In this study GIS has proven generating accurate, cadastral maps of waqf land defining legal repositioning of ex-land ownership, status and location, enhancing systematic planning and management of waqf land. The role of GIS should be recognized and be an essential for waqf land management throughout the country.

Are we Planning Gender Inclusive Land Policies? Documentary Analysis and Expert Opinions

This paper sets forth five principles in operationalizing and mainstreaming gender inclusiveness in land and legal documents in Ghana. In addition to the documentary reviews, 30 experts in land policy analysis, gender and legal affairs were interviewed concerning their perspectives on gender inclusivity in land policies in Ghana. The study used the general land and legal documents as the guiding framework in operationalizing gender inclusivity. The documents were evaluated to determine how well they incorporate gender issues in their design and implementation. Findings suggest that while there exists a nuanced understanding of gender inclusivity among land, gender and legal experts, policy has shown limited understanding and mainstreaming of gender inclusivity. As a result, the documents and legal instruments guiding the regulation of land in Ghana do not explicitly promote gender inclusivity, although it does so implicitly. Recommendations for ensuring gender inclusiveness in land policy were tendered.

Coupled Dynamic Modeling and Control of Aerial Continuum Manipulation Systems

Aerial continuum manipulation systems (ACMSs) were newly introduced by integrating a continuum robot (CR) into an aerial vehicle to address a few issues of conventional aerial manipulation systems such as safety, dexterity, flexibility and compatibility with objects. Despite the earlier work on decoupled dynamic modeling of ACMSs, their coupled dynamic modeling still remains intact. Nonlinearity and complexity of CR modeling make it difficult to design a coupled ACMS model suitable for practical applications. This paper presents a coupled dynamic modeling for ACMSs based on the Euler–Lagrange formulation to deal with CR and the aerial vehicle as a unified system. For this purpose, a general vertical take-off and landing vehicle equipped with a tendon-driven continuum arm is considered to increase the dexterity and compliance of interactions with the environment. The presented model is independent of the motor’s configuration and tilt angles and can be applied to model any under/fully actuated ACMS. The modeling approach is complemented with a Lyapunov-wise stable adaptive sliding mode control technique to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method for such a complex system. Simulation results in free flight motion scenarios are reported to verify the effectiveness of the proposed modeling and control techniques.

The Quantitative Analysis of Materials from the General Land Survey of the Russian Empire: The ‘Bear’ Angle

This article analyses data about the Russian bear from the Economic Notes to the plans of the General Land Survey of the Russian Empire. Despite the official symbol of the Russian Empire being the double-headed eagle, the bear was perceived as the country’s main symbol as early as the formation of the Russian state. The purpose of this article is to find out how common bears were in the Russian Empire between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The quantitative analysis of data from the General Land Survey is based on the method of continuous sampling, which allows the author to include information about animals from the Complete and Cameral Economic Notes to the General Land Survey. The author refers to the Economic Notes for eight uyezds and three provinces. The study covers both old and new lands of the Russian state. The analysis makes it possible to conclude that between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, the Russian bear was not equally common in every region. It was found mainly in the forests of the historical core of the Russian state. But the bear was not a predominant species. Overall, according to the Cameral and Complete Economic Notes covering four St Petersburg uyezds and Novgorod province, there were 15 animal species in this territory, while there were 11 species in four uyezds of Taurida province. Continuous processing of the Economic Notes makes it possible to identify previously unknown mentions of moose, lynx, ferrets, and badgers in Luga district, St Petersburg province. Wild horses, camels, wild boars, and otters were described in Economic Notes in Dnipro district, Taurida province. However, the most common animals in these territories were hares, as well as smaller predators like foxes and wolves. The analysis of quantitative indicators helps to establish that the bear did not become the personification of the Russian state because of its predominance. Instead, this was due to the remarkable characteristics and qualities that made the animal stand out.

Analysis of Heavy Metal Pollution in Cultivated Land of Different Quality Grades in Yangtze River Delta of China

The distribution of heavy metal pollution in cultivated land is closely related to the quality of the cultivated land. In this study, 533 soil samples were collected from cultivated land in the Yangtze River delta region in China for Cd, Pb, and Hg analyses. Spatial statistical analysis was used to study the heavy metal pollution in the cultivated land, and the driving forces of heavy metal distribution in different cultivated land quality subdivisions were analyzed with GeogDetector. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Among the three heavy metals in the study area, the coefficient of variation of Cd is the largest, and that of Pb is the smallest. The proportion of Cd and Hg exceeding the standard value (the standard of level two in GB 15618—2018) is relatively large, both of which are 5%; (2) From the perspective of the spatial distribution of soil heavy metal pollution, only four counties (CX, HN, WY, and LH) were free of heavy metal pollution. Soil heavy metal pollution in AJ, SY, QJ, and DS counties is relatively serious, and the pollution may come from agricultural activities, manufacturing, and prevalent coastal shipping industries in these counties; (3) The heavy metal pollution levels of cultivated land with different quality levels are different. The high-quality cultivated land has no high contamination, while the medium and the general cultivated land both have high contamination. High contamination is related to Cd for medium and general cultivated lands, and to Hg in only general cultivated land; (4) The main driving factors of heavy metal concentration in cultivated soil were GDP, followed by soil organic matter, and pH. These results indicate that the spatial distribution of heavy metal concentration in cultivated soil was affected by the level of economic development, followed by the ecological environment, indicating that human activities had a critical impact on the ecological environment of cultivated land.

Holling meets habitat selection: functional response of large herbivores revisited

BackgroundHolling (Can Entomol 91(5):293–320, 1959) was the first to describe a functional response between a predator’s consumption-rate and the density of its prey. The same concept can be applied to the habitat selection of herbivores, specifically, the change in relative habitat use with the change in habitat availability. Functional responses in habitat selection at a home-range scale have been reported for several large herbivores. However, a link to Holling’s original functional response types has never been drawn, although it could replace the current phenomenological view with a more mechanistically based understanding of functional responses.MethodsIn this study, discrete choice models were implemented as mixed-effects baseline-category logit models to analyze the variation in habitat selection of a large herbivore at seasonal and diurnal scales. Thus, changes in the use of land cover types with respect to their availability were investigated by monitoring 11 land cover types commonly used by roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in the Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany. Functional response curves were then fitted using Holling’s formulas.ResultsStrong evidence of non-linear functional responses was obtained for almost all of the examined land cover types. The shape of the functional response curves varied depending on the season, the time of day, and in some cases between sexes. These responses could be referenced to Holling’s types, with a predominance of type II.ConclusionsOur results indicate that Holling’s types can be applied to describe general patterns of the habitat selection behavior of herbivores. Functional responses in habitat selection may occur in situations requiring a trade-off in the selection of land cover types offering different resources, such as due to the temporally varying physiological needs of herbivores. Moreover, two associated parameters defining the curves (prey density and predation rate) can aid in the identification of temporal variations and in determinations of the strength of the cost-benefit ratio for a specific land cover type. Application of our novel approach, using Holling’s equations to describe functional responses in the habitat selection of herbivores, will allow the assignment of general land cover attraction values, independent of availability, thus facilitating the identification of suitable habitats.

전산유체역학을 활용한 투척식 무인기 이륙 실속방지 영역분석

Small unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV) are widely used not only for military applications such as reconnaissance and surveillance but also for leisure activities. The unmanned aerial vehicle’s take-off method includes general land take-off, launch platform take-off without a runway, vertical and hand-launch take-off. In spite of having several advantage, the hand-launching UAV may be somewhat unstable due to possible stall phenomenon during taking-off process depending on the different throwaway movement of a human launcher. Therefore, various damage cases have been occasionally reported from the past operation. In this study, computational fluid dynamics(CFD) method has been used in order to investigate possible safe zone during the hand launch process considering the effect of roll angle and initial take-off speed. Finally, guideline data for a safe hand launching take-off were successfully obtained and presented for the present small UAV model.

High Temporal Resolution Land Use Regression Models with POI Characteristics of the PM2.5 Distribution in Beijing, China.

PM2.5 is one of the primary components of air pollutants, and it has wide impacts on human health. Land use regression models have the typical disadvantage of low temporal resolution. In this study, various point of interests (POIs) variables are added to the usual predictive variables of the general land use regression (LUR) model to improve the temporal resolution. Hourly PM2.5 concentration data from 35 monitoring stations in Beijing, China, were used. Twelve LUR models were developed for working days and non-working days of the heating season and non-heating season, respectively. The results showed that these models achieved good fitness in winter and summer, and the highest R2 of the winter and summer models were 0.951 and 0.628, respectively. Meteorological factors, POIs, and roads factors were the most critical predictive variables in the models. This study also showed that POIs had time characteristics, and different types of POIs showed different explanations ranging from 5.5% to 41.2% of the models on working days or non-working days, respectively. Therefore, this study confirmed that POIs can greatly improve the temporal resolution of LUR models, which is significant for high precision exposure studies.

Analysing patterns of forest cover change and related land uses in the Tano-Offin forest reserve in Ghana: Implications for forest policy and land management

Forest cover change is a major contributing factor to global environmental change. Whereas several studies have focused on the general land use and land cover dynamics, we focus on analysing forest cover change patterns in a protected landscape taking into consideration how other land categories are increasing at the expense of the forest. In this study, we analyse forest cover change patterns and associated proximate land use factors between 1987 and 2017 using Landsat images from the Tano-Offin Forest Reserve (TOFR) in Ghana. Using the Random Forest machine learning algorithm, we classified the images into forest, developed land, and agricultural land. The study finds that forest cover losses are 1.9 and 1.4 times the amount of forest cover gains in 1987–2002 and 2002–2017, respectively. We find that even though the forest cover is more likely to recover from the agricultural land, land developers mostly targeted the agricultural land. The focus of Ghana's Forest and Wildlife Policy and the underlying process of forest cover change in the TOFR suggest that a country's forest policy should focus on a combination of diverse and spatially explicit proximate factors that are likely to threaten the integrity of forests.

Editor’s Comment

Editor’s Comment

Coppicing and productivity of two indigenous tree species under different forest management regimes in Tanzania

There is a renewed interest to improve sustainable wood production from African savanna but our knowledge on management of individual tree species to optimize harvesting return times is limited. A factorial experiment was therefore established to assess the effects of stump diameter and height, and coppice thinning on growth and yield of Albizia harveyi Fourn (Ah) and Albizia versicolor Welw ex. Oliver. (Av) in Forest Reserve (FR) and the General Land (GL) at area in Morogoro region, Tanzania. Coppice diameter and height growth was significantly high in Av than Ah; and was highest in stumps cut at 30 cm or 90 cm regardless of tree species. Ah had significantly high average coppicing effectiveness (11.74 coppices per stump) than Av (4.18 coppices per stump) in the FR; but the variation was not significant in the GL. Coppice wood basic density was significantly high in Ah (446.04 ± 0.72 kg m−3) than Av (400.52 ± 0.97 kg m−3). Coppice wood biomass ranged from 3.08 ± 0.02 kg stool−1 in Ah to 3.45 ± 0.03 kg stool−1 in Av. Ah produced highest coppice wood biomass in medium diameter stumps cut at 30 cm (3.57 kg stool−1) or 90 cm (3.76 kg stool−1) and large stumps cut at 5 cm (4.55 kg stool−1); and the least biomass in small stumps cut at 5 cm (1.26 kg stool−1). For Av, highest coppice wood biomass values were 6.41 kg stool−1 for medium diameter stumps cut at 90 cm and 6.20 kg stool−1 for large stumps cut at 30 cm; and the least was 1.87 kg stool−1 for small stumps cut at 5 cm. This paper concludes with discussion on the need for further studies on optimal canopy cover and wild fire control strategies under short-rotation coppice silvicultural system; and suitability of multipurpose indigenous trees for simultaneous on-farm production.