Optimal Land Use Research Articles

Alokasi Pemanfaatan Lahan Komoditas Unggulan Tanaman Pangan di Kabupaten Purwakarta

Purwakarta Regency is one of the regencies in West Java Province that plays an essential role in agricultural development. One of the efforts to encourage sustainable agricultural development is by developing potential commodities so that scenarios can be drawn up that are in accordance with the region's potential. Optimum land use scenarios with several constraint targets need to be prepared by considering food needs, ecological sustainability, and farm income. This study aims to identify land available for food commodities and simulate the land use allocation of food commodities in Purwakarta Regency to meet food needs, farm income, and tolerance for erosion. Location quotient index, shift-share analysis, land suitability & capability analysis, and Multiple Goals Programming were used to achieve research objectives. The identified leading commodities are peanuts, cassava, and sweet potato. We suggest 15 classes of land available for optimum land use allocation. Space optimization is organized into four scenarios considering erosion control targets, meeting farmers' minimum incomes, and rice production. The smallest erosion is 13,159 tons/ha/year, while the highest possible income is IDR300,500,000,000. The highest rice production is 202.070 tonsGKP, cassava production is 16,919 tons, sweet potato is 2.014 tons, and peanut production is 531 tons. Achieving production targets can support agricultural development and food security improvement programs through sustainable production improvement. Keywords: erosion, farming, income, land suitability, MGP

Variation in shear strength of soil-root system under five typical land use types on the Loess Plateau of China

Shear strength of soil-root system (SRSS) is one of the most useful dynamic properties for evaluating soil erodibility and structural stability. The adjustment of land use may strongly affect SRSS by altering soil properties and plant root system. Few studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of land use on SRSS in semi-arid region. This study was performed to quantify the variation in SRSS with five typical land use types (cropland, orchard, grassland, shrub land and woodland) and identify the related dominant contributing factors on the Loess Plateau where land use has changed greatly in the past several decades. In-situ shear tests with large shear box (25 × 25 × 10 cm) were conducted to measure shear stress-displacement curves. The strain energy calibrated to 15 % soil water content (SEc), peak shear stress (PSS) and the displacement of peak shear stress (DPS) calculated from the curves were used to reflect SRSS. The results showed that woodland had the maximum SEc (124.4 J m−2) and PSS (1048.6 kPa), whereas cropland had the minimum SEc (65.6 J m−2) and DPS (7.2 mm). Woodland, especially coniferous species and its mixed forest, might be the most suitable land use type for vegetation restoration on the Loess Plateau to enhance soil erodibility or structural stability. The variation in SRSS with land use was closely related to the changes in soil properties and root traits. PSS increased with penetration resistance, while it decreased with soil water content. DPS was positive correlated to root biomass and morphological traits. SEc was mainly affected by the direct and indirect effects of root surface area density, penetration resistance, soil organic matter content and aggregate stability. The results are helpful for understanding the mechanical mechanism of vegetation restored soils to mitigate erosion and optimizing land use type in semi-arid region.

Economic efficiency of land reclamation and challenges to its development: Evidence from the Republic of Tatarstan

Subject. This article deals with the issues of optimal use of agricultural land. Objectives. The article aims to develop measures aimed at the development of irrigated agriculture in the Republic of Tatarstan. Methods. For the study, we used the abstract-logical, empirical, and statistical methods, and a case study approach. Results. The article assesses the economic efficiency of irrigation reclamation in the Republic of Tatarstan and proposes certain measures to accelerate the development of the reclamation industry in Russia. Conclusions. In the context of geopolitical risks and the sanctions regime, the development of agriculture is of strategic importance for the preservation of Russia's economic independence.

Estimation of Ecosystem Services Value at a Basin Scale Based on Modified Equivalent Coefficient: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin (Henan Section), China

The value of ecosystem services is an extremely important parameter that reflects regional ecological benefits and resources. Estimating the value of ecosystem services is essential for regional land-use optimization, ecological construction, and biodiversity protection. In this study, Landsat-TM/ETM remote sensing images were used to analyze land-use data in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 of the Yellow River Basin (Henan section), China, defined by natural boundaries. An equivalent factor method was used to construct a model to calculate the ecosystem services value that introduced grain yield, regional difference coefficient, and social development stage coefficient. Thus, land-use changes and evolution of ecosystem services values in the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) in the past 30 years were analyzed. Land use in the basin changed significantly from 1990 to 2020. Except for an increase in area of construction land, areas of other land-use types decreased. Cultivated land area first increased and then decreased, whereas the water area first decreased and then increased. The total value of ecosystem services in the study area fluctuated but increased overall by 43.82 × 108 USD in the past 30 years. Spatially, the total value of ecosystem services was high in the southwest and low in the northeast. Among individual ecosystem service values, water conservation, gas regulation, and climate regulation accounted for a relatively high proportion of the total value. Regulation services were the main ecosystem service functions, followed by support and supply services, with cultural services accounting for the lowest proportion. Sensitivity coefficients of different land types in different periods were all less than one. Therefore, the value coefficients were reasonable, and the results were consistent with the actual situation of the study area. The study improves the method to estimate the ecosystem services value of the basin and also indicates ways to support ecological protection of the Yellow River Basin (Henan section), China.

Modelling crop production, river low flow, and sediment load trade-offs under agroforestry land-use scenarios in Nyangores catchment, Kenya

The largest impact of land-use change on catchment hydrology can be linked to deforestation. This change, driven by exponential population growth, intensified food and industrial production, has resulted in alterations in river flow regimes such as high peaks, reduced base flows, and silt deposition. To reverse this trend more extensive management practices are becoming increasingly important, but can also lead to severe losses in agricultural production. Land-use optimization tools can help catchment managers to explore numerous land-use configurations for the evaluation of trade-offs amongst various uses. In this study, the Soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model was coupled with a genetic algorithm to identify land-use/management configurations with minimal trade-offs between environmental objectives (reduced sediment load, increased stream low flow) and the crop yields of maize and soybean in Nyangores catchment (Kenya). During the land-use optimization, areas under conventional agriculture could either remain as they are or change to agroforestry or conservation agriculture (CA), where the latter was represented by introducing contour farming and vegetative filter strips. From the sets of the resulting Pareto-optimal solutions we selected mid-range solutions, representing a fair compromise among all objectives, for further analysis. We found that a combined measure implementation strategy (agroforestry on certain sites and conservation agriculture on other sites within the catchment) proved to be superior over single measure implementation strategies. On the catchment scale, a 3.6% change to forests combined with a 35% change to CA resulted in highly reduced sediment loads (−78%), increased low flow (+14%) and only slightly decreased crop yields (<4%). There was a tendency of the genetic algorithm to implement more extensive management practices in the upper part of the catchment while leaving conventional agriculture in the lower part. Our study shows that a spatially targeted implementation strategy for different conservation management practices can remarkably improve environmental sustainability with only marginal trade-offs in crop production at the catchment-level. Incentive policies such as payments for ecosystem services (PES), considering upstream and downstream stakeholders, could offer a practical way to effect these changes.

Identification of Land Use Conflicts in Shandong Province from an Ecological Security Perspective

Accurate identification of land use conflicts is an important prerequisite for the rational allocation of land resources and optimizing the production–living–ecological space pattern. Previous studies used suitability assessment and landscape pattern indices to identify land use conflicts. However, research on land use conflict identification from the perspective of ecological security is insufficient and not conducive to regional ecological, environmental protection, and sustainable development. Based on ecological security, this study takes Shandong Province as an example and comprehensively evaluates the importance of ecosystem service function and environmental sensitivity. It identifies the ecological source, and extracts ecological corridors with a minimum cumulative resistance model from which ecological security patterns are constructed. It identifies land use conflicts through spatial overlay analysis of arable land and construction land. The results show that: (1) Shandong Province has formed an ecological security pattern of “two ecological barriers, two belts, and eight cores” with an area of 15,987 km2. (2) The level of arable land–ecological space conflict is low, at 39.76%. The proportions of serious and moderate conflicts are 13.44% and 26.97%, respectively, distributed primarily on the Jiaodong Peninsula and the low hill areas of Ludong. (3) Construction land–ecological space conflict is reasonably stable and controllable, at 76.39%, occurring mainly around urban construction land, with serious and moderate conflict concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, mainly between rural settlements and ecologically safe space in the region. This study has important theoretical and practical reference values for identifying land use conflicts, protecting regional ecological security, and optimizing land use patterns.

A Syntactical Spatio-Functional Analysis of Four Typical Historic Chinese Towns from a Heritage Tourism Perspective

This study presents a quantitative approach to exploring the spatio-functional characteristics of historic Chinese towns (HCTs) from a heritage tourism perspective. In recent years, HCTs have evolved from being resident-oriented to being more tourist-oriented, in part due to their heritage significance for attracting tourists. Spatio-functional qualities of a historic town are essential elements of the town’s urban morphology and of great concern for preservation. Previous studies that discussed this issue often used qualitative descriptions, and only limited studies have systematically explored the spatio-functional qualities of HCTs. Thus, there is presently a lack of understanding around this issue, especially based on rigorous quantitative approaches. This study examines the spatio-functional qualities of HCTs using space syntax, a commonly used method in urban studies that enables measurement of spatial characteristics through mathematical means. Four HCTs with heritage significance, Pingyao, Lijiang, Kulangsu, and Wuzhen, were selected as case studies. The study has examined the role of heritage tourism and the results show that tourist-focused functions tend to distribute and aggregate in the urban core of HCTs. By contrast, cultural relics are freely distributed and not expanded over time. Spatio-functional patterns of the four HCTs were theorised, and the paper concludes with suggestions regarding future land-use optimisation for the four HCTs concerning heritage tourism.

PROBLEMS OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND NATURE PROTECTION IN THE KACHAVA RIVER BASIN

The modern irrational use of water and land resources has led to a violation of the ecological balance, the destruction of natural landscape complexes of river valleys and the territories adjacent to them, and the pollution of water bodies. The basin as a special spatial unit of the biosphere is the most promising for the multi-faceted study of nature, economy, and nature management.
 The purpose of the research is to analyze the structure of land use in the Kachava River basin, the peculiarities of agricultural, industrial, transport and recreational nature use, their impact on the environment, the level of anthropogenic transformation of geosystems, the development of land use optimization measures.
 Thanks to the analysis of the structure of land use in the Kachava River basin, it was found that it deviates significantly from scientifically based norms (anthropogenically transformed territories predominate (72.9%), including arable land (62.2%). Excessively high and ecologically dangerous plowing of land was found: in many cases, the land is plowed up to the river bed, because of this, the eco-corridors in the basin, which are an important link of the eco-network, are cut off. The coefficient of anthropogenic transformation of the geosystems of the Kachava River basin was calculated (according to the method of P. Shishchenko), which is equal to 7.2 and indicates a high level of transformation of the geosystems of the studied territory.
 A positive balance of greenhouse gases has been established in the river basin due to a large share of arable land (1079 tons of CO2 per year), as well as due to the operation of livestock complexes (approximately 300 tons of CO2 per year) due to internal fermentation and processing of manure.
 The impact of industrial facilities on the environment was analyzed and measures to reduce the negative impact were proposed. The level of traffic load in all settlements of the Kachava River basin was studied. The calculation method established an excess of average CO emissions from motor vehicles in the villages of Romanivka, Malyi Khodachkiv, and Kolodiivka.
 The recreational load and recreational capacity of the territory were studied. The ecological condition of the Kachava River, Romanivskyi, Kolodiivskyi and Malochodachkivskyi ponds was analyzed according to physical and hydrobiological (Wudivis method) indicators.
 Measures to optimize land use in the Kachava river basin are proposed: it is proposed to reduce arable land by 97.65 hectares (5.7%) mainly due to afforestation; creation of two new protected objects (a landscape reserve near the village of Malyi Khodachkiv and a botanical reserve in the forest in the village of Romanivka). The submitted proposal will contribute to increasing the share of ecostabilization lands under natural vegetation from 27 to 33% of the total area of the river basin and achieving the formation of a continuous ecocorridor that will connect the objects of the nature reserve fund.
 Key words: nature resource management, optimization, anthropogenic transformation, river basin, ecological situation.

An improved non-dominated sorting biogeography-based optimization algorithm for multi-objective land-use allocation: a case study in Kigali-Rwanda

ABSTRACT With the continuous increase of rapid urbanization and population growth, sustainable urban land-use planning is becoming a more complex and challenging task for urban planners and decision-makers. Multi-objective land-use allocation can be regarded as a complex spatial optimization problem that aims to achieve the possible trade-offs among multiple and conflicting objectives. This paper proposes an improved Non-dominated Sorting Biogeography-Based Optimization (NSBBO) algorithm for solving the multi-objective land-use allocation problem, in which maximum accessibility, maximum compactness, and maximum spatial integration were formulated as spatial objectives; and space syntax analysis was used to analyze the potential movement patterns in the new urban planning area of the city of Kigali, Rwanda. Efficient Non-dominated Sorting (ENS) algorithm and crossover operator were integrated into classical NSBBO to improve the quality of non-dominated solutions, and local search ability, and to accelerate the convergence speed of the algorithm. The results showed that the proposed NSBBO exhibited good optimal solutions with a high hypervolume index compared to the classical NSBBO. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm could generate optimal land use scenarios according to the preferred objectives, thus having the potential to support the decision-making of urban planners and stockholders in revising and updating the existing detailed master plan of land use.

Determinants of Maize Production and Its Supply Response in Kenya

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an essential crop in Kenya and its production has a direct implication on food and economic security. However, in Kenya, there is a gap between what is being produced and what is being consumed. This gap is growing and, hence, remains a policy concern. Under this backdrop, this study aimed to estimate thecombined contribution of maize area harvested, expenditure on fertilizers,number of tractors used, and maize seed quantity to national maize productionin Kenya using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Nerlove Model. The findings indicate that maize production in Kenya is negatively associated with maize area harvested, expenditure on fertilizers, and the number of tractors used. However, there is a positive relationship between maize production and maize seed quantity. The response of maize production depicted that the price of maize in the previous period determined the production levels in the current period positively; however, as we move further away, the price level in the fourth period depicted a negative relationship. This study recommended that the government provide an adequate quantity of maize seeds to boost maize production. It also recommended that farmers be educated on the proper use of fertilizers and the optimum use of tractors and land. Furthermore, the government needs to ensure a favorable and stable price for farmers to contribute to increased maize production.

Factory Extraction from Satellite Images: Benchmark and Baseline

Factory extraction from satellite images is a key step in urban factory planning, and plays a crucial role in ecological protection and land-use optimization. However, factory extraction is greatly underexplored in the existing literature due to the lack of large-scale benchmarks. In this paper, we contribute a challenging benchmark dataset named SFE4395, which consists of 4395 satellite images acquired from Google Earth. The features of SFE4395 include rich multiscale factory instances and a wide variety of factory types, with diverse challenges. To provide a strong baseline for this task, we propose a novel bidirectional feature aggregation and compensation network called BACNet. In particular, we design a bidirectional feature aggregation module to sufficiently integrate multiscale features in a bidirectional manner, which can improve the extraction ability for targets of different sizes. To recover the detailed information lost due to multiple instances of downsampling, we design a feature compensation module. The module adds the detailed information of low-level features to high-level features in a guidance of attention manner. In additional, a point-rendering module is introduced in BACNet to refine results. Experiments using SFE4395 and public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed BACNet against state-of-the-art methods.

ECOLOGICAL SECURITY MEASUREMENT BASED ON FUNCTIONALITY-ORGANIZATION-STABILITY IN INLAND OF THREE GORGES RESERVOIR AREA

The spatial-temporal heterogeneity of landscape ecological security has been carried out for the Zhong County in this work based on the framework of “functionality-organization-stability” using the multidate Landsat TM image of 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018 as the basic data. During the research period, landscape ecological security situation in Zhong County indicates a trend of deteriorating. The high ecological security zone was constantly shifting to the low ecological security zone from 2000 to 2018. The ratios were 13.40%, 61.32%, 28.34%, and 13.33%. The low ecological security area in research area focuses on the northeast part and middle part, while the high-security area focuses on Yangtze river way and its both sides and Northwest. The main obstacle factor of landscape ecological security transfers into stability from functionality. Therefore it suggests to optimize land use pattern in landscape planning and construction in the future in order to raise the landscape ecological security level.

Traditional African vegetables in modular living walls: a novel approach towards smart cities

In terms of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), combined with good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), are vital. The world is not making adequate progress in meeting the UN’s targets to address food security (SDG 2). In South Africa, the growing population, rapid urbanization, poverty, and unemployment exacerbate the issue of food security; even more so considering climate change (SDG 13). The built environment needs to respond to these demands and incorporate green initiatives that can provide ecosystem services. Novel approaches are required to optimize land use and promote sustainable built environments through food production. This paper consolidates literature on local vertical urban food production with vegetable crops to enhance ecosystem services and lower the carbon footprint of buildings in the Global South. The literature review points to the potential of small-scale edible living walls that utilize local materials and traditional African vegetable (TAV) species to enhance system sustainability and resilience. TAV species offer advantages as opposed to exotic food crops as they are tolerant to extreme heat and drought, have a high nutritional value, and have low irrigation and agrochemical maintenance requirements.

Closing yield gap of maize in Southeast Asia by intercropping systems: A review

Maize (Zea may L.) is a cereal crop grown extensively throughout Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. However, maize yield in this region varies yearly due to several factors such as soil infertility, poor management practices, unpredictable weather conditions, and geography. This review aims (i) to demonstrate constraints and mitigation strategies for closing yield gaps and optimizing land use efficiency through the integration of companion crops into maize cropping, based on existing research in Southeast Asia between 1980 and 2021, and (ii) to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of growing maize alongside with other companion crops in Southeast Asia. Based on existing 50 articles of maize-based intercropping conducted in Southeast Asia founded from Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of science, cassava, legumes, potato, rice, grasses, and perennial crops such as rubber and coconut are the most frequently grown as companion crops in this region. Much emphasis of maize-based intercropping is paid to erosion control. Intercropping maize with other crops can successfully minimize soil erosion, runoff, and maintain the topsoil fertility. Therefore, less fertilizer input is required in intercropping system, which can also have a positive influence on the off-site environment. In addition, we discovered that maize-based intercropping improves the Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) (LER > 1) when planting time, crop spacing, and management practices are appropriately implemented. On the other hand, there are just a few studies that indicate the restrictions associated with maize-based intercropping (LER < 1). While it is theoretically beneficial to grow maize alongside with legumes due to biological nitrogen fixation, research undertaken in this region has not confirmed this statement when maize is intercropped with rice bean. Although, maize-based intercropping in Southeast Asia had been more thoroughly investigated in a variety of ways, further research is still needed to determine how maize-based intercropping mitigates the impact of climate change

IMPORTANCE OF EROSION IN INFLUENCING SOIL FERTILITY IN CROP IRRIGATION

At present, research and development activities aimed at developing new scientific and technical solutions for the effective use of land resources, the organization of optimal use of agricultural land in areas affected by erosion and at risk of erosion in land development projects are being carried out. In this direction, among other things, reducing the harmful effects of the environment in areas with the risk of water and wind erosion, improving the methods of effective use of each plot of land, taking into account the natural and economic conditions and the requirements for the protection of land from erosion, geosystem complexes that allow to prevent erosion in land formation. development, efficient use of land, protection of soils from erosion, creation of technologies that allow to increase the productivity of land is considered urgent. In this regard, special attention is paid to studies aimed at improving the efficiency of work in determining the composition of land types attached to land users and methods aimed at their optimization. Based on this, the main task of today's region is the wide use of modern economical technologies and the possibilities of their application to production, analysis of problem solving, and elimination of excess costs.

Optimization of Spatial Land Use Patterns with Low Carbon Target: A Case Study of Sanmenxia, China.

Land use change is an important factor in atmospheric carbon emissions. Most of the existing studies focus on modeling the land use pattern for a certain period of time in the future and calculating and analyzing carbon emissions. However, few studies have optimized the spatial pattern of land use from the perspective of the impact of carbon emission constraints on land use structure. Therefore, in this study, the effects of land use change on carbon emissions from 1990 to 2020 were modeled using a carbon flow model for Sanmenxia, Henan, China, as an example. Then, the land use carbon emission function under the low carbon target was constructed, and the differential evolution (DE) algorithm was used to obtain the optimized land use quantity structure. Finally, the PLUS model was used to predict the optimal spatial configuration of land use patterns to minimize carbon emissions. The study produced three major results. (1) From 1990 to 2020, the structural change of land use in Sanmenxia mainly occurred between cultivated land, forest land, grassland and construction land. During this period of land use change, the carbon emissions from construction land first increased and then decreased, but despite the decrease, carbon emissions still exceeded carbon sinks, and the carbon metabolism of land use was still far from equilibrium. (2) Between 2010 and 2020, the area of cultivated land began to decrease, and the area of forest land rapidly increased, and land-use-related carbon emissions showed negative growth. This showed that the structural adjustment of energy consumption in Sanmenxia during the period decreased carbon emissions in comparison with the previous period. (3) A comparison of predicted optimized land use patterns with land use patterns in an as-is development scenario showed a decrease in construction land area of 23.05 km2 in 2030 with a steady increase in forest land area and a decrease in total carbon emission of 20.43 t. The newly converted construction land in the optimized land use pattern was concentrated in the ribbon-clustered towns built during urban expansion along the Shaanling basin of the Yellow River and the Mianchi-Yima industrial development area.

Exploring avenues for agricultural intensification: A case study for maize-soybean in the Southern US region

CONTEXTCrop intensification is a key aspect for achieving global food security and exploring options for optimizing land use and environmental resources. Following this rationale, a maize (Zea mays L.) – soybean (Glycine max L.) double cropping was tested to intensify current agricultural systems in the Southern region of the United States (US). OBJECTIVEThe aims of this study were to i) assess the feasibility of cultivating maize-soybean double crop in the Southern US, ii) explore the best scenario of maize-soybean crops integrating field data with APSIM crop growth model via calculation of the land equivalent ratio (LER), and iii) evaluate the risk of crop failure for each crop combination. METHODSFor this case study, one year field research and in-silico experiments using 30-years of weather data were analyzed to evaluate the different lengths of growth cycle for both crops for yield, LER, and percentage of success. The feasibility of the maize-soybean sequence was determined by increasing yield gain for the soybean crop while maintaining similar yield for maize crop. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSSimulated LER values ranged from 1.1 to 1.3 with the maize hybrid 110 comparative relative maturity followed by a soybean maturity group 3.0 as the best combination for maximum LER. Lastly, long-term simulations confirmed the low risk associated with maize-soybean double crop sequences across sowing dates. SIGNIFICANCEExpanding the implementation of this farming system could produce additional benefits not only on productivity and land use efficiency but in overall economic return for farmers in the Southern US region.

Pemberdayaan Masyarakat melalui Perubahan Mindset Masyarakat Humbahas Menuju Tercapainya Ekowisata

Humbang Hasundutan Regency (Humbahas) is one of the areas in the province of North Sumatra which has a very large agricultural land. Changes in land use have given rise to a variety of new problems. Whereas agricultural development can be done through; intensification, extensification, diversification and rehabilitation in an integrated manner to increase farmers' income. If ecotourism is the management of nature and community culture that ensures sustainability and welfare, while conservation is an effort to maintain the continuity of the use of natural resources for the present and the future. Ecotourism will be an alternative system for the community to increase the potential of the land in their area. The purpose of holding this service activity is to change the mindset of the public humbahas about how to optimize land use so as to avoid polemics over land grabs. The method used to achieve this goal is to carry out several stages including surveys, socialization, procurement of tools and goods, technical training and assistance. The results of this service activity have changed the mindset of the Humbahas community for the better as evidenced by the maximum optimization of land.

Disentangling the effects of the surrounding environment on street-side greenery: Evidence from Hangzhou

• People are more exposed to street greenery than to parks. • The Green View Index (GVI) is used to quantify the daily exposure to street-side greenery. • Development of a multidimensional indicator set to explore the association of the micro-scale surrounding environment characteristics and GVI. • The context surrounding environment exhibits a strong role on physical appearance of eye-level greenness of GVI. • Findings can shed lights on developing urban green design and planning policy. Human-scale greenery has been heavily featured in the development of planning-related theories and research. Daily exposure to street greenery is proportionately greater than exposure to parks. Several case studies have estimated the green view index (GVI), which quantifies daily exposure to street-side greenery, at the city-scale. However, the street-side greenery distribution is uneven. The relationship between the GVI and the surrounding environment has rarely been discussed. Here, we investigate the differentiation of street greenery from the physical features of a street and examine how the surrounding environment affects the physical appearance of eye-level greenery. In this work, we analyzed the GVI using the internet data crawling approach and obtained 12,232 panoramic street view images from Baidu Map for the urban zones of Hangzhou, China. A range of 17 surrounding environmental characteristics are integrated with multisource geographic data to analyze their relationship with the GVI at the microscale. Spatial econometric models are explored to provide insights into the underlying mechanisms associated with the GVI. The results showed that the surrounding environment exhibited a strong role in the physical appearance of eye-level greenness. There are two pathways through which surrounding environmental characteristics (the nature of land use and the enclosure of the street) affect the distribution of GVI. Four factors proved to be important: scenic protection policies and ecological renewal projects, vertical and horizontal green characteristics of different land uses, and facade designs dominated by enclosed exterior walls or railing walls. Interesting approaches are presented to rationally implement activities related to these factors. The urban green design process should be facilitated in terms of the trade-off between greenery and optimum land use. These findings can be useful in drafting appropriate policies and increasing eye-level greenery in cities.

Connecting the Soils with a Potential Viticultural Terroir Zone

ABSTRACT Soil characteristics are considered important for land use planning. Castilla La Mancha (Central Spain) has the highest concentration of vineyards in the world (about 474,000 ha). This study represents a mapping exercise to evaluate the agronomic suitability for viticulture in continental Mediterranean environment. Our study integrates data information from 33 soil profiles, that mostly developed on calcareous material (limestones, marls, and various calcareous sediments), volcanic rocks (basalt, ash, and lapillis) and/or Paleozoic rocks (quartzites, sandstones, schists, or slates) in Almagro (Castilla-La Mancha, central Spain). A distinctive feature of this region is the remarkable pedodiversity. Due to the differences in soil properties, the landforms positions entail soils with different characteristics and therefore with different limitations for land use and productivity. The presence of calcareous horizons, with alkaline pH that affects soil fertility, specifically in low values P and micronutrients such as Fe, Cu and Zn, entails resulting in yield reductions, which the wine growers normally opt for certain rootstock types. We conclude that conditions are optimal for agricultural production and sustainable vine production. These results can help policy makers in their planning of optimal land use in addition to campaigns for the improvement the region’s image.