Long-term Land Use Research Articles

Long-term conversion of upland to paddy increased SOC content and N availability in a sand dune of Japan

Land use change driven by anthropogenic activities has greatly affected terrestrial C and N cycling; however, it remains unclear how dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (N) availability respond to long-term land use change in sand dunes. Here, we investigated the changes in SOC, total nitrogen (TN), and their aerobic and anaerobic decomposition or mineralization in a vinyl film paddy, compared with dry land use and management changes (LUMCs) (original upland, greenhouse, and agricultural forest (tree area)) in Shonai sand dunes, northeast Japan. The vinyl film paddy had been singly cultivated for 54 years. Soil samples were collected from five soil depths (0–10, 10–20, 20–30, 30–40, 40–50 cm) to compare the effects of depth and LUMC among the four treatments. The C decomposition (Dec-C) was assessed as the aerobic CO2 production and anaerobic methane and CO2 productions. Meanwhile, N mineralization (Min-N) was determined as aerobic NH4+ and NO3– production and anaerobic NH4+ production. The results showed that the vinyl film paddy increased SOC and TN contents, Dec-C and Min-N than upland and greenhouses at 0–30 cm depth but lower levels than the tree area at all depths. The arithmetic mean for all depths showed the aerobic Dec-C in the paddy (216.0 mg kg−1) was higher than the corresponding anaerobic Dec-C (192.8 mg kg−1). Conversely, the aerobic Min-N (35.9 mg kg−1) was lower than the anaerobic Min-N (75.7 mg kg−1). There were significantly positive correlations among SOC, TN, aerobic and anaerobic Dec-C and Min-N, whereas the paddy had steeper slope than other three LUMCs. Conclusively, our results indicated that long-term conversion of upland to vinyl film paddy increased SOC and TN accumulation and N availability (Min-N) in Shonai sand dunes, which can be applied as an effective agricultural practice to improve fertility of coastal sandy soils.

Examining the Shift in the Decomposition Channel Structure of the Soil Decomposer Food Web: A Methods Comparison.

Selecting the appropriate indicators and measuring time point numbers is important for accurately examining the shift in soil gross decomposition channel structure. Through a selected case study on a natural forest vs. rainfed arable system over a two-month-long experiment, the utility of three commonly employed indicators (fungi to bacteria ratio (F:B), fungivore to bacterivore ratio (FF:BF), and glucosamine to muramic acid ratio (GlcN:MurN)) were compared to reflect the shift in soil gross decomposition channel structure. The requirement of measuring the time point numbers for the three indicators was also assessed, and we suggest a potential methodology. Our results revealed that the GlcN:MurN ratio was more reliable for assessing the shifts in gross decomposition channel structure for long-term land use changes, while it was less sensitive to short-term drought compared with the other two indicators. The F:B ratio was more applicable than the FF:BF ratio for reflecting both long- and short-term changes. Furthermore, the reliability of the GlcN:MurN ratio was the least dependent on measuring time point numbers. We suggest the use of multiple indicators and the adoption of multiple measuring time points for the overall methodology.

Evaluating the Impact of Long-Term Land Use Change and Age since Disturbance on Soil Faunal Diversity

Soil organisms are the biological drivers of processes and functions that maintain soil properties and ecosystem services. Soil fauna contribute to nutrient turnover, decomposition and other important biogeochemical processes. This investigation assessed the diversity and abundance of soil arthropods (0.1–4 mm) along a chronosequence of land use types covering a relatively small geographical distance but with the same underlying soil type and climatic conditions. The compared habitats and the approximate ages since anthropogenic disturbance were ancient woodland (>200 y), old woodland (<200 y), unimproved semi-natural grassland (>50 y), willow/poplar coppice (>30 y), unimproved permanent pasture (<20 y), improved permanent pasture (<10 y), and recently grazed and reseeded grassland (>2 y), and the soil types of all habitats were the same within a 5 km radius. Land use type and age since anthropogenic disturbance significantly (p < 0.05) influenced the community composition of soil fauna, with richer arthropod communities found in woodlands compared with recently managed grassland. This study has confirmed a significant effect of land use type and age since disturbance on soil faunal diversity and community structure.

Are New Towns Prone to Urban Heat Island Effect? Implications for Planning Form and Function

New town developments aim to improve spatial layout and quality of human habitats in metropolitan areas. However, due to high-density compact development and inadequate long-term land use planning, new towns are vulnerable to urban heat island effects. This study addresses this concern by analyzing five new towns in Shanghai, using spatial pattern analysis to examine morphological conditions of urban heat island and Point-of-Interest datasets to derive functional characteristics. Geodetector is then used to detect the influence of land use function density on urban heat island. Findings reveal that new towns are more prone to urban heat island effects, with core-type dominant in suburban new towns, loop-type in sprawling new towns, and bridge-type in regional new towns. The study proposed targeted strategies based on morphological characteristics, including greenbelt transformations for core-types and using greenbelts to interrupt bridge-type connections. Findings also reveal strong thermal influence from public services, interactive effects of parks with other functions, and lower thermal influence from mixed education and commercial developments. Similar thermal mechanisms stem from spatial proximity and similar development patterns in new towns. Incorporating these target strategies into planning practice enables urban planners and policymakers to develop effective interventions against urban heat island in new towns.

Land Change in Tirthan Valley: The Case of Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area

Humans are dominant agent of landscape change. Off lately, anthropogenic induced changes have visibly degraded environment around the world putting a serious question over the sustainability of both natural and man-made ecosystems. The sustainability of the ecosystems has found to be directly linked to changes in LULC. The present study aims to analyse long-term land use change in the Tirthan Valley of Himachal Pradesh; the region is a part of protected area collectively known as GHNPCA. With the help of multi-temporal satellite images of LANDSAT, this study reconstructs the trajectory of land changes over a period of five decades. The data shows an increase in forest cover (7.29%), rocky/barren land (45.35%), agriculture/horticulture land (28.94%) and settlement/ built-up (190.48%) while decrease in pasture/open land (29.97%), snow cover (56.14%) and river/water body (54.52%). The results have shown significant land changes in post protected area status.

Greenery change and its impact on human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka: a model-based assessment using Sentinel-2 imagery

ABSTRACT Human-elephant conflict (HEC) is a significant conservation issue for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and an environmental and socioeconomic crisis in elephant range countries, including Sri Lanka. Approximately 14,897 HEC incidents were recorded in Sri Lanka between 2015 and 2021. In this study, we present a Sri Lanka-wide analysis to explore the impact of greenery change on HEC. Our sources were official government data, and land use and land cover maps developed using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. We applied the support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and object-based image analysis classifications to classify land cover into six categories. This classification scheme also considered the differences observed in Sri Lanka’s woody vegetation, consisting of forest, open forest, paddy fields, homestead gardens, and other crops. Analysis of the accuracies of the three types of classifiers confirmed that the supervised classification with two machine learning algorithms, RF and SVM, delivered a higher level of precision in land cover classification. RF was the best option, with a 97.34% overall accuracy and a 0.94 kappa coefficient, while SVM recorded a 94.68% overall accuracy and a 0.89 kappa coefficient. According to the findings, most HEC incidences were recorded in open forests (54%), while 62% were recorded within 2 km of the forest edge. Results indicated that HEC coincides with the human-occupied changed landscape adjacent to forest reservations and patches. The findings could be valuable for HEC management by identifying areas where elephants are most likely to conflict with humans, and the government may declare these as protected areas. Also, we propose an early warning system as an effective approach that helps detect and monitor elephant herds’ movement. Therefore, implementing long-term land use planning is crucial for protecting the forest and natural habitats, restoring elephant habitats, and mitigating HEC by minimizing human encroachment and promoting sustainable land use practices.

Changes in the water retention of mountainous landscapes since the 1820s in the Austrian Alps

Interactions of humans with the environment are strongly related to land use and land cover changes (LULCCs). In the last decades, these changes have led to a degradation of ecosystem services, including water regulation and flood control. In the Alpine areas of Austria, land cover changes have increased flood risk since the middle of the 19th century. In this paper, we assess the influence of these long-term land use changes on the landscape’s ability to retain water using the qualitative Water Retention Index (WRI). The changes are thereby evaluated on the basis of the historical (1826–1859) and present (2016) land cover situation, which is to our knowledge the first high-resolution and regional application of the WRI. The results show that the water retention potential mimics the mountainous characteristic and features. Except for areas strongly dominated by settlement areas, the highest retention potentials are found in valley floors and the lowest values are depicted along the main Alpine complex. In low-lying areas, the retention decreased by over 10%. It was found that this decrease can be mostly attributed to settlement expansion. Above 1,250 m, land use transformations led to slightly increasing water retention values owing to the transformation of wasteland or glaciers to stagnant waters and to the expansion of forest and grassland in high elevations. This examination allows for a holistic and spatially distributed LULCC impact assessment on the landscape’s water regulation capacities and offers valuable high-resolution information for future land use planning and sustainable land development.

Relationships between land use types and urban heat island intensity in Hulu Langat district, Selangor, Malaysia

BackgroundUrban heat island (UHI) is an urban climate phenomenon that primarily responds to urban conditions and land use change. The extent of hard surfaces significantly influences the thermal properties of the land. To address this issue, a novel approach quantifying the association between land use and UHI is developed. This study offers a new technique for effectively estimating the effect of land use on the UHI intensity using the combination of urban heat intensity index (UHII) and land contribution index (LCI) derived from Landsat 8 OLI images. The time-series thermal effect of land use on the UHI intensity can be determined according to the ratio in mean temperature between specific land use and the whole study site. The study was conducted in the Hulu Langat district, Malaysia during 2014–2021.ResultsThe UHI intensity rose from 0.19 in 2014 to 0.70 in 2021. The negative value of LCI for vegetation areas and water bodies obtained its negative contribution to the urban heat island, while the positive value of LCI for bare areas and built-up areas showed its positive effect on the urban heat island. The LCI value for urban areas showed a significant increase in the 7 years such as 0.51, 0.66, 0.69, and 0.75 for periods 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021, respectively. The change in LCI from 2014 to 2021 for the transformation of bare area and forest was recorded to be 0.23 and − 0.02, respectively. Thus, the conversion of forests into urban areas had a negative effect on the increment of UHI intensity. ConclusionsOverall, these findings are useful for policy-making agency in developing an effective policy for reducing high UHI intensity and planning long-term land use management.

Land use allocation based on multi-goal linear programming model: a case study of Central Luzon State University

Allocating and reallocating land resources is critical to a long-term land use planning and is a key component to achieve a balanced land use system. This provides appropriate space for varied land uses while preserving the environment for future generations. It is found to be an excellent measure for development and sustainability of an area. Using multiple goal linear programming as a decision support system, this study highlighted the optimization of land use allocation at Central Luzon State University to meet the needs for sustainable development. All the seven (7) general land use classifications determined in the University: agricultural, institutional, residential, commercial, fisheries (pond/fish tanks), roads and open areas were assessed in crafting the Land Use Development and Infrastructure Plan (LUDIP) for 2021 to 2031. The findings demonstrated that the priority goals set by the CLSU constituents: (1) minimizing disaster risk, (2) maximizing land suitability, (3) maximizing research capability, maximizing social development, and maximizing economic value were achieved with the aid of Gurobi. Agricultural and commercial growth, residential, social, and infrastructure development for all constituents, research development, climate change adaptation, and cultural heritage preservation were all aided by the land use optimization in the LUDIP.

Simulation Analysis of Land-Use Spatial Conflict in a Geopark Based on the GMOP–Markov–PLUS Model: A Case Study of Yimengshan Geopark, China

The foundation for accurately understanding regional land-use structures and pursuing the coordination of human–land relations is the scientific identification and simulation of temporal and spatial evolution patterns of land-use spatial conflict (LUSC). Based on the production–living–ecological space (PLES) perspective, a land-use spatial conflict identification and intensity diagnosis model (LUCSII) was constructed using a landscape ecology index. The methods of geographic information system (GIS), spatial autocorrelation analysis, and mathematical statistics were used to achieve the spatial pattern of LUSC over the last 20 years, and the GMOP–Markov–PLUS model was used to simulate the evolution of LUSC in the future under various scenarios. The results indicated that our established LUCSII could accurately identify potential land-use spatial conflict areas in geoparks. The GMOP–Markov–PLUS model constructed had also scientifically predicted the future land-use patterns under different scenarios, successfully demonstrating the changing process of spatial conflict pattern evolution. The research proposed three different plans for the long-term land use of YG, including ecological protection, economic development, and long-term development perspectives. Finally, the research further emphasized the importance for sustainable development of geoparks. More attention should be paid to the optimal allocation of land-use structure and the coordinated development of human–land relationships.

Evaluating future habitat quality responding to land use change under different city compaction scenarios in Southern China

Rapid urban expansion, accompanied by intense landscape changes, significantly affects natural habitats. Promoting sustainable urban development, such as the compact city strategy, is essential to balance ecosystem conservation and socio-economic development. Previous studies have generally focused on exploring the ecosystem impact of urban expansion concerning the future projections of climate, population, and economic development. Less attention has been paid to how different urban forms modify the landscape and affect habitats at a fine resolution. This study has built a framework to demonstrate future land use change under various city compaction scenarios using a bottom-up Cellular Automata (CA) model and a top-down Markov model. Then the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model was incorporated to evaluate the resultant habitat quality. By taking the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) as the study area, three future compact city scenarios in 2040 and 2060 were proposed to examine the accumulative effect of urban growth. The results show that by 2040, the high-compact scenario will cause the highest habitat quality degradation among all scenarios due to marked cropland displacement induced by urban edge expansion. By 2060, intensified medium or low-compact scenarios tend to create new urban clusters outside the existing urban areas, resulting in severe habitat isolation and fragmentation. The GBA presents significant spatial heterogeneity in habitat quality variation because of the uneven development between the core and key node cities. Our results suggest that a collaborative strategy should be promoted to motivate the unique advantages of each city. This could include maintaining the amount and connectivity of open space under city integration processes and reserving high-quality cropland, such as fish-pod-based agriculture, to mitigate habitat quality degradation. This study can provide insights for developing long-term land use management when applying compact city strategies to balance ecological conservation and urban development needs.

Effect of long-term land use on the nosZI- and nosZII-containing microbial communities

Nitrous oxide (N2O) reduction plays a crucial role in mitigating N2O emissions from terrestrial ecosystems, but the function and distribution pattern of nosZI- and nosZII-containing N2O reducers in different land use remains largely unexplored. Here, soil samples were collected from a long-term land use experiment, including conventional agriculture (CA), tea planting (TP), natural forest (NF), and pine forest (PF). Soil potential N2O-reducing ability, and the abundance and community composition of nosZI and nosZII genes were determined. Both the N2O reducing capacity and the abundance of nosZI and nosZII genes followed the order of CA > TP > NF > PF, and the nosZII abundance was significantly higher than that of nosZI in all samples. Although different land use induced significant shifts in the community structure of both nosZI and nosZII-containing N2O reducers, their response strategies were different. Approximately 37 %–61 % of the total nosZI OTUs were shared by all land use types, and these common OTUs contributed over 90 % of the total relative abundance. In contrast, the proportion of the common nosZII OTUs varied widely from 7 % (CA) to 51 % (PF), and the corresponding relative abundance shifted from 37 % (CA) to 94 % (NF). In conclusion, agricultural practices significantly increased the abundance and capacity of N2O reducers. The nosZI-containing community was relatively stable, while that of nosZII was more sensitive to different land use.

GIS-based data-driven bivariate statistical models for landslide susceptibility prediction in Upper Tista Basin, India

Predicting landslides is becoming a crucial global challenge for sustainable development in mountainous areas. This research compares the landslide susceptibility maps (LSMs) prepared from five GIS-based data-driven bivariate statistical models, namely, (a) Frequency Ratio (FR), (b) Index of Entropy (IOE), (c) Statistical Index (SI), (d) Modified Information Value Model (MIV) and (e) Evidential Belief Function (EBF). These five models were tested in the high landslides-prone humid sub-tropical type Upper Tista basin of the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya by integrating the GIS and remote sensing. The landslide inventory map consisting of 477 landslide locations was prepared, and about 70% of all landslide data was utilized for training the model, and 30% was used to validate it after training. A total of fourteen landslide triggering parameters (elevation, slope, aspect, curvature, roughness, stream power index, TWI, distance to stream, distance to road, NDVI, LULC, rainfall, modified fournier index, and lithology) were taken into consideration for preparing the LSMs. The multicollinearity statistics revealed no collinearity problem among the fourteen causative factors used in this study. Based on the FR, MIV, IOE, SI, and EBF approaches, 12.00%, 21.46%, 28.53%, 31.42%, and 14.17% areas, respectively, identified in the high and very high landslide-prone zones. The research also revealed that the IOE model has the highest training accuracy of 95.80%, followed by SI (92.60%), MIV (92.20%), FR (91.50%), and EBF (89.90%) models. Consistent with the actual distribution of landslides, the very high, high, and medium hazardous zones stretch along the Tista River and major roads. The suggested landslide susceptibility models have enough accuracy for usage in landslide mitigation and long-term land use planning in the study area. Decision-makers and local planners may utilise the study's findings. The techniques for determining landslide susceptibility can also be employed in other Himalayan regions to manage and evaluate landslide hazards.

Long-term land use and tillage influence on phosphorus species in Brazilian Oxisols: A multi-technique assessment by chemical P fractionation, 31P NMR and P K-edge XANES spectroscopies

Phosphorus (P) interacts with soil constituents in many ways, forming compounds of distinct stabilities in a number of chemical inorganic and organic forms. The identification of these P compounds in tropical agro-ecosystems is especially relevant to understanding potential P availability in these common P-fixing soils, providing information to improve P use efficiency. In this study, we investigated P partitioning and speciation in Brazilian Cerrado Oxisols under different management systems using a combination of sequential chemical P fractionation (SPF), P K-edge XANES and 31P NMR spectroscopy. Topsoil (0–10 cm) samples were obtained from soils under three management regimes, including native vegetation (Cerrado), no-tillage (NT), and conventional tillage (CT) agriculture. Four representative agricultural sites in the Brazilian Cerrado were selected: Ox-1 (Costa Rica-MS), Ox-2 (Sapezal-MT), Ox-3 (Cristalina-GO) and Ox-4 (Tasso Fragoso-MA). In all sites, the soils are classified as Typic Hapludox, varying in cultivation time, soil clay content and oxide types. Long-term cultivation in NT and CT led to large P accumulation in the soil. Chemical P fractionation indicated that labile P was the smallest pool at all sites. P K-edge XANES showed that P is mostly sorbed to the Fe and Al hydr(oxides), goethite, hematite and gibbsite. It also showed that phytate was the predominant organic P species, depleting in sequence from native vegetation to NT and CT management systems. 31P NMR showed that monoester P was present in all soils and management systems, whereas diester-P was found only in soils under native vegetation. The combined use of SPF, XANES and 31P NMR data was necessary to fully understand inorganic and organic P chemistry and reactivity in these tropical agricultural croplands.

Utilizing historical maps in identification of long-term land use and land cover changes

Knowledge in the magnitude and historical trends in land use and land cover (LULC) is needed to understand the changing status of the key elements of the landscape and to better target management efforts. However, this information is not easily available before the start of satellite campaign missions. Scanned historical maps are a valuable but underused source of LULC information. As a case study, we used U-Net to automatically extract fields, mires, roads, watercourses, and water bodies from scanned historical maps, dated 1965, 1984 and 1985 for our 900 km^2 study area in Southern Finland. We then used these data, along with the topographic databases from 2005 and 2022, to quantify the LULC changes for the past 57 years. For example, the total area of fields decreased by around 27 km^2, and the total length of watercourses increased by around 2250 km in our study area.

Foragers in Transition: The Middle Archaic in the Northern Rio Grande Valley

Current research on the Southwest Archaic has focused on understanding the origins of agriculture and the transition from foraging to farming economies. This transition varied widely across the region depending on the local setting. However, significantly fewer studies have given their attention to understanding the process leading up to the initial use of cultigens. We present the results of our research on the Middle Archaic occupation in the Northern Rio Grande valley circa 3500 to 1500 B.C. A comparison of grassland and woodland areas reveals a complementary pattern of long-term land use between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, a pattern that is also represented by two separate historical trajectories which provided alternative opportunities for these foraging groups.

Blasting Quarry Operations: Land Use Compatibility Issues and Potential Property Value Impacts

Aggregate resources are essential for road and building construction. In 2019, the US domestic production reached 1.53 billion tons of crushed stone valued at $18.7 billion produced by an estimated 1,430 companies operating 3,440 quarries, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries. But, it is also recognized that a quarry blasting below the water table is one of the most noxious, toxic and destructive uses of land, with no reasonable prospect of post-extraction-rehabilitation. If permitted and established in the wrong geographic location, a blasting quarry operation can result in significant deleterious impacts on the environment and local inhabitants and can disrupt short and long-term land use planning objectives. Because a quarry can remain operational for 100+ years, impacting five or more generations; quarries have the potential to cause permanent environmental degradation, destabilize communities, damage, sterilize or diminish the use and enjoyment of residential and non-residential properties, and reduce property values. Blasting is the preferred method of extracting rock in a quarry operation, the consequences of which can lead to environmental and property damage, and to injury or death of human and non-human life. In North America, licensing and operational oversight of a pit or quarry are primarily controlled by the individual states, territories and provinces, and address matters of compliance, while issues related to land use planning and zoning are entirely within the jurisdiction of the local municipalities, counties or regions. Accordingly, this research paper seeks to inform land use planners of the importance of protecting the environment and its inhabitants from the adverse effects, including the diminution in property values, associated with aggregate extraction operations generally and blasting quarries specifically, through the use of permanent onsite setbacks and offsite separation distances to avoid land use incompatibility and sensitive land uses.

Assessment of long-term land use and land cover change effects on soil erosion and soil organic carbon stock in humid ecosystem condition

This study examined the consequences of land use and cover (LULC) changes on soil erosion and soil organic carbon in the Ünye district of Ordu province in the Central Black Sea Region where humid conditions prevailed in 1999, 2009, and 2019. GIS-based Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) modeling approach, geostatistics and remote sensing techniques were employed in the study. According to the results considering the long years in the study area, the most relative change among LULC species was hazelnut fields with an increase of 167%. In this process, it has been determined that there are few spatial changes that occurred in artificial areas and pasture lands. In addition, in the classes of soil erosion rates defined by RUSLE, the areas classified as Very Low–Low (< 5 tons ha−1 year−1) for many years inhabit the largest area in the study area. The loss in the amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) is determined to have occurred mostly in areas with Very Low and Low erosion rates. However, it has been determined that SOC loss ensues in areas with Very High (> 20 tons ha−1 year−1) erosion rates, albeit slightly. Therefore, even in the areas with very slight erosion, soil conservation practices should be expanded to secure the long-term sustainability of the production system, especially in agriculture and hazelnut areas.

Spatiotemporal Land Use/Land Cover Mapping and Prediction Based on Hybrid Modeling Approach: A Case Study of Kano Metropolis, Nigeria (2020–2050)

The change dynamics of land use/land cover (LULC) is a vital factor that significantly modifies the natural environment. Therefore, mapping and predicting spatiotemporal LULC transformation is crucial in effectively managing the built environment toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11, which seeks to make cities all-inclusive, sustainable, and reliable. The study aims to examine the change dynamics of LULC in Kano Metropolis, Nigeria from 1991 to 2020 and predict the city’s future land uses over the next 15 and 30 years, i.e., 2035 and 2050. The maximum likelihood algorithm (MLA) of the supervised classification method was utilized to classify the study area’s land uses using Landsat satellite data and various geographic information system (GIS) techniques. A hybrid simulation model comprising cellular automata and Markov chain (CA-Markov) was then employed in validating and modeling the change dynamics of future LULC. The model integrated the spatial continuity of the CA model with the Markov chain’s ability to address the limitations of individual models in simulating long-term land use prediction. The study revealed substantial changes in the historical LULC pattern of Kano metropolis from 1991 to 2020. It indicated a considerable decline in the city’s barren land from approximately 413.47 km2 in 1991 to 240.89 km2 in 2020. Built-up areas showed the most extensive development over the past 29 years, from about 66.16 km2 in 1991 to 218.72 km2 in 2020. This trend of rapid urban growth is expected to continue over the next three decades, with prediction results indicating the city’s built-up areas expanding to approximately 307.90 km2 in 2035 and 364.88 km2 in 2050. The result also suggests that barren lands are anticipated to decline further with the continuous sustenance of various agricultural activities, while vegetation and water bodies will slightly increase between 2020 and 2050. The findings of this study will help decision-makers and city administrators formulate sustainable land use policies for a more inclusive, safe, and resilient city.

Linking soil microbial community with the changes in soil physicochemical properties in response to long-term agricultural land use change of different chronosequences and depth layers

Agricultural land use changes are essential in addressing global urbanization demands. The improper management of agricultural land may lead to the alteration of the microbial ecosystem, which ultimately affects soil quality. Here, we assessed how soil microbial diversity, communities, and physicochemical properties in three layers of soil; upper (0–15 cm), middle (15–30 cm), and lower (30–45 cm), responded to a long-term land use change from paddy land (PL) to dry land of different chronosequences; PD3 (3 years), PD5 (5 years), and PD10 (10 years). We found PL conversion into dry lands increased soil pH, soil 3 phase R-value, bulk density (BD), organic matter (OM), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and decreased electrical conductivity (EC), water holding capacity (WHC), and moisture content (MC) in all three layers. The land use change from PL to dry lands initially (PD3) decreased (11–25 %) bacterial diversity, while it significantly increased in PD5 (0.1–16 %), and PD10 (1–14 %) in all three layers. Unlike bacterial diversity, fungal diversity was high in PD5 in the upper layer, while the middle and lower layer was the least affected. We also found the conversion of PL to dry land altered relative abundance (RA) of bacteria on the upper layer, while RA of fungi was reshaped in all three layers. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient showed that MC, OM, pH, R-value, TN, TP, and WHC were important physicochemical factors, which significantly (P < 0.05) influenced Nitrospirae, Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria, and Basidiomycota composition. Briefly, our study show that land use change initially (3 years) caused huge changes in the microbiome, which improved somehow in further years (5 and 10 years), and we conclude that land use changes impact positively on functional biodiversity and biological quality of the soil.