Land Use Priorities Research Articles

Benefits and trade-offs of optimizing global land use for food, water, and carbon

Current large-scale patterns of land use reflect history, local traditions, and production costs, much more so than they reflect biophysical potential or global supply and demand for food and freshwater, or-more recently-climate change mitigation. We quantified alternative land-use allocations that consider trade-offs for these demands by combining a dynamic vegetation model and an optimization algorithm to determine Pareto-optimal land-use allocations under changing climate conditions in 2090-2099 and alternatively in 2033-2042. These form the outer bounds of the option space for global land-use transformation. Results show a potential to increase all three indicators (+83% in crop production, +8% in available runoff, and +3% in carbon storage globally) compared to the current land-use configuration, with clear land-use priority areas: Tropical and boreal forests were preserved, crops were produced in temperate regions, and pastures were preferentially allocated in semiarid grasslands and savannas. Transformations toward optimal land-use patterns would imply extensive reconfigurations and changes in land management, but the required annual land-use changes were nevertheless of similar magnitude as those suggested by established land-use change scenarios. The optimization results clearly show that large benefits could be achieved when land use is reconsidered under a "global supply" perspective with a regional focus that differs across the world's regions in order to achieve the supply of key ecosystem services under the emerging global pressures.

Mapping Canada’s Green Economic Pathways for Battery Minerals: Balancing Prospectivity Modelling With Conservation and Biodiversity Values

Electrification of Canada’s energy and transport sectors is essential to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and will require a vast amount of raw materials. A large proportion of these critical raw materials are expected to be sourced from as yet undiscovered mineral deposits, which has the potential to accelerate environmental pressures on natural ecosystems. Herein we overlay new prospectivity model results for a major source of Canada’s battery minerals (i.e., magmatic Ni ± Cu ± Co ± PGE mineral systems) with five ecosystem services (i.e., freshwater resources, carbon, nature-based recreation, species at risk, climate-change refugia) and gaps in the current protected-area network to identify areas of high geological potential with lower ecological risk. New prospectivity models were trained on high-resolution geological and geophysical survey compilations using spatial cross-validation methods. The area under the curve for the receive operating characteristics (ROC) plot and the preferred gradient boosting machines model is 0.972, reducing the search space for more than 90% of deposits in the test set by 89%. Using the inflection point on the ROC plot as a threshold, we demonstrate that 16% of the most prospective model cells partially overlap with the current network of protected and other conserved areas, further reducing the search space for new critical mineral deposits. The vast majority of the remaining high prospectivity cells correspond to ecoregions with less than half of the protected areas required to meet national conservation targets. Poorly protected ecoregions with one or more of the five ecosystem services are interpreted as hotspots with the highest potential for conflicting land-use priorities in the future, including parts of southern Ontario and Québec, western Labrador, and northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Managing hotspots with multiple land-use priorities would necessarily involve partnerships with both Indigenous peoples whose traditional lands are affected, and other impacted communities. We suggest that prospectivity models and other machine learning methods can be used as part of natural resources management strategies to balance critical mineral development with conservation and biodiversity values.

How can diverse national food and land-use priorities be reconciled with global sustainability targets? Lessons from the FABLE initiative

There is an urgent need for countries to transition their national food and land-use systems toward food and nutritional security, climate stability, and environmental integrity. How can countries satisfy their demands while jointly delivering the required transformative change to achieve global sustainability targets? Here, we present a collaborative approach developed with the FABLE—Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and Energy—Consortium to reconcile both global and national elements for developing national food and land-use system pathways. This approach includes three key features: (1) global targets, (2) country-driven multi-objective pathways, and (3) multiple iterations of pathway refinement informed by both national and international impacts. This approach strengthens policy coherence and highlights where greater national and international ambition is needed to achieve global goals (e.g., the SDGs). We discuss how this could be used to support future climate and biodiversity negotiations and what further developments would be needed.

Participatory comprehensive planning to handle competing land-use priorities in the sparsely populated rural context

Rural areas supply the planet's natural resources while simultaneously harbor refuges for most of the world's remaining biodiversity and intact, resilient ecosystems. Since traditional extractive activities must increasingly co-exist with non-exploitative activities such as tourism and conservation, sustainable land use planning is essential for managing trade-offs between incompatible interests in rural areas. With "communicative planning" being promoted since decades, participation is considered crucial for reconciling different planning interests. However, the implementation of participation remains patchy and uneven, not least in sparsely populated regions with low capacity where participation could be a game-changer. Here, we consider municipal comprehensive planning as an existing arena to explore participatory planning approaches potentially capable of simultaneously managing competing land uses and promoting sustainable development in sparsely populated rural contexts. Collaborative work between researchers and public managers resulted in the co-development of an approach based on qualitative village- and interest-based focus groups that facilitated the formulation, negotiation, and legitimization of concrete and detailed local guidelines that prioritize between different land uses. Consequently, the resulting comprehensive plan draft was more readily adopted than the output of a traditional planning process. We found that citizens in sparsely populated municipalities seem willing to actively contribute to rural development processes if they have significant influence.

Mixed-use distribution index: A novel bilevel measure to address urban land-use mix pattern (A case study in Tehran, Iran)

In land-use planning, the land-use mixed-ness is widely discussed as a pivotal factor that is highly related to smart growth and sustainable development goals, such as improving accessibility, socially-friendly walkable areas, social health outcomes, and quality of life. Despite proposing several indices, measuring land-use mixed-ness has always struggled with complexities such as determining land-use priorities, distance, and attributes, which needs a robust framework to consider for ideal mixed-ness and being improved constantly. By combining both divisional and integral indices, this paper has proposed a multi-component novel measure, which considers quantity, importance, distance, and balance in land-uses mixture along streets as main corridors of the daily commute in Tehran, Iran; named Mixed-use Distribution Index (MUDI). First, the measure calculates indices for land-use combination (LWC) and residential to non-residential land-uses (RR) in equal street sections. Then, the Gini index with some innovative spatial manipulation was applied to capture the evenness of ideal values of each index among streets’ sections. Finally, the MUDI of the street was achieved by averaging two Gini indices. Comparing Gini and MUDI values with current characteristics of the case study, accessibility level, and allocation of some land-uses claims for the measure's reliability to employ in land-use planning evaluations.

Socio-environmental and land-use impacts of double-cropped maize ethanol in Brazil

Agricultural intensification, and particularly double cropping, has been suggested as a practical strategy to reconcile biofuel feedstock production with other land-use priorities. Here we assess ethanol production under conditions representative of current practice in the west central region of Brazil: maize grown as a second crop with soybean on land that formerly grew a single soybean crop, and energy processed from a combined heat and power plant using plantation-grown eucalyptus chips. For maize ethanol thus produced we find large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline, and considerable economic and employment benefits at both local and national levels. We also calculate reduced land-use emissions with maize ethanol production compared to the situation without it. Our study thus documents an example of how the complex linkages of bioenergy to food production and security, environment and economic development can be—and indeed appear to be—managed for positive outcomes using current technology. Double cropping can increase production from a given area of land. This study finds that maize ethanol produced from a second crop with soybeans in west central Brazil can reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with gasoline and also have economic and employment benefits.

Towards systematic and evidence-based conservation planning for western chimpanzees.

As animal populations continue to decline, frequently driven by large-scale land-use change, there is a critical need for improved environmental planning. While data-driven spatial planning is widely applied in conservation, as of yet it is rarely used for primates. The western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) declined by 80% within 24 years and was uplisted to Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2016. To support conservation planning for western chimpanzees, we systematically identified geographic areas important for this taxon. We based our analysis on a previously published data set of modeled density distribution and on several scenarios that accounted for different spatial scales and conservation targets. Across all scenarios, typically less than one-third of areas we identified as important are currently designated as high-level protected areas (i.e., national park or IUCN category I or II). For example, in the scenario for protecting 50% of all chimpanzees remaining in West Africa (i.e., approximately 26,500 chimpanzees), an area of approximately 60,000 km2 was selected (i.e., approximately 12% of the geographic range), only 24% of which is currently designated as protected areas. The derived maps can be used to inform the geographic prioritization of conservation interventions, including protected area expansion, "no-go-zones" for industry and infrastructure, and conservation sites outside the protected area network. Environmental guidelines by major institutions funding infrastructure and resource extraction projects explicitly require corporations to minimize the negative impact on great apes. Therefore, our results can inform avoidance and mitigation measures during the planning phases of such projects. This study was designed to inform future stakeholder consultation processes that could ultimately integrate the conservation of western chimpanzees with national land-use priorities. Our approach may help in promoting similar work for other primate taxa to inform systematic conservation planning in times of growing threats.

An Elevation-Based Stratification Model for Simulating Land Use Change

Land use significantly influences the planet’s land surface and associated biogeochemical processes. With fierce conflict between various land uses, it is important to project the land system process to support decision-making. Lack of insight into scale differences of land use change (LUC) increased uncertainties in previous studies. To quantify the differences in LUCs within an elevation gradient, in this study, a novel model, the stratified land use change simulation model (SLUCS), was developed by using an elevation-based stratification strategy. This model consists of four modules. First, an elevation-based stratification module to develop a quantitative method for generating stratifications using elevation and land-use characteristics. Second, a non-spatial land-use demand module to forecast the overall land use area and make zoning constraints to simulate LUCs. Third, a stratified suitability estimation module that uses the stratified logistic regression method to reveal the regional relationship of the driving factors with LUCs at different stratifications. Finally, a spatial allocation of the land-use module, which projects a spatially explicit LUC. The SLUCS model was applied and tested in the Guizhou and Guangxi Karst Mountainous Region. Results validated the effectiveness of the model, and further demonstrated an improved spatial consistency with the reference, a higher accuracy assessment, and a better simulation performance in conversion areas than the traditional method. Three scenarios from 2015 to 2030 with different land-use priorities were designed and projected. Each scenario presented the same LUC trends, but with different magnitudes, including the rapid expansion of built-up land, the restoration of forest and water, and the loss of farmland and grassland. Priority of the socioeconomic development and ecological protection of the scenarios forecasted a sharper increase in the built-up land and in forests than the historical extrapolation scenario. The SLUCS model visually projected the LUC trajectory and competition between land uses, which suggests specific tradeoffs among management strategies to support sustainable land uses.

Decentralization by Devolution; Perceptions of Councilors on the Level of their Decision Making Authority in Local Government Experience from Tarime Town Council

Early 1990s governments across the South have embarked on democratic decentralization reforms aimed at introducing and strengthening local governance because of its assumed potential to improve the delivery of public services and alleviate poverty. To comply with that international practice, in early 2000 Tanzania government decide embarked on an ambitious Local Government Reform Program that addressed Political decentralization. Political decentralization signaled the government’s commitment to enhance the decision making authority of local government councils on matters affecting local development including determining priorities for local development, land use, finance, service delivery and human resource management. This paper sought to find out whether the selected local government council led by councilors enjoys the development planning, and service delivery authority as established in the local government law. The findings have confirmed that the case study council enjoyed modest decision making authority in the areas of local development planning, selecting local development strategy, and enjoyed even greater authority over service delivery powers.

ANALISIS DAN ARAHAN PENGEMBANGAN RUANG TERBUKA HIJAU DALAM MENDUKUNG GREEN CITY KOTA UNGARAN KABUPATEN SEMARANG

The provision of Green Open Space (GOS) constitutes an important need for city and as a mandate ofthe Law on Spatial Planning. Ungaran city currently has the width of public GOS under 20%. It makesUngaran city has not yet qualified to become a Green City. The objectives of this study are to identify andanalyze the width and distribution of GOS existing condition; to analyze the needs of Ungaran’s GOSin order to meet the specified conditions of prevailing law; to arrange the plan of GOS based on GreenPlanning concept; and to arrange the design of GOS based on Green Design concept. The analysis willbe conducted by using Patch Analysis method. The analysis of GOS is based on the inhabitant’s needand the wide area, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The GOS mapping result of Ungarancity is 2.190,66 ha which consists of private GOS (2.112,74 ha) and public GOS (77,92 ha). Based onthe total projection of population in 2032, the public GOS need is 292,41 ha. Whereas the needs ofpublic GOS based on the 20% from wide area (612,17 ha). The direction of public GOS developmentbased on green planning is divided into three alternatives, first, based on the balance distribution ofGOS within the area, and land use priority; second, based on the balance distribution of GOS, land usepriority, distance to the residence, minimum width of 250m2, and the complexity of landform; third,based on the consideration of the spatial patterns and regional asset authority. The direction of publicGOS development is based on green design approach to divide the design based on necessity activityand function patterns of public GOS.

Mapping the bigger picture: Using mapping to promote better development outcomes from extractive industries

Governments often grant oil and mining concessions with little or no regard for the potential impact that resource extraction could have on agricultural production. There is often little accessible data available to demonstrate the extent to which oil and mining concessions have been made on agriculture land. The lack of information contributes to poor coordination among government agencies involved in decision-making regarding use of land, which in turn hinders the implementation of effective public policy solutions for reducing conflict and ensuring that natural resource wealth contributes to poverty reduction in rural areas. In this article I argue that geographic mapping of the overlaps between oil and mining concessions and agriculturally productive areas can make a contribution to improving public policy and decision-making regarding land-use priorities. Graphic data can help better inform policy-makers and the public about where concessions are being granted and where potential conflicts with agricultural production may emerge. I discuss two cases in particular where oil and mining activities have come into direct conflict with agriculture: Peru and Ghana.

Regional patterns and controls of biomass in semiarid woodlands: lessons from the Northern Argentina Dry Chaco

Land use change, particularly in forested ecosystems, has a direct impact on the global carbon cycle. Consequently, the regional assessment of biomass and the understanding of its current spatial controls are research priorities for regional ecology and land use. Field data and satellite imagery were combined here to map woodlands and estimate their above-ground biomass (AGB) in the Dry Chaco ecoregion of northern Argentina. Allometric equations were used to derive AGB from diameter at breast height data collected at 50 samples during 2007. In order to generate the AGB regional map, this information was later associated with MODIS-Terra spectral data (NDVI) using the Random Forest (RF) method. Finally, AGB spatial patterns were associated with potential biophysical and human controlling factors through correlation and regression analyses. Results indicate that the use of RF and NDVI of the dry season derived from MODIS-Terra was suitable to map regional AGB, what makes this methodology applicable to other dry woodlands. The RF model used to map AGB showed a mean deviation of 2.9 % and a precision of 15 % for one prediction. At this regional scale of analysis, biophysical rather than human factors controlled AGB spatial patterns, in part because the region includes a wide range of environmental situations. Warmer conditions showed a higher biomass, suggesting an energetic limitation for AGB accumulation. However, human controls (distance to towns, cultivation, and roads) also conditioned AGB patterns, suggesting lower AGB values near cultivated areas. The relation between AGB and water availability was surprisingly weak, but partially obscured by the land use history and degradation due to extensive cattle ranching. We propose that a combination of environmental factor and land use affects the AGB regional patterns and promotes unexpected relationships with environmental factors. This work represents the first spatially explicit AGB (patterns and controls) analysis for an extensive subtropical dry woodland area (113,000 km2) and shows how biophysical and human factors co-control regional patterns.

The spatial pattern of demographic performance as a component of sustainable landscape management and planning

Prioritizing habitat for animal conservation in heterogeneous landscapes requires an understanding of where animal occurrence coincides with human influences on demographic performance. We related broad-scale patterns of occurrence with risk of mortality among female Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus) in a human-modified landscape to develop a spatially-explicit framework for animal conservation at the landscape level. Variability in the spatial pattern of elk occurrence was driven by preference for specific habitat types as well as responses to human activity. In contrast, risk of mortality was a function of human modification of the landscape with little variation explained by habitat. Proximity to industrial development was associated with increased risk of mortality whereas proximity to residences and agricultural structures was associated with decreased risk. Individual-level results revealed added complexity, whereby risk of mortality was associated with a consistent pattern of occurrence relative to industrial development, yet the association between risk and occurrence relative to structures was highly variable and likely a function of disparate land-use priorities. Approaches to managing human-mediated risk at the landscape level are most effective when they decompose human activity into constituent parts influencing risk, and when individual variation relative to the population response is investigated. Conservation interventions need to target factors that have a consistent influence across the population rather than risk uncertainty that would arise from targeting factors that influence individuals in variable or situation-specific ways. The spatial tools developed herein provide guidance for sustainable landscape planning in the study area, while the concept of linking occurrence and demographic performance within a hierarchical modeling framework has general application for animal conservation in landscapes subject to change, human-caused or otherwise.

Managing predators, managing reindeer: contested conceptions of predator policies in Finland's southeast reindeer herding area

ABSTRACTPreserving biodiversity and establishing healthy and thriving populations of predator animals are the expressed aims of many wildlife and ecosystem conservation projects and initiatives. However, such conservation strategies are often in conflict with the traditions, practices and land-use priorities of local communities. This article concentrates on the situation concerning the predation of reindeer (mainly by wolves) in Finland's southeast reindeer herding area and its immediate vicinity, but makes reference to the broader situation of predation and reindeer herding in Finland. Based on analysis of statistics and interviews with local stakeholders, the research findings refer to the intermingled contradictions related to conceptual, statistical and other management relevant knowledge and resulting problems, for example, in conservation hunting licensing. The article concludes that the wolf comprises a complex case for nature conservation initiatives and sustainable reindeer husbandry and that, in practice, it has particular implications compared to other policy approaches to dealing with the problem of animal predators. The article ends with some theoretical considerations as to whether we can improve our understanding of modern human-environment relations by deriving ideas from the actor-network theory debates.

Planning for Industry in a Post-Industrial World

Problem: Many metropolitan jurisdictions face contests over industrial land because growth in the industrial sector is slow while the office and retail sectors and population grow more rapidly. This article presents a methodology for planning and setting priorities for industrial land use under these circumstances. Purpose: This article describes an approach to evaluating market demand for industrial land, applied here to Prince George's County, MD, in order to determine which industrial areas could be rezoned to alternate uses without causing major employment and tax losses to the county. Methods: I led a team that included an urban planning colleague and graduate students in identifying three types of industrial land: economically healthy industrial districts; industrially zoned areas where there was evidence of conflict between industry and alternative residential, commercial, and office land uses; and areas zoned for industry where demand for industrial space and land was weak or nonexistent. The project used data from private data provider CoStar, the U.S. Department of Labor's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, county zoning maps and tax records, Microsoft Map, and Google Map to assign each industrial district to one of five categories of demand, ranging from weakest (no history of industrial demand) to strongest (economically healthy industrial activity). Results and Conclusions: Two estimates, one based on the projected absorption rate of industrial land over the next 10 years, and one on the industrial acreage exhibiting evidence of weak demand, both suggest a similarly large surplus of industrial land in the county. Further, rezoning and redeveloping industrial districts in the three weakest demand categories would cause the county to lose little industrial employment. Thus, all analyses reach consistent conclusions that the county should release some industrially zoned land for other uses while protecting some that is essential to the local economy. Takeaway for Practice: This article presents a methodology for assessing industrial areas to determine where industrially zoned land could be rezoned at little loss to the local economy; where land use conflicts should be addressed with urban design or industrial land protections; and where industrial areas are economically healthy and important components of the regional economy. Comprehensive plans can improve the health of local economies by identifying districts where industrial activities are strong and essential to the regional economy and encouraging investment in those areas while accommodating and protecting them. Research Support: This research evolved out of two years of work for Prince George's County, MD, by a team from the University of Maryland's urban planning program, supported by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Towards a cross-sectoral analysis of land use decision-making in Scotland

This paper presents a cross-sectoral analysis of land use decision-making, undertaken to provide an evidence base for government policy development. Key informant interviews and a quantitative survey were conducted with land managers across Scotland. Analysis of current attitudes towards and priorities for land use was undertaken with private, public and charitable land managers from the farming, forestry, crofting, horticulture and non-commercial land use sectors. Five idealised types were identified: ecological land stewards, economic land stewards, multi-functionalists, community stewards and ‘other’. Consistent attitudinal groups were found across land use sectors, and across Scotland's four geographic regions, suggesting that whereas attitudes and priorities are heterogeneous within specific sectors, similar attitudinal groupings can be identified across these sectors. Findings indicate the particular importance of community and social concern in attitudes and priorities for land use across all sectors. Study findings also demonstrate the professionalisation and formalisation of decision-making processes among large-scale public, private and charitable land managers, in contrast to a perceived lack of access for individual and household-level decision-makers.

To populate or preserve? Evolving political-demographic and environmental paradigms in Israeli land-use policy

There has been a recent proliferation of national land-use policies that emphasize protecting open space and ecosystem integrity. However, countries grappling with internal political conflict, or that are engaged in military conflicts with neighboring countries, have priorities that focus on control of land in areas where state sovereignty is perceived to be threatened. These two concerns, political-demographic control and environmental protection, create very different paradigms for how to think about open space policy. The objective of this paper is to consider the impact of competing paradigms in land-use policy formulation and implementation—one that encourages sprawl and the other that encourages compact development and the preservation of open space. We use Israel as a case study where both political demography and environmental land-use paradigms are currently influencing policy and planning. We explore the historical evolution of both land-use paradigms and consider how they are currently competing in the formulation and execution of land-use policy decisions. We consider how these distinct priorities are playing out in current discourse and policy implementation, and characterize the past, current and prospective future physical outcomes of policies on the landscape. Our goal is to alert policy makers and land-use scholars of the subtle and contradictory influence of political-demographic land-use priorities with regard to their potential impact on the successful implementation of environmental policies. The Israeli case study is indicative of a diversity of countries that have a history of political-demographic land-use policies, but have also begun to adopt environmentally motivated policies.

An application of land suitability evaluation for FTDP: a fuzzy MCDM approach

The main objective of this paper is to carry out Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to arrive at the best alternative by accounting for uncertainties and spatial variability in the various elements. The present paper focuses on addressing uncertainty in the process of land suitability evaluation for horticultural projects area (mountains area in Syria). In this context, both fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS methods are applicable in determining agricultural land-use priorities and can be used in the planning process. Setting priorities or ranking agricultural land use (by area) is a complex task in the frame of sustainable development. All the methodologies are implemented to analyse the suitability of the horticultural crop in different areas in Syria.

Neue Leitbilder der Raumentwicklung

After an intensive discussion within the planning community as well as in the political area the Standing Conference of Ministers responsible for Spatial Planning has decided upon new visions and guidelines for spatial development in Germany. Its main topics are contributions of planning and regional policy to general social and economic tasks like “growth and innovation”, “guaranteeing public services” and “safeguarding natural resources” as well as “shaping cultural landscapes”. The paper wants to explain why the new guidelines indicate an innovative step for spatial planning at the federal level in Germany. The main messages are: The guidelines identify their goals and proposals for action not from a traditional territorial perspective using categories like agglomerations and rural areas. Instead the new strategies refer to prevailing economic, social and environmental challenges like regional competitiveness, demographic change and conflicts on land-use priorities. This signifies a paradigm shift from traditional equity-oriented interventions in favour of rural areas to a stronger emphasis on urban agglomerations and their metropolitan development potentials. The apparent or supposed shift led to continuing political and ideological discussions which are treated in this article.

English

The presence of toxic metals in soils affected by mining, industry, agriculture and urbanization, presents problems to human health, the establishment and maintenance of plant and animal habitats, and the rehabilitation of affected areas. A key to managing these problems is predicting the fraction of metal in a given soil that will be biologically labile, and potentially harmful (‘bioavailable’). The molecular form of metals and metalloids, particularly the uncomplexed (free) form, controls their bioavailability and toxicity in solution. One computational approach for determining bioavailability, the biotic ligand model (BLM), takes into account not only metal complexation by ligands in solution, but also competitive binding of hardness cations (Ca 2+ ,Mg 2+, ) and metal ions to biological receptor sites. The more direct approach to assess bioavailability is to explicitly measure the response of an organism to a contaminant. A number of microbial enzyme tests have been developed to assess the impact of pollution in a rapid and procedurally simple way. These different approaches in making bioavailability predictions may have value in setting landuse priorities, remediation goals, and habitat reclamation strategies. Additional