Land Security Research Articles

The Impact of Land Property Right on China’s Rural-urban Migration

China is undergoing a rural land system reform called Three Rights Division (TRD) which promotes the transformation of land management right and guarantees the security of land contract right. In this paper, we study the impacts of rural land system on migration under market (the ability to rent land) and government (land expropriation) mechanism. We employ the Probit model with robustness and endogenous checks to identify whether rent behavior and land insecurity have impacts on migration. Results show that the rent behavior has a positive impact on migration while land insecurity is negative, indicating that the reform of TRD promotes the probability to migrate both through market and government mechanism.

Determinant of Land Use Change in South Kalimantan: An Evidence from Banjarbaru City and Banjar Regency

Environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and other environmental catastrophe are negative impacts caused by irresponsible land use change. It is vital to investigate the driver of the land use change to avoid undesirable environmental catastrophes. On the other hand, determinants of the occurrence of the land use change are very complex to be identified. In the last few years, floods hit many parts of the world, one of them was a massive flood in South Kalimantan in the last few years. There is a presumption that this disaster is caused by land use changes inside the watershed. This paper aims to identify the determinants of the land use change in Banjarbaru City and Banjar Regency inside Martapura and Maluka Watershed. This study found out that having a secure land tenure per se does not incentivize landowners to prevent land use change. However, having a secure land tenure is a crucial factor in affecting land use change if the land they own is in large size. Having secure land tenure with large land size affects the occurrence of land use changes significantly by conducting agricultural and plantation extensification. This situation depicts that agricultural and plantation extensification exists in the rural area of South Kalimantan, which is triggered by economic profit orientation. Thus, the accumulation of secure land tenure and large land size need to be considered as land use change determinants for current and future’s land use policy in the context of Indonesia.

Complex drought patterns robustly explain global yield loss for major crops

Multi-purpose crops as maize, rice, soybean, and wheat are key in the debate concerning food, land, water and energy security and sustainability. While strong evidence exists on the effects of climate variability on the production of these crops, so far multifaceted attributes of droughts—magnitude, frequency, duration, and timing—have been tackled mainly separately, for a limited part of the cropping season, or over small regions. Here, a more comprehensive assessment is provided on how droughts with their complex patterns—given by their compound attributes—are consistently related to negative impacts on crop yield on a global scale. Magnitude and frequency of both climate and yield variability are jointly analysed from 1981 to 2016 considering multiscale droughts, i.e., dry conditions occurring with different durations and timings along the whole farming season, through two analogous and standardized indicators enabling comparison among crops, countries, and years. Mainly winter wheat and then spring wheat, soybean and the main maize’s season reveal high susceptibility of yield under more complex drought patterns than previously assessed. The second maize’s season and rice present less marked and more uncertain results, respectively. Overall, southern and eastern Europe, the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa presents multi-crop susceptibility, with eastern Europe, Middle East and Central Asia appearing critical regions for the most vulnerable crop, which is wheat. Finally, yield losses for wheat and soybean clearly worsen when moving from moderate to extreme multiscale droughts.

Ecosystem services in conservation planning: Assessing compatible vs. incompatible conservation

The compatible conservation of ecosystem services (ES) refers to the sustainable development of a region and the multiple dimensions of the region population's well-being. Applying the ES relationship to systematic conservation planning (SCP) can help determine the protection priorities associated with ES and support good zoning decisions. This study uses Nanchang, China as a case study to construct a multi-scenario ES protection scheme. This includes evaluating the spatial distribution characteristics of four core ES, and the ES relationships in the subregion in Nanchang. The ES relationship is then used to construct three ES conservation scenarios (synergetic, trade-off and incompatible), and the SCP tool is used for zoning. The results show the following. First, the incompatible scenario prioritizes the conservation of supporting services and provisioning services, which support ecological protection and cultivated land security. Second, given a land management and control threshold, the management zones can be compatible with a large proportion of secondary services in the synergetic scenario (22%). Fewer secondary services are compatible under the trade-off scenario (8%). As the compatible secondary service targets increase, each management zone area experiences a nonlinear change. The spatial change is more stable in the synergetic scenario compared to the trade-off scenario, and the space of management zone becomes discrete under the trade-off scenario. Third, the compatibility process has a feedback effect on the ES relationship. Compared with the trade-off scenario, compatible synergetic services are more stable with respect to changes in the ES relationship. Constructing ecological buffer zones takes up cultivated land, decreasing the synergy between carbon sequestration services and food production services. However, ecological buffer zones should play a role in certain areas. The compatibility of increased food production services and habitat services in priority conservation and controlled development zones enhance ES trade-offs. An increase in cultural services is compatible with carbon sequestration services in the ecological buffer zone. This changes the relationship between ES, from having a weak trade-off to having a weak synergy. Creating a compatible ES is a spatial trade-off process; these synergies and trade-offs should be considered in spatial planning. An appropriate proportion of ES should be allocated to each zone, to increase the coordinated management of the urban-rural ecology.

The violent-nonviolent binary of democratic protest: phantasmagoria, gursikhi, and Khalsa sovereignty

ABSTRACT The connection between the recolonization of India’s economy through neoliberal reforms and the re-emergence of rhetoric around Khalistan during the farmers’ protest in Delhi are examined in this article. Despite the use of humanistic principles based on the Sikh tradition during the protest to draw attention to issues around food and land insecurity, lack of education, and poverty the Indian state creates phantasmagoria around the issue of Khalistan to enact economic liberalization while, counterintuitively, destabilizing its democratic institutions. I argue that the Delhi Morcha requires the dynamics of religion, politics, and violence in democracies needs to be rethought.

Ambiguous property rights as a double-edged sword: A case study of industrial land redevelopment in Shanghai, China

In the global discourse of ambiguous property rights, the prevailing argument is that ambiguous property rights are blamed for myriad land-related problems in the Global South. In the absence of secure land property rights, China provides new insights into this prevailing argument; however, whether China's ambiguous land property rights have led to land-related problems is still under heated debate. Through an empirical investigation of the Shanghai No.10 Iron and Steel Works redevelopment, this paper explains the ambiguity of property rights over state-owned industrial land in relation to the ambiguous property rights approach and evaluates its impacts on industrial land redevelopment. The case study analyzes the major stakeholders and their de jure rights and de facto rights, reveals the land rents redistribution, and examines how ambiguous property rights fundamentally impacted the spatial outcomes of the No.10 Steelworks site. With the evidence of the two-sided impacts caused by ambiguous property rights in China, this paper criticizes the monolithic understanding of ambiguous property rights in the global discourse and argues that the introduction of ambiguous property rights has been a double-edged sword for land redevelopment in non-Western countries. New thinking concerning alternatives to land institutions is finally discussed within and beyond China.

Community gardens:An investment in social cohesion, public health, economic sustainability, and the urban environment

This study utilizes survey and interview data collected in 2018 and 2019 in the United States to examine a range of social, health, economic, and environmental benefits community gardens yield, as well as the political factors that enable and impede the success of community gardens. The results indicate there are a multitude of individual-level benefits that accrue to garden participants, as well as community-level benefits. The findings also suggest municipal governments can best aid gardens by providing long-term secure land access, affordable water access, administrative support, and plot fee structures that are inclusive to people of all socio-economic backgrounds.

Influence of Land Tenure on Agroforestry Parkland Phyto-Diversity and Stand Structure in Sudanian Zone of Burkina Faso, West Africa

Savanna Zone of Burkina Faso is characterized by the increasing population growth due to human migration from the north and central regions of the country for cultivating agricultural land and pastures. This situation induced land-use changes, and social reorganization has led to new approaches to natural resources management. Tenure issues in natural resources management limit the adoption of agroforestry systems and effective land use scale. This paper describes the species composition, structure, and diversity of woody species on agroforestry parklands at Tiogo under two types of land tenures. Ecological and structural characteristics of vegetation patches were computed to characterize the species composition. A variety of diversity measures were calculated to determine the heterogeneity for each type of land tenure. A total of 49 woody species belonging to 19 families and 38 genera were identified, of which 44 and 48 species were recorded in non-landowners’ farms and landowners' farms, respectively. Leguminosae, Combretaceae and Anacardiaceae were the most abundant families. The dominant species in agroforestry parklands were Vitellaria paradoxa, Parkia biglobosa, Lannea microcarpa, Piliostigma reticulatum and Piliostigma thonningii. Analyses of variance of the entire woody vegetation of agroforestry parklands revealed no significant differences in terms of all computed indexes but showed that the landowners’ farms were the most diverse than non-landowners farms. The density of stems ≥5 cm dbh and the basal area were higher in landowner’s farms than in non-landowners farms. In both types of farms, the size class distributions of the vegetation produced a reverse J-shaped curve, supporting that agroforestry parkland in Tiogo is dominated by young individuals. The spatial distribution of the seedling was mainly clumped, reflecting the dominance of clonal propagation. Security of land and tree tenure is a necessary condition for any land-based investment (planting and protection of preferred species and soil amendment). The challenge to maintain parklands’ tree biodiversity in “good” condition also needs to consider the flexibility of land tenure and equitability sharing of the benefits from trees.

Rereading the Zimbabwean “Land Question”: Gender and the Symbolic Meanings of “Land”

As the source of all food production, land in southern Africa has been highly contested. Using a variety of texts that express themes relating to land, I show that in Zimbabwe, in the face of massive political competition, land became the foundation for reform and national sovereignty in dominant nationalist, patriarchal and gendered discourses. I demonstrate that cultural texts centred on land have been embodied and generated in familial troupes, revealing dominant gendered and sexualised overtones that naturalise land ownership and particular land uses. At the same time, these texts reveal symbolic violence meted out on particular bodies. This discursive analysis of texts examines the gendered and sexualised discourses associated with Zimbabwe’s national reforms and security, where the imagining of the security, protection and sanctity of land has been driven by nationalist ideas about its centrality in the healthy (re)production of obedient social and national subjects.

Homogeneous land-use sequences in heterogeneous small-scale systems of Central Kenya: Land-use categorization for enhanced greenhouse gas emission estimation

The current understanding of the link between land management practices and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions is limited in the small-scale farm sector of sub-Sahara regions due to insufficient or fragmented land-use data. Land-use categories recognized in the national GHG inventories in Kenya are coarse. Therefore, they do not adequately account for the diversity in small-scale land uses. Characterization of land-use and knowledge of key drivers of land-use change is necessary to improve national GHG inventories in the SSA (Sub-Sahara Africa) region. We implemented a cross-sectional survey to characterize land-use and determine factors which influenced changes in land use within small-scale farms of Tharaka-Nithi County, Kenya. We sampled 300 farmers using multistage sampling and collected crop sequence recall data at plot level for three years (seven seasons). We grouped crop sequences into clusters using the ‘TraMineR’ R package. We derived four clusters including banana, tea, and declining fallows (cluster 1, 19.2% of plots), cereal-legume systems (cluster 2, 55.1%), fodder (cluster 3, 11.7%) and coffee (cluster 4, 14.0%). We observed higher N application rates in perennial cropping systems, than in annual crops, including cereal-legume systems. We observed that farmers in higher potential agro-ecological zones, male-managed farms, with higher per capita land area, higher remittances and higher total house-hold incomes, were associated with a higher propensity to adjust crop enterprises, leading to more unstable land-use sequences. Contrariwise, farmers with higher education, credit access, secure land tenure, increasing slope, good soil fertility, and longer farming experiences recorded a lower propensity to adjust their land uses, resulting in more stable crop sequences. Farmer socio-demographic characteristics influenced land-use change, which is directly linked with soil GHG emissions. Our findings propose the adoption of Tier II GHG quantification approaches which disaggregate between annual and perennial crop enterprises. GHG emissions are likely to be more generalizable in stable perennial crop systems than annual systems. Thus, better disaggregation of GHG sampling in annual crop systems is needed due to high diversity in crop and soil fertility management, and the dynamic nature of C and N cycling in these systems.

Land tenure stability and adoption intensity of sustainable agricultural practices in banana production in China

Unstable land tenure may hamper cleaner agricultural production in developing countries by discouraging farmers from adopting sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs). This study attempts to examine the impact of land tenure stability on farmers' adoption intensity of SAPs in agricultural production, using the data collected from banana farmers in China. The Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model is employed to address the self-selection bias of sample farmers. The results show that land tenure stability exerts a statistically significant and positive impact on farmers' adoption intensity of SAPs. Specifically, farmers who cultivate higher proportion of their own farmland are more inclined to use SAPs in banana production, and the higher stability of land use rights can increase farmers' adoption intensity of SAPs by 30.55% on average. The effect of land tenure stability on farmers’ uptake of SAPs appears heterogeneous among farmers with different farmland sizes and in different regions. Further, a positive association between the use of SAPs and land productivity has been identified in banana farms of China. Our findings highlight the importance of secure land rental market for sustainable agriculture in developing countries, and more supporting programs are expected from policymakers to encourage farmers to adopt SAPs in farming practices.

Land access and conflict issues of tribal peoples in Bodoland territorial region of Assam, India

Inequitable land access and land disputes are commonly mentioned as major causes of instability in the Bodoland region. Land problems are frequently invoked as a more potent debating tactic in conflict. For tribals in the region, land reform, ownership, registry, legal pluralism, boundary difficulties, landlessness, insecure land usage, and other associated issues are all major concerns. Major land legislation has failed to significantly reduce the number of major land disputes in the region. The British Colonial rule in India created substantial disruptions to land practises and possessions, which are still felt today in various regions of the country and in Northeast India, notably Assam. It's clear that the land issue is still relevant and active.

Interdependent Investments in Attached and Movable Assets Under Insecure Land Rights

Interdependent Investments in Attached and Movable Assets Under Insecure Land Rights

Land Security and Mobility Frictions

Land Security and Mobility Frictions

Policy of land recovery, compensation and site clearance in Ho Chi Minh City: The situation and recommendations

Land is one of the important resources for the development of each nation. Article 53 of the 2013 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam stipulates: “Land is owned by all the people, represented and uniformly managed by the State.” Accordingly, households, individuals and organizations have the right to use land. When the State requests to recover land for security, national defense, national and public interests and economic development, land users have an obligation to cooperate. In fact, the implementation of land recovery, compensation and site clearance in big cities like Ho Chi Minh City still has many difficulties and inadequacies. The article analyzes legal provisions and the implementation of land recovery, compensation and site clearance in Ho Chi Minh City, thereby evaluating the advantages and disadvantages in order to provide implications to help improve the policy of land management in urban areas.

Smallholders' coping strategies in response to climate variability in semi-arid agro-ecozones of Upper Eastern Kenya

Rainfed agriculture dominates food production systems in arid and semi-arid agro-ecozones. Water is a key limiting factor to crop growth in the small-scale farming systems of the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. Climate adaptation is a fundamental and necessary response to the threat posed by the current and future climatic changes in semi-arid farming systems of the SSA region. This study was implemented to identify the socioeconomic drivers and determinants of adaptation to rainfall variability at the farm level in contrasting agro-ecological zones of Kenya. Two hundred and seventy (270) farmers were selected. The survey was implemented in Mbeere South, Meru South, and Maara Sub-Counties in Kenya to determine farmers' perceptions of climate variation during the decade that preceded the survey and climate adaptation strategies that farmers implemented. The most common climate adaptation strategies included the use of terraces (89%), early maturity crop varieties (82%), and intercropping (79%). In comparison, the least common strategies included water-harvesting strategies (29%), trenches (35%), and staggering planting dates (46%). Farmers in low potential agro-ecological zones recorded lower education levels, less secure land tenure systems, and poor access to training, extension, and credit facilities necessary for successful climatic adaptation strategies. The study findings indicated that farmers in low potential zones, including Mbeere South Sub-County, faced more risks due to the nature of climatic variation in this agro-ecozone. Farm socioeconomic characteristics were important factors that influenced farmer adaptation, including gender and age differentials, education attainments and agricultural training, farm labor availability, household food security status, and preceding annual occurrences of crop failure. There is a need to develop holistic approaches that incorporate scientific findings from the researchers and the local household-based strategies that can enhance risk assessment and management, coping and adaption strategies, and decision-making by multiple stakeholders.

Obstacles and Countermeasures to the Revitalization and Utilization of Idle Agricultural Houses in the Context of Rural Revitalization--Take Nanzhanglou Village in Shandong Province as an Example

The revitalization of idle farm houses is of great practical significance for activating rural land elements, awakening farmers' "sleeping" land assets, increasing farmers' income and providing land security for the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. This study takes Nanzhanglou Village in Shandong Province, a Chinese model village of the Bavarian Experiment, as an example, and explores the obstacles and countermeasures to the revitalization and utilization of unused farmhouses based on a comprehensive study of the current situation of unused farmhouses in the village. The study finds that the village faces obstacles to the revitalization of idle farmhouses, such as small scope of realistic permission, low willingness of farmers and poor information channels. In view of this, under the background of rural revitalization, it should make efforts to revitalize idle farmhouses by clarifying the direction of "feature-led development", introducing the mode of "multiple subjects and multiple industries", implementing the strategy of "batching and classifying", and opening up digital channels.

生态空间区划体系的理论内涵及关键技术研究

生态空间是维护区域可持续发展的重要组成部分，是国土空间规划体系的核心领域。生态空间区划是国土空间管控的重要内容，是解决区域供需矛盾，维护国土安全的重要手段。研究在系统总结现有生态区划理论、技术和方法的基础上，探讨了目前生态区划存在的不足，进一步提出新时代生态空间区划的理论、内涵和国土空间规划背景下生态空间区划技术要点。生态空间区划是以生态空间提供生态系统服务，维系生态安全为基础，从区域尺度以山水林田湖草生命共同体理念综合辨识分类生态空间。评价指标体系应基于生态功能区划和环境功能区划，结合政策目标、居民需求并参考区域城镇化特征及未来发展定位，以生态系统服务、生态敏感性、生态质量、生态健康等多因子评价为主。生态空间区划的目的是对生态空间开展保护、修复、和高质量开发建设，因此生态空间区划阈值的选取要立足于政策目标、居民需求和可持续发展，按照生态系统服务供需耦合机制划定生态空间分区，并及时调整。研究还基于现阶段区域尺度下生态空间区划的难点，从加强生态空间区划体系的应用、加强生态空间基础数据库的构建、加强命名规范等方面进行了工作展望。;Ecological space, the core area of land planning, is an important part of maintaining regional sustainable development. Ecological space zoning is a key content of land management. It is also an important means to solve the imbalance between regional supply and demand of ecosystem services and to maintain land security. This paper systematically summarized the existing methods of ecological zoning, discussed the shortcomings of the current ecological zoning, further put forward the theory and connotation of ecological zoning and the technical points of ecological space zoning under the land planning. Ecological space zoning is based on ecological space providing ecosystem services and maintaining ecological security. At the regional scale, it comprehensively identified and classified ecological space with mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, and grasslands as a life living community. We put forward ecological space zoning based on the ecological function zoning and environmental function zoning, combined with policy goals, the needs of residents, the characteristics of regional urbanization, and future development. Multi-factor evaluation of the ecosystem services, ecological sensitivity, ecological quality, and ecological health should be taken into account. The purpose of ecological zoning is to protect, restore, and high-quality develop ecological space. Therefore, the threshold of ecological zoning should be based on the policy goals, the needs of residents, and sustainable development, according to the coupling mechanism of supply and demand of ecosystem services, and be adjusted in time. Based on the difficulties of ecological zoning at the present stage, this paper also put forward the future work of ecological zoning from the aspects of strengthening the application of ecological zoning system, strengthening the construction of ecological space basic database, and strengthening the naming standard.

Land Suitability Analysis for Potential Agriculture Land Use in Sambhunath Municipality, Saptari, Nepal

Rapid and unplanned urbanization and haphazard infrastructure development causes pressure on the finite land resource and there is urgent need to preserve the arable land for food security. Land suitability analysis is a technique in which the land quality assessment is performed through interpretation of land properties for allocation of lands for particular use. The present paper attempts to conduct a land suitability analysis to determine the potential sites for agriculture land use in Sambhunath municipality of Saptari district. The criteria/ factors for the land suitability analysis were identified through literatures and modified in the local context through expert opinions and focus group discussions. The evaluation of agriculture land is accomplished using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) and Geographic Information System (GIS). Agriculture suitability index was developed and optimized qualitatively through the strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) analysis. Finally, potential agriculture suitability index map is prepared. The analysis shows almost 3139 ha (29%) lands as 14 highly suitable and 3001 ha (28%) of moderately suitable agriculture land within the municipality. Almost all the suitable agriculture land is located at low land with flat terrain to gentle slope having high natural fertility and mainly in land capability classes I and II. The unsuitable and poorly suitable agriculture land is occupied in the undulating areas and hilly terrain of the Siwalik hill. The study found the GIS tool integrated with MCE-AHP useful in land suitability evaluation process and anticipated that it could act as the planning tool to allocate lands in land use planning for sustainable agricultural practices.

Gender and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities

Women are more vulnerable than men to climate change. According to the literature, this vulnerability is the result of pre-existing gender inequalities, social marginalization, less access to education and knowledge, poverty, insecure land rights, heavy reliance on agriculture and lack of mobility. This paper focuses on rural women’s vulnerability to climate change, through three case studies, and also on the empowerment and the involvement of them in the policy-making processes in order to combat the climate crisis. Women should participate and contribute with their knowledge and their life experience, which is a result of particular strengths, perspectives and priorities. The empowerment of these women is vital for successfully combating the impacts of climate change and for the mitigation and adaptation efforts to thrive.