Patterns Of Land Occupation Research Articles

Evaluating the temporal patterns of land use and precipitation under desertification in the semi-arid region of Brazil

The desertification process directly influences agricultural production and the maintenance of terrestrial life. Despite being an important agricultural centre, Brazil's semi-arid region is experiencing significant desertification. However, the relationship between land management and climate in this process is still poorly understood. This research was conducted in areas predominantly covered by the Caatinga Formation (62.2%), as well as agropastoral and pasture areas (29.9%). Our primary objective was to assess the land use change trajectories and land occupation patterns in the region while also analysing how vegetation and precipitation temporal patterns have changed from 1985 to 2019. The trends in vegetation and precipitation were evaluated using the Mann-Kendall test. Land use and occupation patterns were analysed using segmented regression and Monte Carlo simulation for future forecasting in the period 2020–240 under different scenarios (pessimistic, conservative, and optimistic). The Mann-Kendall test indicated that the precipitation trends were not statistically significant. However, the normalized vegetation index (NDVI) exhibited a significant trend in areas near the São Francisco River, an important agricultural area. Land use and occupation showed breakpoints from 1990 onwards for most classes. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrated that the Caatinga Formation will likely to remain the predominant vegetation class in the region for the next 21 years in all predicted scenarios. Agropastoral and pasture classes are projected to increase by 8% and 3%, respectively, while the area covered by native vegetation is expected to decrease by 7.5%. Furthermore, the predictions showed a decline in the rivers and lakes class, which may result in significant economic and social problems. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the impacts of land use change in the Brazilian semi-arid region and provide science-based information for environmental public policies.

Environmental and socioeconomic factors of abandonment of rainfed and irrigated crops in northeast Spain

Changes over the last century in the economic model of European countries and the development of the market economy have led to intense shifts in land occupation patterns. Agricultural abandonment is an important consequence of these processes and has modified natural and cultural landscapes, involving side-effects for society. Understanding how environmental and socio-economic factors influence the abandonment process can provide useful insights for managing investments, whether from the public or the private sector. In Spain, the Pyrenees and the Ebro Depression are two differentiated areas in terms of land-use dynamics, particularly in terms of the agricultural model carried out. In this paper we have analyzed the agricultural abandonment in these areas during the 1987–2012 period in relation to several potential explanatory factors. The analysis focuses on the abandonment of rainfed and irrigated herbaceous crops in order to derive specific explanations according to the crop type and geographical region. Crop covers were classified from four Landsat scenes, and conditions were described by topographic variables, human factors and drought occurrence. Boosted regression trees (BRT) were used to identify the most important variables and to describe the relationships between agricultural abandonment and key factors. Topography derived variables were found to be the main determinants, except for irrigated crops in the Ebro Basin, where locational factors play a more important role. BRT models allowed us to identify other significant patterns such as: the vulnerability of irrigated crops to drought; the higher dependence of agricultural activity in the Pyrenees on internal networks; pattern shifts of land abandonment in the analyzed sub-periods, and; evidence of the importance of economic diversification for maintaining cropland.

Chapinero en la red categorial de los patrones de ocupación del suelo urbano

This article addresses the issue of urban land occupation patterns from their definitions from the management and planning that are grouped into a categorical network, which allows concentrating them on five major groups: land, infrastructure, zoning, construction and integrals. To contextualize this network, the research addresses the context of approximation in the dimensions of Latin America, Colombia, Bogota, and, finally, the case study: the city locality of Chapinero. The categorical network of patterns is a tool for characterization of the locality, as a result, exposes Chapinero in nine areas identified by the peculiarity and the dynamics of the patterns.

Spatial Patterns of Water Quality in the Cuiabá River Basin, Central Brazil

This study evaluates the spatial patterns of land occupation and their relationship to water quality in the Cuiabá River watershed, one of the main affluents of the Pantanal floodplain. The impact of farming and other land occupation forms were studied using a three year time series. Monitoring included 15 parameters at 21 stations with a total of 1266 different samples. Ten stations along the Cuiabá River were ordinated by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). For an exploratory analysis in the spatial domain, sub-basins of the Cuiabá watershed were classified according to mean concentrations of selected water quality parameters. Supervised classification of digital Landsat ETM imagery and standard GIS techniques were applied to parameterize land use and occupation according to a watershed scale. Redundancy Analysis (RDA) was then used to evaluate impacts of environmental and socio-economic factors on water quality. A Cuiabá headwater station only shows slightly elevated total coliform counts and concentrations of nutrients in the river after it passes regions of extensive cattle farming. After the confluence with the Manso River, nutrient and COD concentrations increase significantly, receiving loads from sub-basins under intensive agricultural land use, with mean annual concentrations up to 1.74 mg/L of total nitrogen (Kjedahl). Sub-watersheds with intensive fishing culture activities were shown to have significant impact on nitrogen concentrations, reaching mean concentrations of 2.66 mg/L of total nitrogen in the affluents. Most serious biological and chemical water pollution can be observed at stream outlets in the urban agglomeration of Cuiabá/Várzea Grande. Affluent pollution is reflected in the water quality of the Cuiabá River: subsequent monitoring stations in the urban area are ordinated on a gradient of increasing degradation of chemical and biological water quality. The auto-depuration capacity of the Cuiabá River is intact, but elevated concentrations of Phosphorous and Chemical Oxygen Demand can be observed as far away as the Pantanal floodplain, about 120 km downstream from the urban agglomeration.

Modelling bovine trypanosomosis spatial distribution by GIS in an agro-pastoral zone of Burkina Faso

Modelling of the spatial distribution of bovine trypanosomosis prevalence in Sideradougou district Burkina Faso was performed by using a combination of spatial and statistical analysis. Based on a comprehensive and geographically representative census of herds and farms in the area, more than 2000 cattle were randomly chosen and their blood sampled during field survey. Data on livestock farming practices were recorded for each farm. All data were mapped within a GIS to generate new information on spatial constraints in the area. Surveys results were analysed and serological prevalence data were modelled using logistic regression. The model allowed identification and quantification of risk factors. In a second step the statistical model was used predictively on the entire farm population in the area. This method was successful in predicting the serological prevalence for each individual herd in the sample, from their livestock management patterns and spatial location. Predicted prevalences were represented within the GIS, taking daily movements of animals into account. Spatial distribution of prevalence would illustrate specific locations at risk from an epidemiological viewpoint. It gives evidence that the hydrological network and land occupation patterns in the savanna-type countryside are playing an important part when structuring a so-called “trypanosomosis space”.

Landlord Policies and Population Change in North-East Scotland and the Western Isles, 1755-1841

In recent years considerable emphasis has been placed upon the role of fertility in determining levels of population which, since reproduction was normally confined to those who were married, was controlled mainly by nuptuality. Over most of the world women normally married shortly after they has become sexually mature and few remained unwed. However, in Europe west of a line from St Petersburg to Trieste there was a different pattern of marriage. Here women usually married for the first time between 23 and 27 years (which meant that a woman marrying at, say, 26 years had already lost 40 per cent of her potential fertility) and 10-25 per cent never married at all. The main reason for this pattern is that couples in Western Europe were expected to marry and therefore have children only when, or if, they had acquired the means to establish their own household.2 Scotland was apparently no exception to this demographic system. Following civil registration in 1855, the mean age of first marriage for females in 1861 was 25.4 years and 20.1 per cent of women aged 45 - 54 were unmarried. It is likely that these levels, particularly of celibacy, were not very different for much of the eighteenth century, but this apparent uniformity over time conceals considerable regional variations. In the heavily industrialised and urbanised Western Lowlands (Ayr, Dumbarton, Lanark and Renfrew) the mean age of female marriage in 1861, 25.0 years, was not much below the national level but only 14.6 per cent of women were single at 45 - 54. 3 More surprisingly, there were also differences in nuptuality between predominantly agricultural regions. Although these were to some extent a consequence of cultural and social differences, a key factor in a country where nearly all farms were rented was the role of the landowners or heritors who were able to exert a powerful control over patterns of land occupation and use on their estates. Indeed it has been suggested that they saw the latter as a chess board on which families could be re-located at will in order to increase rentals.4 The form of improvement selected inevitably had repercussions on nuptuality, fertility and levels of population. Thus while the North-east (Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardineshire) grew by only 4 per cent between 1755 and 1801 as against 27 per cent for Scotland, the population of the Western Isles increased by 57 per cent. In the following 40 years there was little difference between the two - 49 per cent in the case of the North-east and 45 in that of the Western Isles - but growth in the former was confined mainly to the city of Aberdeen and the coastal parishes, particularly the fishing communities, while some of the islands continued to experience growth well above the 63 per cent for Scotland.5 How these different levels of growth were achieved can be seen by examining the experiences of the adjacent parishes of Grange and Rothiemay in Banffshire on the one hand and the island of Tiree on the other.

A Brazilian perspective

The concept of tropical medicine as a medical specialty has varied considerably according to the operational needs of each period and/or country. The concept in South America has moved away from the practice of medicine (all medicine) in the tropics to restrict itself to diseases that are endemic in the intertropical regions and less common or even non-existent in the temperate zones (the pathologies exotiques of the French authors). In many countries, including Brazil, tropical medicine has become inextricably linked to parasitic and helminthic diseases, which are associated with poverty, crowding, lack of sanitation, and patterns of land occupation. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, institutes were established in Rio de Janeiro and S~o Paulo, the largest Brazilian cities, to help combat the then endemic and epidemic diseases. Arguably, the driving force behind the creation of these institutions was an economic one, the control of diseases being necessary to allow the vital flow of European migrants to continue, to maintain the country's maritime trade (the fear of tropical diseases, especially yellowfever, was driving ships away from Brazilian ports), and to permit the occupation of vast tracts of unexplored land. These institutes bred generations of renowned investigators, Carlos Chagas being the most famous. Today, Brazil is the eighth largest economy in the world, and its market size in pharmaceuticals ranks even higher. Sadly, Brazil also comes near the top of the table for inequality of wealth distribution, and this is reflected in the quality and type of medical care available. The wealthy have access, through private physicians and health insurance, to treatment that is virtually identical to what is offered in the best centres in Europe and the USA while the vast majority of the population receives substandard medical attention from governmental institutions. For the rich, new drugs and treatments are available almost as soon as they are in developed countries, and their physicians are, to a large extent, acquainted with the principles of modern practice, including evidence-based medicine. For the less well off, newer (and older) drugs and diagnostic tools are unavailable or have very limited availability, regional differences are enormous, and for their physicians the marketing representatives of the drug companies are the major source of new medical information. Over the past three decades, Brazil has gone through major social and economic transformations, becoming a predominantly urban, industrialised society. In the same period, the relative importance of health-related problems also changed considerably. For the country as a whole, infant mortality and child malnutrition rates, although still substantial, were much reduced; ancient scourges like smallpox and poliomyelitis were eradicated and

Land occupation patterns and vegetation structure in the anthropogenic savannas (espinales) of central Chile

Land occupation patterns and the ecological structure and diversity of woody and herbaceous strata were studied at two scales in the anthropogenic savannas (espinales) occupying unirrigated portions of the subhumid and semiarid regions of central Chile (ca. 30° to 36°S). This anthropogenic formation is dominated by the spiny legume tree Acacia caven (Mol.) Mol. and a wide variety of Eurasian annual grasses and forbs, and is the basis for rainfed farming and agroforestry systems that appear outmoded and increasingly unproductive. The current study forms part of a larger effort to determine causes for this trend and to ascertain ways and means for reversing it. Vegetation mapping was carried out along a representative transect of espinales covering 22970 ha, in the subhumid region. The botanical composition and primary productivity of each stratum was studied for seven vegetation types, in both the occasionally inundated plains (llanos) and the well-drained hillsides (lomas). Complementary data were obtained on community structure, total cover, and tree shape and size in relation to coppice age since last cutting. Degradation patterns in the lomas and llanos, and the various alternatives to ongoing degradation that could replace current land and resource use practices are discussed.