Land Policy Changes Research Articles

Multi-Perspective Analysis of Land Changes in the Transitional Zone between the Mu Us Desert and the Loess Plateau in China from 2000 to 2020

The transition zone between the Mu Us Sandy Land and the Loess Plateau is considered an ecologically fragile area. However, significant changes in land use have occurred in the past few decades due to changes in land policies and the implementation of major national ecological projects. Despite this, there is still a lack of clear investigation into the impact of these changes on the landscape structure and ecological health of the area. This study utilizes high-resolution annual land use data from China, along with multi-index models and algorithms, to comprehensively analyze regional land use changes, landscape patterns, and the ecological environment’s quality. Through a comprehensive analysis of various factors, including changes in quantity, transformation in land types, spatial dynamics, landscape structure, and ecological quality, we aim to provide a better understanding of the complex interactions between land use and ecological systems in this area. The research results indicate that: (1) Since 2000, 9057.4 km2 of land in the study area has undergone changes. The grassland area has the largest increase, the forest area has the fastest growth rate, while cropland and barren land have decreased to varying degrees, and impervious surface has slightly expanded. (2) The movement trajectory of the center of gravity for different land types is closely related to human activities such as land development and utilization, as well as ecological restoration. Land changes have resulted in an escalation of landscape fragmentation, a reduction in landscape diversity, and a decline in the uniform distribution of different types. (3) Ecological land is the key to improving the ecological environment. The increase in ecological land area in the study area has led to an improvement in the quality of the ecological environment. The net contribution rate of land change to ecological improvement reaches 1.99%. The analysis methods and perspectives used in this study can be applied to other similar studies. The study’s findings enhance the understanding of how land and vegetation changes affect the ecological environment in this crucial area. They are of great significance in guiding the development and utilization of land resources and the implementation of ecological environment projects.

Land System Reform in Rural China: Path and Mechanism

Changes in land policy not only determine agricultural growth, but also have bearing on issues, such as peasants’ rights and interests, industrial development, and urbanization. On account of China’s singular history and culture, its land systems are somewhat unique. This paper analyzes the institutional changes that took place before and after 1978 to show the journey of land system reform in rural China in the 20th century. We look closely at the policy performance and drawbacks of the reform that occurred after 1978, and analyze a series of “Central First Documents” that concern rural issues. Based on this analysis, some prospective land policy reforms are predicated. We conclude that at present, rural land ownership is unlikely to be completely privatized in the short-term. Creating a new agricultural management system with special functions or a land shareholding system, could be suitable measures to overcome the disorder of the existing land policy system in China.

The spatial politics of land policy reform in Myanmar and Laos

ABSTRACT Land policy reform has dominated the development agenda across the Global South over the past two decades. In contrast with earlier distributive land reforms, contemporary policies reflect an amalgamation of neoliberal, state territorial, and social justice agendas. This paper demonstrates how land policy changes reflect the spatially extensive and multi-scalar politics of land contestation and control, employing the cases of Myanmar and Laos. Myanmar's short-lived democratic transition enabled civil society actors to exert uneven influence on policy reform. In contrast, communist party and state dominance in Laos has constrained, although not wholly obstructed, policy intervention by non-governmental groups.

A novel methodology to characterize and quantify regional farmscape non-production perennial vegetation carbon storage and potential for loss in Southwest British Columbia

Temperate zone agriculture landscapes are often comprised of both croplands and non-production perennial vegetation (NPPV). The latter provides ecosystem services (ES), of which carbon sequestration is one. Estimation of aboveground carbon stocks in NPPV has incentivized carbon storage within the agricultural landscape. Remote sensing has significantly improved resolution of earth imaging and automated assessment of these often small, fragmented NPPV parcels. Novel methods of assessment have also been motivated by changes in land policy and concomitant loss of NPPV carbon stocks. To characterize and evaluate the carbon storage potential of agricultural NPPV in Southwestern British Columbia, we utilized a compliment of remote sensing and secondary data sources. Object- and pixel-oriented classification with RapidEye imagery enabled mapping of NPPV at 92.9% accuracy, covering 33.2% of the landscape. NPPV provided 3.34 Mt C in aboveground biomass, 38.4% of which was composed of fragments unlikely to be identified through coarser satellite imagery. Using secondary soil surveys and sub-regional characteristics, indicators of agricultural expansion suggested that small parcels of NPPV were more likely to persist on active farmland, while large forest stands (> 9 hectares) were less likely to occur alongside lands already in production and often located on lands amenable to farming. Were these large contiguous tracks of NPPV cleared for production agriculture, we estimate that 0.98–1.86 Mt of stored carbon could potentially be released. These stands represent important carbon sinks and their retention could be incentivized through ES services remuneration and conservation programs.

Social institution changes and their ecological impacts in Kazakhstan over the past hundred years

Over the past 100 years, the social system, agricultural production modes, lifestyles, and ecological conditions in Kazakhstan have changed dramatically. Understanding how social institution changes altered the land use patterns and the ecosystem processes in Kazakhstan can provide important knowledge for the sustainable ecological management of semi-arid regions. By summarizing the documented research on major social institution reforms, this study investigated land use changes in response to social system changes and analyzed the impacts of agricultural and animal husbandry development on ecological degradation. Three important characteristics of social-ecological system changes were found in this study. First, population migration, land policy changes, and social system reform were the major driving factors of ecological degradation, especially within the periods of Russian emigration in the early 20th century, the Virgin Lands Campaign, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Second, changes in land use patterns caused by changes in social systems have led to a series of ecological degradation, especially the policy of collective management and regional intensive grazing. Land experiencing reclamation-abandonment-reclamation turbulence developed in a vicious cycle and eventually became a high-risk area of ecological degradation. Third, Kazakhstan experienced a long-term cultivated land expansion, occupying high-quality grassland and pastoral areas, which moved animal husbandry production to desert vegetation areas. The agro-pastoral transition zone in Kazakhstan was the mostly affected area by land use changes due to the social institutional changes and special attention is urgently needed to reduce land degradation and desertification.

Land Reform and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Micro Data

We assess the effects of a major land policy change on farm size and agricultural productivity using a quantitative model and micro-level data. We study the 1988 land reform in the Philippines that imposed a ceiling on land holdings, redistributed above-ceiling lands to landless and smallholder households, and severely restricted the transferability of the redistributed farmlands. We study this reform in the context of an industry model of agriculture with a nondegenerate distribution of farm sizes featuring an occupation decision and a technology choice of farm operators. In this model, the land reform can reduce agricultural productivity not only by misallocating resources across farmers but also by distorting farmers’ occupation and technology decisions. The model, calibrated to prereform farm-level data in the Philippines, implies that on impact, the land reform reduces average farm size by 34 percent and agricultural productivity by 17 percent. The government assignment of land and the ban on its transfer are key for the magnitude of the results since a market allocation of the above-ceiling land produces about one-third of the size and productivity effects. These results emphasize the potential role of land market efficiency for misallocation and productivity in the agricultural sector. (JEL D24, O11, O13, Q12, Q15, Q18, Q24, Q28)

Redefining property rights over collective land in the urban redevelopment of Shenzhen, China

Urban development in China is based on two types of land ownership, namely, state land owned by states and collective land owned by village collectives. Legally speaking, urban development must be based on state land. In practice, informal development based on collective land has played important roles in the rapid urbanization process over the past decades. Nonetheless, the vague property rights over collective land have led to inferior and suboptimal development outcomes in expansive urban areas. The redevelopment of collective land has become an important means to sustain urban development in an ongoing urbanization process. By adopting theoretical perspectives from New Institutional Economics, this study presents an integrated conceptual framework on the institutional arrangements of land property rights and transaction costs to understand the changes in land policies and their institutional implications for the redevelopment of collective land in Shenzhen, China. The findings reveal that the new policies have redefined the relationship among the government, village collectives, and real estate developers as well as their property rights over collective land. The change of institutional arrangements in land property rights has significantly reduced the transaction costs in the redevelopment process and effectively promoted land redevelopment activities.

Identifying sustainability challenges on land and water uses: The case of Lake Ziway watershed, Ethiopia

This paper firstly analyzes the land use - land cover (LULC) in Lake Ziway watershed (Ethiopia) and quantifies the changing patterns from 1973 to 2014 using Landsat images. Secondly, the paper estimates sediment yields using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT model). It also assesses and estimates water abstraction from Lake Ziway using survey data. The study shows that the conversions from woodlands into agricultural lands and settlement areas are the major detected LULC changes. Of the total area of the watershed, agricultural lands and settlement areas together increased from 57% in 1973 to 75% in 2014 at the expense of woodlands whose areas decreased from 26.16% to 6.63% in the study periods. The study also shows that water abstraction and sediment loads are increasing at Lake Ziway watershed. The major driving forces behind these LULC changes and the impacts on the lake natural condition are anthropogenic factors such as population growth, land policy changes and deforestation. Increasing demands for more land and water resources, i.e., land for settlements and cultivation, wood for fuel and charcoals, and water for irrigation and municipal water supply, are the underlying causes for the observed changes on the watershed resources. Thus, if the existing scenarios of human pressures are left neglected without management interventions, severe watershed degradations will continue to further affect the watershed's resources including the hydrology. Therefore, responsible government institutions should start mobilizing the local communities along with providing financial and material supports for watershed rehabilitation through afforestation and soil and water conservation activities. Additionally, the free-access practices for water use should be replaced by user-charge policy to regulate water abstractions in order to adequately sustain the water level of Lake Ziway and its feeder rivers. In this respect, this study provides firsthand information to policy makers and planners to put in place a comprehensive land and water use plan and regulations against the unruly human actions in the watershed before irreversible losses might happen to Lake Ziway and its watershed resources.

Impact of land tenure policy on agricultural investments in China: Evidence from a panel data study

The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of changes in China's rural land policy on agricultural investments. Dramatic changes occurred in China's rural land policies after 2000, including the extension of rural land contractual period, restriction of land reallocation among villages and villagers groups, elimination of agricultural taxes for responsibility land, and rapid development of rural land rental markets. These changes have given farmers more secure tenure on collectively controlled responsibility land and have strengthened farmers' income rights for responsibility lands, incentivizing them to increase their investments on responsibility lands. A panel data method was used to quantitatively investigate the impact of land policy changes on agricultural investment. We considered the application of organic fertilizer as an indicator for long-term agricultural investment, and compared the use of organic fertilizer between private plots and responsibility lands operated by the same household. The results showed that the difference in organic fertilizer use between private plots and responsibility land for the same household has become smaller from 2000 to 2008. Our findings suggest that recent changes in rural land policies have provided farmers incentives to increase land quality investment on their responsibility lands.

A Way to Sustainability: Perspective of Resilience and Adaptation to Disaster

Based on the previous research findings about resilience, this study focused on the differences between resilience and adaptation from an agricultural drought case study in southern China. A conceptual variation between resilience and adaptation was explored to understand the distinction between resilience and adaptation. In fact, both are attributes of hazard-affected bodies and have connections and differences. Resilience pays more attention to the short-term response to loss (potential) during and post disaster, while adaptation places stress on system’s response to disaster risk before disaster, loss or impacts in- and after disaster in the long term in order to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience. Land use and crop structure change, land policy change and labors turnover present the detailed differences between resilience and adaptation in the case study. Deficiencies of human resources, technology and policy in adapting to disaster risks were founded and discussed. This perspective would offer a way with greater potential in application of adaptation concept, especially in the process of integrated risk governance and regional sustainable development.

Disputas de tierras y aguas en la planicie de inundación del lago Tonlé Sap de Camboya

El presente trabajo aborda la movilización de una comunidad y el conflicto suscitado en torno de los embalses de irrigación en la planicie de inundación del lago Tonlé Sap, en un subdistrito de la provincia de Kampong Thom de Camboya.

Integration and decentralization: the evolution of Dutch regional land policy

ABSTRACTThe implementation of planning objectives in the public interest depends on the land laws and land policies of a state. Public stakeholders are not only enabled or constrained in their actions by these laws and policies, they also (re)formulate these laws and policies to support their actions. The objective of this paper is to understand how different stakeholders in spatial development processes influence land policy dynamics (both the (re)formulation and the implementation of policies) and vice versa. The paper explores the changes in land policies in the Netherlands, in particular how changes have enabled the regional planning level. The Policy Arrangement Approach is used to analyse the strategic behaviour of agencies and their use of structure in spatial development processes. The findings show that the arrangement rapidly changed from the 1980s onwards, due to changes in the underlying political discourses and the effectuation of these discourses via regulation and instruments. With objectives of decentralization and integration, the national government has enabled the regional planning level to become more active in spatial development processes. Although the provinces were enabled by new laws and policies, this did not significantly change their role within the Dutch planning system.

Periurban Land Redevelopment in Vietnam under Market Socialism

Starting in the 1990s, the Vietnamese state sought to expand and modernise the country’s urban system after four decades of anti-urban policies. This paper examines the reworking of the socialist land regime that followed from this shift. It begins by explaining how new legislation and institutions combined market and socialist principles to lure domestic enterprises into realising the state’s new urban ambitions. It then shows how this hybrid reordering of policy triggered local experiments with periurban land redevelopment and new forms of alliances between the state and private capital. Using the case of the Land-for-Infrastructure mechanism, which uses land as in-kind payment for the building of infrastructure, it is found that this experiment undermines the implementing of official planning orientations and regulations. Finally, the paper explores the relationship between this problematic outcome and the political-economic environment within which recent land policy changes have been implemented in Vietnam.

Identifying sources of temporal variability in hydrological extremes of the upper Blue Nile basin

Summary It is known that changes in catchment runoff variability are a function of changes in climate as well as catchment behavior. For proper management of a certain watershed it is important to have a good understanding of the main causes of variability. Specifically, changes in extreme conditions of water resources are imperative as their consequences are far reaching. This paper attempts to identify the cause of hydrological extremes variability in the upper Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia. A method is proposed to utilize conceptual hydrological models to simulate long term (41 years) hydro-meteorological data and analyse the outputs using the Quantile Perturbation Method (QPM) specially designed for investigation of the temporal variability of extreme values in time series over multi-annual to (multi-)decadal time scales. Two conceptual hydrological models were calibrated and evaluated for their performance to simulate extreme high flows and changes in these flows for corresponding changes in rainfall conditions. The temporal variability results show similar patterns for simulated and observed extreme flows. This indicates the major influence of climate variability in extreme flows as demonstrated by the rainfall input in the models. There is no discernible change in the catchment response, e.g. quick runoff coefficient as a function of soil saturation state, between periods of the 1960–1970s, the 1980s and the 1990–2000s, which are attributed to land policy changes. This shows the influence of changes in catchment characteristics is minimal. (Multi-)decadal climate variability is identified as the main cause of temporal variation in hydrological extremes of the Blue Nile basin.

The Dawn of Uhuru? Implications of Constitutional Recognition of Communal Land Rights in Pastoral Areas of Kenya

Abstract Despite large portions of land being communally owned in Kenya for centuries, the legal and policy framework on land tenure has, since 1954, focused on private ownership as the best way of managing land. This article assesses the impact that this dominant approach has had on pastoral land uses. Based on the case study of the Northern Rangelands Trust, a registered trust that provides a framework for community involvement in conservation and other livelihood options in the arid and semi-arid parts of northern Kenya, the article looks at the innovations that communities have made to provide legal support for communal land practices. The article argues that the recent land-policy changes heralded by the 2010 Constitution promise greater recognition and support for pastoralism but that, on their own, they are insufficient.

WINDOW ON THE NETHERLANDS: CRACKS IN THE MYTH: CHALLENGES TO LAND POLICY IN THE NETHERLANDS

ABSTRACTIn the international literature and discussions on land management, Dutch land policy is often presented as a special case, sometimes even as a role model for other countries. However, in recent years this policy has come under pressure as a consequence of institutional changes in the housing market, the social housing sector, spatial policy and European competition rules. This paper intends to unravel these changes and their effect on Dutch land policy. It also reflects upon the implications of land policy changes for the effectiveness of spatial policy.

The Real Estate and Economic Crisis: An Opportunity for Urban Return and Rehabilitation Policies in Spain

In the early 1980s, suburbanization and periurbanization processes became widespread in major cities within Spain. An interesting stage of returning to city centers commenced that materialized in the start of rehabilitation policies within historic centers. These processes coincided with weak population growth, an acute industrial economic crisis, and new democratic policies in municipal councils. Three decades later, we may be witnessing similar processes, although with different origins. The consequences of a construction-based economic model have been disastrous in Spain, from both an economic as well as an environmental point of view. The artificial land boom was significant throughout the country, but was especially prominent within the Mediterranean areas that specialize in tourism and real estate (second homes). The burst of the real estate bubble has shown the irrationality of the economic model and the serious social and environmental consequences that the model has entailed. Within this context, some of the territorial transformation processes that occurred in Spain during the real estate boom period are being studied for the first time. Additionally, changes in land policies (urban renewal of centers and urban renewal in general) within the current economic and real estate crisis are analyzed. An urban rehabilitation that gradually includes new spaces for intervention and for introducing new sustainable methods for recovering degraded spaces, such as the Master Plan for Platja de Palma, a mature tourism destination that seeks a final ‘0 CO2 balance’ scenario, among other objectives.

A Theory of Institutional Change: Illustrated by Dutch City-Provinces and Dutch Land Policy

Since the early 1990s, planning theory has focused on the issue of institutional change. Not only does institutional change have clear bearings on processes of spatial planning, it is also, increasingly, seen as an object of planning. A core concept in the literature is the juxtaposition of ‘institutional design’ and ‘institutional evolution’. Yet, in understanding processes and the role of institutional change, this dichotomy does not appear to be very helpful. We therefore propose a more encompassing perspective that includes both ‘design’ and ‘evolution’ dimensions, invoking various components from theories of policy change, inspired by the work of Kingdon. We try to unravel, in particular, why, under seemingly comparable conditions, some cases show substantive institutional transformations while others do not. We briefly discuss two cases from the Netherlands to illustrate this point, namely the thwarted process of establishing city regions within the scalar fabric of territorial governance, and some instrumental changes in land policy.

Conflict between Global and Local Land-Use Values in Latvia's Gauja National Park

In this paper, it is analysed how land policy changes in Latvia's Gauja National Park (GNP) are shaped by a debate between global and local land-use values. Since Latvia's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, major land policy reform has taken place in the park and the country as a whole. Key informant interviews were conducted with GNP stakeholders to understand the values and goals of the stakeholder groups. Results show that two primary visions for the management of the GNP have emerged since independence, founded on differing concepts of justice: one based on the global value of preserving biodiversity, and the other based on the local value of preserving the Latvian national identity. The ideals of the current park administration are in line with justice based on the former value, while other stakeholders favour the latter value—a value fundamental to the original design of the GNP.

The developmental cycle of domestic groups and Amazonian deforestation

It has been common to attribute tropical deforestation to population growth and/or migration. This paper finds that this is true only at large and aggregated spatial and temporal scales. When one examines regional-scaled processes, there are numberous mediating factors and more complex demographic processes that account for differences in rates of deforestation. Based upon three years of research in the Altamira region, Xingu Basin, Brazilian Amazon, we differenttiate between period and cohort effects in trajectories of deforestation. We find that every cohort of migrants follows the same overall trajectory of deforestation but that the magnitude of deforestation along a 20 year trajectory is dependent on period effects (such as hyperinflation, credit policy, land policy changes). Moreover, we find that the 20-year trajectory does indeed follow the constraints posed by the development cycle of the domestic group-refleting as it does the changing supply of labor.