Land Management Problems Research Articles

Rampant Land Dispute Cases

This research examines the problem of land disputes in Indonesia caused by the illegal practices of the land mafia and poor land management by housing developers. Based on the Seven Principles of Agrarian Law, land should be used to benefit the community. However, facts on the ground show that much land is controlled unilaterally by the land mafia. They used various methods, including making fake letters and cultivating empty land to sell at high prices. This has led to many ownership disputes and legal problems for legitimate landowners and defrauded buyers. To avoid this problem, the public is advised to process the legality of their land certificates through the National Land Agency (BPN). The legal basis supporting the importance of land certificates is contained in Article 19 and Article 23 of the Basic Agrarian Law (UUPA) no. 5 of 1960 and Law no. 4 of 1996 concerning Mortgage Rights. This research also highlights the challenge of limited land in Indonesia, which causes the high economic value of land to become an object of competition. Housing developers often face land management problems, resulting in land certificates being mortgaged at banks and losses for consumers. The importance of public awareness of checking the completeness and validity of documents before carrying out a house purchase transaction is emphasized to avoid problems in the future. Education and supervision from the government and related institutions, such as BPN, are critical in protecting consumer rights and ensuring legal certainty.

Evaluation of sugar content and bioethanol production of Ethiopian local varieties “Nech Tinkish” and “Hawaye” sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.))

Diversifying the use of climate-smart crops such as sweet sorghum has the potential to solve integrated food, bioenergy, feed, and land management problems. The study’s purpose is to quantify the sugar content of Nech Tinkish (v1) and Hawaye (v2) Ethiopian sweet sorghum varieties and investigate the interaction effect of fermentation parameters to determine their capacity for ethanol production. Sweet sorghum varieties were analyzed to determine their difference in °Brix content by extracting their juices. The juice was clarified using milk lime. Its total soluble sugars, total carbohydrates, and reducing sugars were determined using a digital refractometer, phenol sulfuric acid, and 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid, respectively. A completely randomized factorial was employed to evaluate ethanol production capacity, and the ethanol content was estimated using a potassium dichromate solution. The °Brix results revealed that v2 had a higher sugar concentration than v1. Additionally, the estimated carbohydrate content of the juice ranged from 37.402 to 157.641 g/L. The estimated reducing sugar also varied from 4.644 to 33.412 g/L. Therefore, the estimated reducing sugar showed the hydrolysis of sweet sorghum juice by invertase and sulfuric acid produced more fermentable sugars. Fermentation at 30 °C with pH 4.5 incubated for 4 days yields the highest ethanol, and v2 yields higher (15.31%) ethanol, compared to v1 produced 14.85%. This study showed a basis for the existence of two sugar-rich climate smart sweet sorghum varieties with an extraordinary amount of sugar used as a source of biofuel and food simultaneously in a single plot of land.

Addressing Carbon Storage in Forested Landscape Management Planning—An Optimization Approach and Application in Northwest Portugal

Climate change is driving worldwide efforts to mitigate and reverse the increasing anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Forests can uptake considerable amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, but management decisions and resultant silvicultural practices can largely influence these ecosystems’ carbon balance. This research presents an approach to help land managers cope with the need to ensure the provision of forest products and services while contributing to mitigating climate change via carbon sequestration. The emphasis is on combining a landscape-level resource capability model with a mathematical programming (LP) optimization method to model and solve a land management problem involving timber production, carbon sequestration, and resistance to wildfire targets. The results of an application on a forested landscape in Northwest Portugal showed that this approach may contribute to analyzing and discussing synergies and trade-offs between these targets. They revealed important trade-offs between carbon sequestration and both timber production and fire resistance.

The U.S. Military’s Environmental Protection Efforts: Unexpected Eco-Friendly Solutions to Land Management Problems

The U.S. Military’s Environmental Protection Efforts: Unexpected Eco-Friendly Solutions to Land Management Problems

Love and Loss: The Malay Reserve Land Predicament in Malay Novels

Malay Reserve Land is a topic that has been discussed less since COVID-19 hit the world. It is not just a simple issue about land and property; Malay Reserve Land is also a matter of Malay privilege in Malaysia. As a country with increasing pluralisation, diversification and practice of liberal economy, sustaining this special right is becoming a challenge. Historically, the practice of land possession in Malay customary law is strongly influenced by Islamic law. According to the teachings of Islam, real ownership belongs to Allah Almighty. However, after the British colonised Peninsular Malaysia for nearly 200 years, new land laws were endorsed to deal with the problems in land management that hindered their political and economic interest. Since then, the Malays have faced numerous problems to manage their special land. The following article, based on an indepth reading of the selected Malay novels, provides the various voices of love negotiating with hate and the feeling of loss. Data from newspapers and academic articles in the last 10 years have shown that the main issue is the decreasing size of Malay Reservation Land. The findings of the textual analysis reveal the authors’ voices of disenchantment in their novels related to the actual depletion of Malay Reserve Land throughout the 108-year-long journey.

Economic problems of land management

Economic problems of land management

PROBLEMS OF LAND RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND MEASURES TO SOLVE THEM

The article highlights the main problems of China's land management in the context of sustainable development. Land resources on the planet are limited, and therefore the implementation of sustainable land use practices is the key to reducing land degradation and ensuring food security. Among the main problems of land management, we have identified the following: lack of a reliable land management system, lack of legal awareness and environmental awareness, lack of advanced land management technologies. Analyzing the main problems of land management in the context of sustainable development, we propose effective measures to address them. It is noted that these are: creation of a reliable land management system; regulation of the land use structure and high-quality land planning; strengthening of land supervision to promote efficient use of land resources. The rationalization of management for environmental protection and efficient use of natural resources can also be realized through the development of information technologies that set clear requirements for the production process. The proposed measures to increase the level of land use can be used as a guide.

Late Tripolye Culture Settlement Spatial Pattering: Case study from the Gordineşti II-Stînca goală site, Northern Moldova

Abstract The Gordineşti II-Stînca goală is an archaeological site located in the northern part of the Moldavian Plateau in Edineț Region. Chronologically this settlement is linked to the later phase of the Tripolye Culture. Currently, in archaeological literature, the problems of human occupation, land management, and spatial arrangement of settlements in Moldova during the Eneolithic are highly understudied. In this paper, we present the results of recent archaeological works focusing on the spatial patterning of housing structures, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey, and desk-based Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) analysis, that has been undertaken to further the understanding of the spatial organisation of the Gordineşti II-Stînca goală settlement. The results indicate the high archaeological potential of this site, with the likely presence of multiple housing structures arranged in a planned and functional manner.

Smart Land Governance: Towards a Conceptual Framework

Global environmental governance (GEG) is one of the world’s major attempts to address climate change issues through mitigation and adaptation strategies. Despite a significant improvement in GEG’s structural, human, and financial capital, the global commons are decaying at an unprecedented pace. Among the global commons, land has the largest share in GEG. Land use change, which is rooted in increasing populations and urbanization, has a significant role in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a response, land governance and, consequently, good land governance, have arisen as normative concepts emerging from a series of success factors (notably economic development, environmental conservation, and social justice) to achieve greater sustainability. However, global land governance has shown little success in helping GEG due to the lack of intellectual and flexible thinking over governing the land sector. Consequently, reforming land governance “in a smart way” is one of the most critical actions that could contribute to achieving GEG goals. Hence, we propose a smart land governance (SLG) system that will be well addressed, understood, and modeled in a systemic and dynamic way. A smart system may be smart enough to adapt to different contexts and intellectual responses in a timely fashion. Accordingly, SLG is able to promote shared growth and solve many land sector problems by considering all principles of good land governance. Therefore, in order to enhance adaptive land governance systems, efficient land administration and management are required. This study’s outcomes will raise the comprehension of the problems of land management, providing an excellent framework to help land planners and policy-makers, as well as the development of strategic principles with respect to the principal multidimensional components of SLG.

Application of mathematical and statistical methods to the problem of resource management in agricultural production, taking into account uncertainty and risk

The agricultural sphere of production has always been accompanied by the influence of a wide range of factors, among which a large share is assigned to natural and climatic. The activities of agricultural organizations, especially in the field of crop production, are directly related to weather events, and in addition, a number of unstable processes of economic content (prices, demand, etc.), as well as problems caused by sanctions and the need to resolve import substitution issues, force management decisions to be made in conditions of uncertainty and risk. At the same time, the competent use of resource potential enables enterprises to reduce production costs and increase its efficiency in general. The purpose of the study was to develop a procedure for the formation of alternative solutions to the problem of land management for optimal placement of crops in fields using mathematical and statistical methods. The article presents an overview of a number of scientific studies related to the improvement of the activities of agricultural organizations, the results of which highlight and consider the main factors, methods and methods of increasing its effectiveness. According to official statistical sources, the analysis of the state of agricultural production in Russia, the Volga Federal District and the Orenburg Region in the context of the crop industry is given. The methods of game theory are chosen as tools that allow the formation of alternative options according to a number of criteria (Maximax criterion, Wald maximin criterion, Savage minimum risk criterion, Hurwitz pessimism-optimism criterion). The testing of the computational algorithm was carried out on the materials of one of the agricultural organizations of the Orenburg region. As a result of the study, several strategies for the use of land resources were formed when the enterprise was operating under conditions of uncertainty and risk, depending on the behavior of market conditions and natural and climatic factors. The analysis of the presented calculations showed an increase in the profit of the organization when planning the distribution of areas for agricultural crops using mathematical and statistical tools, and the possibility of automating the computational process (against the background of the digitalization of data flow processing that is relevant today) will significantly reduce the time when making managerial decisions. The results of the work can be recommended to agricultural organizations for use in the process of land management to achieve maximum efficiency and profitability of the business.

Bacteria common to rhizosphere communities of Asiatic bittersweet across a post-glacial landscape

Invasive plants such as Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus Thunb.) are a significant problem for land managers as they impact plant species composition, disrupt nutrient dynamics and structure of native ecosystems, and are difficult to eradicate. As a result of the increasing abundance of Asiatic bittersweet across the eastern U.S., we have been investigating underlying factors potentially contributing to the success of this plant. Recently, ecologists have been investigating the role of plant-soil-microbe interactions contributing to plant invasion. This work has led to question: are there certain microbes (e.g., bacteria, fungi) contributing to the success of some invasive plants? We hypothesize that despite differences in geologic age of soils where Asiatic bittersweet has established in the Indiana Dunes National Park there are sufficient common factors that led to common bacterial taxa in their rhizosphere. The objectives were to determine differences and commonalities in the soil chemistry, plant community and bacterial communities of Asiatic bittersweet plants. To achieve these objectives, bittersweet plants were collected at thirteen locations in the national park from soils ranging in geologic age from 150 to over 14,500 years. Surrounding soil chemistry, plant cover and the 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences of rhizosphere soil bacterial communities of these Asiatic bittersweet were compared. Asiatic bittersweet coverage of sampling sites ranged from 2 to 77% averaging 52 ± 2%. There were statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in alpha diversity (Shannon, Faith’s PD and Pielou’s evenness) and beta diversity (Bray Curtis, Jaccard, unweighted Unifrac, weighted Unifrac) among the samples when grouped by soil age or habitat. Despite these differences in the bacterial communities from different soil ages and habitats, some bacterial taxa (e.g., Bacillus, Streptomyces, Sphingomonas and Rhizobiales) previously found in other studies to be beneficial to plant growth were found in every rhizosphere community sampled. These microbes provide insight into a possible contributing factor to the success of this invasive plant at the Indiana Dunes National Park, and a strategy for future work to reduce the impact of Asiatic bittersweet establishment and offer some new strategies to manage this nuisance species.

CO2‐fertilisation enhances resilience to browsing in the recruitment phase of an encroaching savanna tree

Abstract CO2‐fertilisation is implicated in the widespread and significant woody encroachment of savannas due to CO2‐stimulated increases in below‐ground reserves that enhance sapling regrowth after fire. However, the effect of CO2 concentration ([CO2]) on tree responses to the other major disturbance in savannas, herbivory, is poorly understood. Herbivory responses cannot be predicted from fire responses, as herbivore effects occur earlier during establishment and are moderated by plant palatability and defence rather than below‐ground carbon accumulation. The relationship between herbivory and [CO2] is explored here using a widespread, strongly encroaching savanna tree, Vachellia karroo. Using greenhouse‐grown seedlings under past—through to predicted future—[CO2] (180–1000 ppm) and field‐grown seedlings under ambient [CO2], we assessed plant survival, growth, defence and palatability. Increasing [CO2] improves the tolerance of greenhouse‐grown seedlings to herbivory by stimulating growth and allowing a critical size threshold associated with survival to be reached earlier, thereby decreasing the probability of fatal herbivory during the vulnerable recruitment phase. Elevated [CO2] also decreases the time taken to reach a second size threshold linked to accelerated recovery of field‐grown seedlings following herbivory. Seedling growth responses to increasing [CO2] are nonlinear, suggesting that historic growth and survival enhancements are smaller than those predicted for the future. Increasing [CO2] is associated with greater resistance to herbivores (more branched shoot architecture) but not leaf palatability (C:N ratio) or defence (leaf tannins and spine density). Increasing V. karroo densities already constitute a major land management problem in southern African savannas. However, encroachment by this species, and likely other savanna tree species, may be greatly exacerbated under future [CO2], as tolerance to herbivory at the recruitment stage is further enhanced. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Herbicide control of the invasive Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) does not alter soil microbial communities or activity

Abstract Invasive plants are a major problem for land managers and have widespread and lasting environmental impacts. The invasive shrub Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) is a pervasive and noxious plant in the Midwest region of the United States. Despite this, many land managers may be uncomfortable with herbicide control of this and other invasive plants due to unknown impacts on ecosystem components including soils. To examine if herbicide control of Amur honeysuckle impacts soil enzyme activity and soil communities, we treated Amur honeysuckle with Garlon® 4 (triclopyr) suspended in Basal Bark Oil, Basal Bark Oil alone and untreated controls, then assessed soil community, soil enzyme activity and arbuscular mycorrhizal density changes among treatments and across the subsequent growing season. We found that basal bark herbicide treatments of Amur honeysuckle do not negatively impact soil enzyme activity, nor do they impact fungal, prokaryotic or oomycotan diversity or community structure. There was a slight but likely ecologically unimportant effect on community structure associated with basal bark oil applications, but not with herbicide applications. Arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization was negatively affected by herbicide use but this is likely due to reduction in host health and/or mortality. Taken together, this suggests that herbicide control of Amur honeysuckle does not impact soils and land managers can treat these invasive plants without concern for negative soil outcomes.

Совершенствование управления земельными ресурсами в муниципальном образовании

The article reveals the features of land management of the municipality at the present stage, identifies problems in land management, presents the results of research on the study of land resources on the example of the Seryshevsky district of the Amur region and revealed that of the total land area of 380484 hectares, agricultural land occupies most of the territory of the district 295 648 hectares (77.7 %). It is proved that the defining type of economic activity in the Seryshevsky district is agriculture. The main problems characteristic of all industrial organizations of the district are identified: low competitiveness of products, high degree of depreciation of fixed assets, insufficient utilization of production capacities, slow restructuring process. Measures have been developed for the long-term development of the agricultural production complex of the district and the protection of agricultural land; directions for improving the management of municipal land resources are proposed: the efforts of the district administration should be prioritized to stabilize production, resolve financial difficulties and develop programs. The most effective management methods are the lease of municipal property, including land plots, as well as work on collecting taxes and rent from debtors.

From Speransky to Stolypin: Peasant Reform and the Problem of Land Management

This article analyzes peasant land management in relation to the tax and property system from the early 1830s to the beginning of the 20th century.

Specific aspects of land management in the specially protected areas of the Republic of Buryatiya by example of the natural biological reserve «Enkhaluksky» in Kabansk region

This article discusses the problems of land management on the territory of the state natural biological reserve of regional significance "Enkhaluksky" in Kabansk region of the Republic of Buryatia. The analysis of the state and use of the reserved lands was carried out in the course of the work. The authors considered the ways of solving the land management problems in specially protected natural areas. This paper is based on a systematic approach using cartographic, geoinformational, statistical and comparative analysis methods.

Actual problems of land management and cadastre in the Republic of Dagestan and ways of solution

This paper presents the current state of agricultural land use and suggests measures to improve land relations in the region.

Studying the Physiological Reactions of C4 Grasses in Order to Select Them for Cultivation on Marginal Lands

One of the problems of sustainable agricultural land management (SALM) is the competition between food production and biomass production. For this reason, marginal lands with unfavorable agrotechnical conditions have been proposed for non-food crops in recent years. To this end, a better understanding of the impact of environmental factors on crop development and yield is needed. The objective of the study was to investigate the effects of soil water availability on selected morphological, physiological and growth characteristics of four C4 grass species (Miscanthus × giganteus, Miscanthus sacchariflorus, Miscanthus sinensis and Spartina pectinate) growing under different water and fertilizer conditions. A pot experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions with four grass species, three different water rates (100, 85 and 70%) and three fertilizer rates (270, 180 and 90 kg NPK ha−1). The study showed that water stress, regardless of plant species, increased the chlorophyll content index without affecting the photosynthetic efficiency of the plants. Water stress significantly decreased plant fresh and dry mass, shoot number and length, and shoot/leaf ratio. The response to water deficit depended on the plant species. Miscanthus sinensis was the most sensitive to water deficit and Spartina pectinate the most tolerant (reduction in dry mass of 41.5% and 18%, respectively). Water stress (85% and 70%) reduced the number and the length of shoots without affecting the average diameter of shoots of the tested grasses, resulting in a significant reduction in biomass production of plants grown under optimal conditions with mineral NPK fertilization (180 kg NPK ha−1). Miscanthus sacchariflorus showed the highest dry matter under the worst growing conditions (70% and 90 NPK) and therefore could be recommended for cultivation on marginal lands with unfavorable agrotechnical conditions. It should be emphasized that the high yield of this species was not due to the photosynthetic efficiency, but better growth stem parameters (length and number). It appears that, for long-term agricultural land management, it is preferable to determine fertilizer rates for each crop species based on soil water availability. It should also be emphasized that increasing the yield of potential lignocellulosic crops for energy purposes while reducing environmental impact appears to be one of the viable answers to the difficulties of conventional energy production.

Network theory applied to preparedness problems in wildfire management

Wildfires are a persistent threat for both people and the environment. These events are increasingly frequent and destructive and require effective responses that take into account multiple constrains and conflicting goals. In this paper, the problem of wildfire management is addressed focusing on preventing measures to avoid the uncontrolled spread of fire. Among them, fire-fighting lines are an effective way to stop fire from spreading beyond them. The Firebreak Location problem models the optimal positioning of fire-fighting lines within a territory with budget constrains while minimizing the risk that fires reaches valuable areas. Due to the hardness of the problem, heuristic approaches are applied to variations of the original problem. Fire spread can also be reduced up to a fixed limit applying fuelbreaks (strips of land in which the fuel load is reduced) and prescribed burning. These techniques are discussed in the Land Management problem that can be seen as a generalization of the Firebreak Location problem. For each of the problems above, theoretical and experimental results are presented.

Advancing contiguous environmental land allocation analysis, planning and modeling

ABSTRACT The identification or delineation of a spatially contiguous area within a larger region is an important land use planning problem and is utilized across a range of disciplines and management contexts. This involves the selection of individual spatial units, such as parcels, forest stands, management areas, etc., for an intended goal, purpose, usage and/or activity with constraints on maximum size along with contiguity requirements. The goal of this paper is to present a new spatial optimization model that can be used to simultaneously delineate single or multiple patches, where each is a contiguous set of individual spatial units, meets specific size requirements and is spatially distinct. We structure this new model as a mixed integer-linear program. We also present an application of this new model to a land management problem encountered by the USDA Forest Service involving wildfire mitigation efforts.