Land Consumption Research Articles

Monitoring and Assessing Urbanization Progress in Thailand between 2000 and 2020 Using SDG Indicator 11.3.1

Urbanization, generally across developing countries, is accelerating at an ever-increasing pace along with population growth. The growth of built-up space is often disproportionate with the population growth rate, creating multiple stresses to the environment and hindering sustainable development. To account for this disproportionality, the SDG 11.3.1 indicator “Ratio of land consumption rate (LCR) to Population growth rate (PGR)” was developed to achieve SDG 11 and its integrated SDGs. This study assessed the variations in the LCR, PGR, and LCRPGR from 2000~2020, taking four different intervals of 5 years across Thailand, its provinces and regions by adopting the methodology recommended by UN-Habitat. A combined approach of remote sensing and statistical analysis was employed for assessing urban land use efficiency, the growth of built-up space and the relationship between the LCR and PGR in temporal as well as spatial dimensions. It was found that urban expansion is disproportionate with the PGR in most of the provinces and during a majority of the time intervals with the average LCRPGR of 0.70 (2000~2005), 1.6 (2005~2010), 0.40 (2010~2015) and 1.12 (2015~2020). Some of the studied periods (2005~2010 and 2015~2020) were dominated by the increasing built-up space in Thai provinces and regions as compared to the population growth rate, leading to higher per capita land consumption, and some experienced greater population growth, and rising urban compactness, while a few provinces tended towards stability, which was influenced by demographic factors and economic development. The average annual growth rate of built-up areas has declined in recent years across all the regions of Thailand. Further, this study is pivotal for urban planners and policymakers to promote more sustainable growth in Thai provinces and regions.

STUDY ON SPATIAL-TEMPORAL URBAN GROWTH AND LAND CONSUMPTION PATTERNS OF THIMPHU, BHUTAN USING MULTI-TEMPORAL SATELLITE IMAGES

Like many other countries, Bhutan is also experiencing rapid trend of urban expansion mainly due to out-migration from rural to urban areas particularly in capital city, Thimphu. This study focuses on the dynamics of urban expansion, evaluating urban growth and land consumption pattern of Thimphu, using multi-temporal Landsat images during the year 1990-2018. The main aim of the study is to perform supervised classification to classify built-up area, green area, bare-land and others (water bodies, agricultural lands, etc…) and to perform a change analysis from the viewpoint of increasing the built-up areas (man-made structures) and decreasing in green and open spaces. Moreover, the study also highlights how has the land consumption pattern of the region changed over the years. The findings of the study confirmed that the Thimphu city has its built-up areas increased during 1990-2018 with net growth of 4.63 km2 (106.19%). The urban area was 4.36 km2 in 1990, 5.80 km2 in 2000 (33.03% growth), which increased to 7.24 km2 in 2013 (24.83% growth) and 8.99 km2 (24.17% growth) in 2018. The study also showed that there is decrease in land consumption between 1990-2018. In 1990, land consumption was 155.65 m2 per person which decreased to 78.48 m2 per person in 2018. This decrease in land consumption indicate that the city is experiencing increased densification between the years 1990-2018. The classifier performance evaluation was done using overall accuracy and kappa coefficient. The classification produced an overall accuracies ranging between 78.74% to 90.46 % and overall kappa statistics between 0.72 to 0.87 for all years indicating classification accuracy of moderate to substantial accuracy.

Land Consumption for Current Diets Compared with That for the Planetary Health Diet—How Many People Can Our Land Feed?

Nowadays dietary habits in many countries are disconnected from the locally available resources and land. Current diets harm ecosystems and people’s health. (Re-)regionalising food systems and aligning diets with planetary boundaries can be one way to reconnect people to the food that they eat. Within academic discourse, there are numerous debates about the benefits and drawbacks of regional agriculture, and the circumstances that determine the viability of regional agriculture as a preferable approach. An argument that often merges is that feeding a whole population using local resources cannot be accomplished. However, is this true? To test this argument, we used statistical data and created a framework to calculate land consumption in square meters per capita according to different dietary habits, among other factors. This study will focus on scenario analyses for the region of Hesse, Germany—with an emphasis on the livestock sector—as land consumption for the production of meat, milk and eggs is relatively high there. Our results show that the region is far from being able to feed the current livestock population and that it does not have the land to support the livestock needed to sustain current consumption patterns. However, the region could support a smaller livestock population with the implementation of the planetary health diet, especially if farmers were to adopt crop rotation systems and (more) extensive husbandry.

Increasing the agricultural sustainability of closed agrivoltaic systems with the integration of vertical farming: A case study on baby-leaf lettuce

The photovoltaic (PV) greenhouses are closed agrivoltaic (CA) systems that allow the production of energy and food on the same land, but may result in a yield reduction when the shading of the PV panels is excessive. Adopting innovative cropping systems can increase the yield of the CA area, generating a more productive and sustainable agrosystem. In this case study we quantified the increase of land productivity derived from the integration of an experimental vertical farm (VF) for baby leaf lettuce inside a pre-existing commercial CA. The mixed system increased the yield by 13 times compared to the CA and the average LER was 1.31, but only 12 % of the energy consumption was covered by the CA energy. To achieve the energy self-sufficiency and avoid the related CO2 emissions, the VF area should not exceed 7–18 % of the CA area, depending on the PV energy yield and the daily light integral (DLI) of the LED lighting, meaning a land consumption from 5 to 14 times higher than the VF area. The support of the PV energy was essential for the profitability of the VFCA. Design features and solutions were proposed to increase the agronomic and economic sustainability of the VFCA. The VFs can be considered a possible answer for the reconversion of the actual underutilized CAs with high PV cover ratios into productive and efficient cropping systems, but a trade-off between energy production and land consumption should be identified to ensure an acceptable environmental sustainability of the mixed system.

The Use of GIS and Multicriteria Techniques for the Socio-Spatial Analysis of Urban Areas in Medium-Sized Spanish Cities

In recent decades, particularly intense changes have occurred in Spanish urban areas. This is the result of demographic and urbanizing transformations that have led to a change in the city model. The predominance of compact forms has been replaced by the growing prominence of urban sprawl. Structures are now more extensive, characterized, in turn, by fragmentation and the notable consumption of land in the peripheries. In medium-sized cities, the municipalities bordering the central cities have concentrated the processes of suburbanization and periurbanization. This paper addresses the processes of change for 34 cities and their urban areas located in inland Spain. A proposal is made for the delimitation and characterization of urban areas, taking the municipality as the unit of analysis. At the methodological level, six variables are used, analyzed by means of multicriteria statistical techniques combined with the use of GIS tools. An Urban Transformation Index (ITU) has been developed that synthesizes urbanizing, demographic and socioeconomic dynamics (six variables related to population, housing and socio-productive structure are used). In the territorial area, the 20-min isochrone is used as a reference. In the temporal domain, the period of analysis addresses the events of the first two decades of the twenty-first century.

Comprehensive evaluation of integrated applications of photovoltaics: case study of three projects in Tianjin, China.

Solar energy has gradually become one of the priorities to sustainable energy supply, driven by the urgent need for energy security and the imminent threats of climate change. Diverse photovoltaic (PV) technologies can be applied and integrated with various industries to significantly increase the usage and output value of different assets, such as land appreciation within limited space. In order to quantitatively evaluate the overall performance of various integrated applications of PV, a comprehensive benefit evaluation index system, involving economy, environment, society, and land use, was proposed and applied to three selected PV projects, PV-JWZ, PV-NHPZ, and PV-DPBD, namely, in Tianjin, China. The results indicated that these projects all have great development potential due to their remarkable benefits of energy saving and emission reduction. Therein, the total income of PV-JWZ within 25 years is equal to 1441.9 million CNY, which is dominated by extra income from industrial convergence; PV-NHPZ can offset 231.8 t/(a·hm2) CO2, attributed to its larger installed capacity; while PV-DPBD would acquire strong policy support for distributed PV to further promote the zero-carbon buildings, owing to lower land consumption of 1.4 hm2/MW. By revealing the effectiveness and feasibility of various PV projects, this study could provide a theoretical reference for the promoting and planning various integrated applications of PV in different areas, according to local conditions.

Strategies for Sustainable Urban Renewal: Community-Scale GIS-Based Analysis for Densification Decision Making

China is gradually shifting towards more sustainable urban development, and the local governments are increasingly promoting social and environmentally sustainable spatial planning practices. This article debates the potential contradiction between the goal of a constantly growing urban population and the limits to the consumption of land planned by this new direction of urban development. The analysis focuses on the wealthy city of Suzhou in the Yangtse River Delta region and explores the opportunities for densification of the residential areas as a possible solution for this contradiction, as already tested by some Chinese cases for land use efficiency. The research applies GIS-based spatial analysis and identifies some of the sites that can be efficiently redeveloped in the resettlement communities for their low floor area ratio (FAR) and obsolescent conditions, which do not correspond to the increasingly middle-class status of the residents in the urban region. The article investigates the different options of a densification strategy in the frame of the policies of urban renewal promoted in China in recent years for improving the quality of the built environment.

Economic and Agronomic Impacts of Agrivoltaics on Arable Land Use at the Example of the Stuttgart Region

Photovoltaics and wind energy must be considerably expanded to achieve the targeted climate neutrality in Germany in 2045 which may cause new conflicts. Especially ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, which are often associated with a high land consumption rate, conflict with other land uses such as agriculture. Due to the simultaneous electricity generation and agricultural use, agrivoltaics (AV) systems can increase land use efficiency which is why they are in the political focus. In this study, we go beyond the limited point-wise analyses of previous studies which have focused mainly on the technology itself and potential yield changes of individual crops and provide a spatially explicit analysis of the AV potential. This is done by an in-depth analysis on the example of arable land in the Stuttgart Region, one of the most important conurbations in Germany and Europe. The study focusses on the resulting agronomic effects in the region and the associated agro-economic effects. The analysis is carried out with an integrated land use model that optimises arable land use by maximising gross margins at the farm level. Legal framework conditions such as the regional plan are considered constraints, and existing studies on yield effects under AV are used. The results show that there are synergies through increases in the agricultural gross margins. These synergies could be realized on about 3% of arable land in the study region subject to the underlying assumptions made. With more than 10% of the arable land in the study region used for AV, the average gross margins in arable farming decrease by about 280 € per ha of AV. Farms or areas with a high share of special crops, such as strawberries, demonstrate the highest profitability. On the other hand, regions with a high share of root crops in the crop rotation seem to be less favourable to establish AV. This demonstrates that, the agricultural land use structure must be considered in the holistic assessment of the land use efficiency of AV installations. Our results help policymakers better assess the effects of AV on land use and are useful for identifying priority implementation areas, for instance, in regional or land use plans.

The Impacts of Urban Sprawl on Environmental Pollution, Agriculture, and Energy Consumption: Evidence From Amman City

Purpose: Urban sprawl can cause an increase in economic development, and as a result, it is followed by increased consumption of energy, waste generation, urbanization, and reduced green land. In this sense, the current study aims to investigate the impacts of urban sprawl on environmental pollution, in terms of CO2 emissions, while considering other control variables. Further, this study explores the relationship between population growth and agricultural land and energy consumption, in the period between 2008 to 2020, in Amman city. Method/design/approach: This study employs the STIRPAT model and the panel unit root test, and the panel cointegration test (ADF), in order to investigate the effect of urban sprawl on the emissions of CO2. Theoretical framework: Urban expansion is a low-density, dispersed, and poorly planned form of spatial growth that has a number of detrimental effects on the quality of the environment. Results and conclusion: The results describe that waste generation, economic development, and urbanization had negative impacts on CO2 emissions. Research implications: The findings indicated the influence of urban growth on the consumption of energy and agricultural land in Amman. Originality/value: This work can provide possible solutions to reduce the impacts of urban sprawl on the environment through implementing regulations and policies and re-adjustment of urban land use in an efficient manner.

The Increasing Coastal Urbanization in the Mediterranean Environment: The State of the Art in Italy

This paper describes the state of the art of urbanization in Italian coastal areas in 2021, both at national and regional level. Moreover, we focused on six coastal municipalities, aiming to evaluate land consumption in relation to population dynamics between 2012 and 2021 and assessing per capita consumed land in each municipality. Finally, an analysis of land consumption in specific areas prone to natural risks along the coastline (hydraulic, landslide and seismic, hazard) was provided. We considered areas of medium hydraulic hazard, of high and very high landslide hazard, and of high and very high seismic hazard. The results indicate an intense process of urbanization in the first 1000 m from the coastline at national, regional, and municipal levels, which is also increasing in the presence of stabilization or dwindling inhabitants. Furthermore, urbanization is also affected by geomorphology, leading to the developments of settlements in the most accessible areas, such as coastal plains, without taking into consideration the presence of natural hazards. The study highlights the importance of monitoring land consumption to the understanding of processes related to urbanization in coastal areas, from the perspective of future effective policies and to support sustainable planning.

Spatial governance and planning systems vis-à-vis land consumption in Europe

ABSTRACT This paper shows that, in principle, better public control in planning tends to contain land consumption in the medium-long term, thus confirming the reliability of the typology of spatial governance and planning systems in Europe recently proposed in this journal. That typology, covering 39 countries classified into five types of system by decreasing capacity for public control, is here related to the variation of land consumption in the respective countries over approximately 20 years. The result of the quantitative comparison is interpreted and refined through a qualitative analysis aimed at explaining the apparent anomalies. The results of the analysis generally verify the investigated correlation. Ultimately, to give substance to the declared commitment to curb or reduce land consumption, political attention should also be paid to the quality of the institutional technologies that can work to this end.

The green quality of urban spatial development: A multi-dimensional and multi-regional model using big data

Spatial development involves multi-dimensional and multi-regional objectives that might be competing, while few studies have examined these issues simultaneously. We proposed a comprehensive model to assess the green quality of urban spatial development (GQUSD), focusing on the synergy of multi-dimensional objectives and the balance of multi-regional interests. The metropolitan city of Hangzhou was taken as an example. We included land consumption, vegetation loss and infrastructure cost as the inputs and the density of production and living activities as the outputs of spatial development. We developed a categorical Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) using geospatial big data and stratified optimization to evaluate the synergy of inputs-outputs at the finer level of spatial grids. Resultsshow a “sandwich” structure of the GQUSD in Hangzhou when considering green space and vegetation loss, and characterize four spatial typologies of agglomerated development, limited development, blinded development and low-potential development through the Bivariate Local Indicator of Spatial Association (LISA) analysis. The “sandwich” structure is shaped by spatial processes of socio-economic agglomeration, industrial-driven sprawl, new-town development and suburbanization of high-end sectors. We also find green inequality in the spatial development of Hangzhou where vegetation costs were higher in manufactural industrial sites and low-income communities. We provide urban planning strategies to balance competing interests across regions, objectives, functions and communities for green growth and sustainable goals.

Use of the classification by a decision tree in the analysis of the effect of urban dynamics on the consumption of agricultural land in the municipality of Batna

Use of the classification by a decision tree in the analysis of the effect of urban dynamics on the consumption of agricultural land in the municipality of Batna

Relationship between Inflation and Other Macro Economics Factors: Comparative Study of Germany, Japan and New Zealand

One of the major concerns in different countries today is to manage inflation and to manage the resources according to it. Even though there are many factors that affect economic growth that can affect inflation, the concern of this research is regarding Consumer Price Index. The first objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the consumer price index and Agricultural Land, Urban Population, Trade, Military Expenditure, Primary Energy Consumption, Natural Gas Flaring, and Oil–Refining Capacity. This study includes time series data from 1980 to 2020. Johansen's cointegration method is used to find cointegration, and the significance of long-run and short-term variables is tested. The findings of this study conclude that in the case of Germany, normalized coefficients show consumer price index, Agricultural Land, Military Expenditure, Oil Refining Capacity, and Primary Energy Consumption have a positive and significant impact, Whereas Trade, Natural Gas Flaring, and Urban Population has a negative and significant impact on consumer price index. On the other hand, Japan normalized coefficients show that consumer price index, Agricultural Land, and Primary Energy Consumption have a negative and significant impact. Whereas Military Expenditure, Oil Refining Capacity, Trade, Natural Gas Flaring, and Urban Population have a positive and significant impact on the consumer price index, if we talk about New Zealand, their long run coefficient shows that the normalized coefficients show that consumer price index, Oil Refining Capacity, Trade, and Urban Population has negative and significant impact Whereas Military Expenditure, Primary Energy Consumption, and Natural Gas Flaring has a positive and significant impact on consumer price index. Similarly, the results of the Germany-adjusted coefficients show that Military Expenditure and Urban Population have a positive significant, while primary consumption and trade have a negative relationship with the consumer price index. According to Japan and New Zealand, Oil Refining Capacity has a significant and positive relationship with the consumer price index in the short run. The study, therefore, recommends that the governments of New Zealand, Germany, and Japan should take more initiatives to increase their urban population and trade because these activities help to decrease the inflation in New Zealand, Germany, and Japan.

Ermittlung des Wohnbauflächenbedarfes unter Berücksichtigung kleinräumiger Wanderungsbewegungen. Ein Praxisansatz am Beispiel der Region Halle-Leipzig

Small-scale, often polarizing changes in the population structure characterized by migration, have a crucial influence on the current development of settlements in Germany. Although state and regional planning tries to manage related demands for residential areas, competition for potential migration gains on the municipal level often leads to an unregulated development of residential areas within the region. This paper therefore seeks to develop an approach for an inter-municipally coordinated planning of residential areas, which takes into account demographic developments, in order to reduce the overall land consumption. In a first step, the residential land requirements that can be derived from expected small-scale population movements are presented in the form of different scenarios for specific municipalities. In a second step, a screening approach is used to identify those municipalities that appear to be suitable for accommodating additional residential development land requirements on the basis of their amenities and accessibility. In a third step, the identified residential land requirements are assigned to test areas with the help of various indicators. The approach is illustrated using the example of the Halle-Leipzig region.

The spatio-temporal dynamics of urban growth and population in metropolitan regions of Iran

The spatial configuration and the dynamics of urban physical growth are important topics of analysis in contemporary urban studies. This paper examined urban land expansion and population distribution evolution and their coupling in seven major Iranian metropolitan regions (pop>1M), and it contributes to understanding diverse urban physical growth patterns in the vast Global South. The analysis is based on an innovative approach of integrating two growth indices: a) ULE (urban land expansion) and b) PPE (population pattern evolution), applied to the demographic data and satellite imageries from 1990 to 2020. The findings show that population decentralization and land consumption have been significant over the previous three decades, although spatial growth patterns varied significantly across the chosen metropolitan regions. Furthermore, Iran's urban physical growth pattern goes from monocentric to polycentric, which is largely associated with the parent city's dominance. In fact, urban physical growth follows a concentrated-decentralization trend, with the latter spreading quicker than the former. Despite expectations, the infill growth has not essentially exposed to higher population density. This study's findings can help readers understand the urbanisation pattern and occurrence in Iran, and may assist policy-makers in understanding the physical impact of conflicting national executive policies, such as mass housing supply projects in urban edges versus inner-urban regeneration projects. In addition, it gives a major knowledge of the evolution of urban physical growth patterns, intra-city interactions, and growth drivers.

Land Consumption Classification Using Sentinel 1 Data: A Systematic Review

The development of remote sensing technology has redefined the approaches to the Earth’s surface monitoring. The Copernicus Programme promoted by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union (EU), through the launch of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Sentinel-1 and the multispectral Sentinel-2 satellites, has provided a valuable contribution to monitoring the Earth’s surface. There are several review articles on the land use/land cover (LULC) matter using Sentinel images, but it lacks a methodical and extensive review in the specific field of land consumption monitoring, concerning the application of SAR images, in particular Sentinel-1 images. In this paper, we explored the potential of Sentinel-1 images to estimate land consumption using mathematical modeling, focusing on innovative approaches. Therefore, this research was structured into three principal steps: (1) searching for appropriate studies, (2) collecting information required from each paper, and (3) discussing and comparing the accuracy of the existing methods to evaluate land consumption and their applied conditions using Sentinel-1 Images. Current research has demonstrated that Sentinel-1 data has the potential for land consumption monitoring around the world, as shown by most of the studies reviewed: the most promising approaches are presented and analyzed.

Evaluation of cut-off values in the control of land take in Italy towards the SDGs 2030

Over the last few years, land take monitoring in Europe and in Italy has become increasingly accurate and detailed owing to improved technologies that help acquire and make available free, easily accessible and high-resolution data. Nevertheless, the key issue is controlling this phenomenon, long considered pathological in its current form and scale, in order to mitigate / reverse it and achieve the 2030 containment targets set in international guidelines. To attain these results, firm regulatory action is certainly needed, underpinned by thresholds and reference limits to regulate the development of transformation activities planned by local authorities. In 2015, the United Nations Global Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forward a parameter for this purpose, namely the "Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate" (11.3.1 LCRPGR). It monitors the ratio between the extent of urban development and demographic dynamics in spatial-administrative units in order to link the growth of urbanized areas to actual population growth. This paper sets out a reconnaissance experiment to identify LCRPGR cut-off that can be used in legislation in relation to life quality indicators calculated repeatedly for Italy at the provincial level. The conclusions highlight the considerable difficulty inherent in identifying normative thresholds for the containment of negative spatial and social phenomena, and the need to develop scientific methods that are more reliable and robust than what is present in current practice.

Urban Regeneration and Sustainable Building Transformation: Wood As a Building Material

The current cultural debate in urban and architectural fields - but not only - sees the emergence of increasing attention to environmental sustainability and related issues, which inevitably condition all the different phases of the project. Reducing land consumption, coping with climate change, improving the energy efficiency of buildings, as well as increasing their level of living comfort, are just some of the goals to be pursued to achieve a generalized improvement of the built environment through application of the typical principles of the so-called urban regeneration. Looking at the internal areas of the Italian territory, concepts are evoked such as the reuse of materials, the reconversion of buildings and sometimes the renaturalization, which is a less usual choice for a highly man-made territory like the Italian one. In this case, therefore, the use of wood as a preferential material for the aforementioned operations, a material which, over the last few decades, has greatly improved from a structural and performance point of view. Finally, a proposal will be made, carried out with the Municipality of Resia, moved precisely by these principles and aimed at being a sort of “model” - and also a stimulus - for the future of planning in these areas.

Towards Land Consumption Neutrality and Natural Capital Enhancement at Urban Landscape Scale

Among the UNCCD SDGs 2030, there is the recognition that land consumption can strongly affect the provision of ecosystem services. From the perspective of land degradation neutrality, urban level is the right scale when planning actions against land consumption. The aims of this research are: (1) to assess land consumption at urban landscape scale and its effects on natural capital flow provision; and (2) to identify sustainable strategic planning choices for land consumption mitigation and natural capital enhancement. We propose and test an approach based on multi-temporal landscape spatial analysis (land use/land cover map, land consumption map, and landscape metrics) and ecosystem services’ flow assessment for the identification of areas at risk of loss of natural capital flow. The results have shown that from 2006 to 2019, land consumption has increased with a consequent decrease of natural capital flow. LULC dynamics has been analyzed in terms of landscape risk to lose natural capital flow, highlighting that the management of Galatone urban landscape is still far from land consumption neutrality. Landscape metrics have allowed the analysis of the aggregation among land consumption areas. The mitigation of land consumption should be based on the identification of suitable nature-based solutions towards the balance between past land consumption and future land recovery.