The issue of biofuels has already been much debated, but the focus to date has largely been on Latin America and deforestation - this highly original work breaks fresh ground in looking at the ...African perspective. Most African governments see biofuels as having the potential to increase agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthen their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using cutting-edge empirical case studies, this knowledge gap is addressed in a variety of chapters examining the effects of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture. In particular, 'land grabbing' and food security issues are scrutinised, both of which have become vital topics in regard to the environmental and developmental governance of African countries. A revealing book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels and land grabbing on Africa.
•Disputes over agricultural, industrial and residential land uses frequently occur in the urban–rural interfaces.•Land use conflicts present in land use structure, land conversion and landscape ...pattern.•Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Regional Integration policy fails to reconcile the land use conflicts.•Category of the conflict areas can help establish priorities for land use planning.•Public participation, equity and rural revitalization are viable solutions for conflicts management.
Competition among different uses for land is becoming acute under the process of urbanization, and conflicts related to this competition are becoming more frequent and more complex. This article presents a methodology for confronting this issue. By applying an integrated framework, we explore the implicit role of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Regional Integration (BRI) policy in land use conflicts by focusing on the urban-rural interface, and try to address the research question: “How feasible is BRI for reconciling land use conflicts across the urban-rural interface?” An original structure of the analysis is developed based on the identification of three types of conflicts, namely, conflicts over land use structure, conflicts over land conversion and conflicts over landscape pattern. According to the interactions and relationships among these conflicts, we define broad categories of land use conflict areas. Indeed, these conflicts are all related to the unplanned use of agricultural land reserves, which competes with other more immediate uses, and the over-exploitation of land resources caused by unsustainable urban practices. This policy is clearly a critical objective for optimizing the land use structure. It, however, fails to reconcile the conflicts over land conversion and landscape pattern, especially for considerable agricultural land conversion to non-agricultural uses, and low-density development pattern with mixed residential and industrial land uses. Hence, alternative strategies involving public participation, spatial equity, rural revitalization, land-use system reform, and new type of urbanization, can be identified as viable solutions for land use conflict management, which may be complementary to regional integration. The findings of our paper may also contribute to the policy debate on BRI concerning land use planning and regional sustainability.
Where are Europe's last primary forests? Sabatini, Francesco Maria; Burrascano, Sabina; Keeton, William S. ...
Diversity & distributions,
October 2018, Volume:
24, Issue:
9/10
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Aim: Primary forests have high conservation value but are rare in Europe due to historic land use. Yet many primary forest patches remain unmapped, and it is unclear to what extent they are ...effectively protected. Our aim was to (1) compile the most comprehensive European-scale map of currently known primary forests, (2) analyse the spatial determinants characterizing their location and (3) locate areas where so far unmapped primary forests likely occur. Location: Europe. Methods: We aggregated data from a literature review, online questionnaires and 32 datasets of primary forests. We used boosted regression trees to explore which biophysical, socio-economic and forest-related variables explain the current distribution of primary forests. Finally, we predicted and mapped the relative likelihood of primary forest occurrence at a 1-km resolution across Europe. Results: Data on primary forests were frequently incomplete or inconsistent among countries. Known primary forests covered 1.4 Mha in 32 countries (0.7% of Europe's forest area). Most of these forests were protected (89%), but only 46% of them strictly. Primary forests mostly occurred in mountain and boreal areas and were unevenly distributed across countries, biogeographical regions and forest types. Unmapped primary forests likely occur in the least accessible and populated areas, where forests cover a greater share of land, but wood demand historically has been low. Main conclusions: Despite their outstanding conservation value, primary forests are rare and their current distribution is the result of centuries of land use and forest management. The conservation outlook for primary forests is uncertain as many are not strictly protected and most are small and fragmented, making them prone to extinction debt and human disturbance. Predicting where unmapped primary forests likely occur could guide conservation efforts, especially in Eastern Europe where large areas of primary forest still exist but are being lost at an alarming pace.
Exotic plant invasions threaten biodiversity and are costly to farmers. Land use is a major pathway promoting the spread of exotic plant species; however, little is known about the processes ...underlying the success of exotic plants in tropical agricultural landscapes. Focussing on the heterogeneous smallholder landscapes of north‐eastern Madagascar, we studied exotic plants of understorey communities across a land‐use intensity gradient from unburned lands (old‐growth forests, forest fragments and forest‐derived vanilla agroforests) to burned ones (fallow‐derived vanilla agroforests, woody fallows and herbaceous fallows).
We quantified the absolute species richness, abundance and cover of exotic plants across land‐use types and their proportional contribution to community richness, abundance and cover as indicators of exotic plant invasion. We tested for the effects of land‐use parameters, namely land‐use history, canopy closure and landscape‐level forest cover, on exotic plants. Additionally, we tested whether the phylogenetic relatedness between exotic and native species in the same plot affected invasion success, testing Darwin's naturalisation and pre‐adaptation hypotheses.
All indicators of exotic plant invasion were lowest in old‐growth forests and forest fragments and highest in fallow‐derived vanilla agroforests, woody fallows and herbaceous fallows. Absolute and proportional exotic richness were negatively affected by canopy closure, and landscapes with high forest cover had lower proportions of exotic plant richness. High phylogenetic relatedness between exotics and natives was associated with lower proportional richness but higher proportions of exotics in abundance and cover. However, individual exotic species showed contrasting responses to land‐use parameters and relatedness to natives.
Synthesis and applications: Our results indicate that maintaining unburned lands, land‐use types with dense canopies and landscapes with high forest cover prevents the spread of exotic plants within the agricultural landscapes of north‐eastern Madagascar. Supporting Darwin's pre‐adaptation hypothesis, exotic plants that are phylogenetically closely related to native plants are more likely to become successful invaders in terms of abundance and cover. Nevertheless, individual species show different responses to land‐use changes and phylogenetic relatedness. Therefore, land‐use decisions and management choices can be tailored to limit the spread of exotic species and to preserve native plants in this global biodiversity hotspot.
Our results indicate that maintaining unburned lands, land‐use types with dense canopies and landscapes with high forest cover prevents the spread of exotic plants within the agricultural landscapes of north‐eastern Madagascar. Supporting Darwin's pre‐adaptation hypothesis, exotic plants that are phylogenetically closely related to native plants are more likely to become successful invaders in terms of abundance and cover. Nevertheless, individual species show different responses to land‐use changes and phylogenetic relatedness. Therefore, land‐use decisions and management choices can be tailored to limit the spread of exotic species and to preserve native plants in this global biodiversity hotspot.
Land use and land cover (LULC) change has been one of the most immense and perceptible transformations of the earth’s surface. Evaluating LULC change at varied spatial scales is imperative in wide ...range of perspectives such as environmental conservation, resource management, land use planning, and sustainable development. This work aims to examine the land use and land cover changes in the Kashmir valley between the time periods from 1992–2001–2015 using a set of compatible moderate resolution Landsat satellite imageries. Supervised approach with maximum likelihood classifier was adopted for the classification and generation of LULC maps for the selected time periods. Results reveal that there have been substantial changes in the land use and cover during the chosen time periods. In general, three land use and land cover change patterns were observed in the study area: (1) consistent increase of the area under marshy, built-up, barren, plantation, and shrubs; (2) continuous decrease in agriculture and water; (3) decrease (1992–2001) and increase (2001–2015) in forest and pasture classes. In terms of the area under each LULC category, most significant changes have been observed in agriculture (−), plantation (+), built-up (+), and water (−); however, with reference to percent change within each class, the maximum variability was recorded in built-up (198.45%), plantation (87.98%), pasture (− 71%), water (− 48%) and agriculture (− 28.85%). The massive land transformation is largely driven by anthropogenic actions and has been mostly adverse in nature, giving rise to multiple environmental issues in the ecologically sensitive Kashmir valley.
Land use has greatly transformed Earth's surface. While spatial reconstructions of how the extent of land cover and land‐use types have changed during the last century are available, much less ...information exists about changes in land‐use intensity. In particular, global reconstructions that consistently cover land‐use intensity across land‐use types and ecosystems are missing. We, therefore, lack understanding of how changes in land‐use intensity interfere with the natural processes in land systems. To address this research gap, we map land‐cover and land‐use intensity changes between 1910 and 2010 for 9 points in time. We rely on the indicator framework of human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) to quantify and map land‐use‐induced alterations of the carbon flows in ecosystems. We find that, while at the global aggregate level HANPP growth slowed down during the century, the spatial dynamics of changes in HANPP were increasing, with the highest change rates observed in the most recent past. Across all biomes, the importance of changes in land‐use areas has declined, with the exception of the tropical biomes. In contrast, increases in land‐use intensity became the most important driver of HANPP across all biomes and settings. We conducted uncertainty analyses by modulating input data and assumptions, which indicate that the spatial patterns of land use and potential net primary production are the most critical factors, while spatial allocation rules and uncertainties in overall harvest values play a smaller role. Highlighting the increasing role of land‐use intensity compared to changes in the areal extent of land uses, our study supports calls for better integration of the intensity dimension into global analyses and models. On top of that, we provide important empirical input for further analyses of the sustainability of the global land system.
Land‐use intensification is increasingly acknowledged as a major driver of land‐system degradation, but is hard to quantify comprehensively across large spatiotemporal scales. We use the indicator framework “human appropriation of net primary production” (HANPP), which is able to consistently capture multiple dimensions of land‐use intensity across different land uses, to quantify the spatial evolution of global land‐use intensification from 1910 to 2010. We find that, over the last century, increases in land‐use intensity have become the pervasive driver of land system change around the globe.
•Spatiotemporal pattern of LUCC in rural China over the past two decades was investigated.•The driving forces of LUCC in rural China was analyzed.•Cultivated land increased in northeast and northwest ...China and built-up land increased in eastern coastal areas.•Socioeconomic development is the most driving force of built-up land expansion.•Population and economic growth and built-up land expansion have obvious spatial agglomeration effect.
Land use/cover change (LUCC) is the result of interaction between human activities and biophysical processes. Extensive researches have been done on LUCC in urban China, but the understanding on rural land-use remains relatively inadequate. Based on land use, socio-economic, topographic and climate data from 1995–2015, taking China’s 31,275 townships as the research object, this study applied land-use dynamic degree (LUDD), geo-detector model and bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis to explore the spatio-temporal pattern and driving factors of LUCC in rural China. Results show that over the past two decades, significant changes have taken place in the type and structure of land use in rural China. The cultivated land increased in northeast and northwest China, and the built-up area increased in Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as well as Henan and Anhui provinces. More than 80 % of built-up land expansion came from the occupation of cultivated land. The Loess Plateau, Sichuan Basin, Hebei, Henan, western Xinjiang and southern Jiangsu have experienced the most serious decline in arable land. The driving force of LUCC varied greatly with space, time and land use type. Socio-economic development was the main driving force for the built area expansion, and geographical differentiation was the dominant factor in the conversion of cultivated land, forest land and grassland. The intensity of population and economic growth driving built-up land expansion decreases from east to west, while that of terrain-driven conversion of cultivated land into forest land gradually increases from west to east. These findings would provide decision support for policy-makers to formulation future sustainable land use policies. At the same time, it would help to further promote the exploration of China’s complicated human-land relationship.
AIM: Land‐use change is the single biggest cause of biodiversity loss. With a rising demand for resources, understanding how and where agriculture threatens biodiversity is of increasing importance. ...Agricultural expansion has received much attention, but where high agricultural land‐use intensity (LUI) threatens biodiversity remains unclear. We address this knowledge gap with two main research questions: (1) Where do global patterns of LUI coincide with the spatial distribution of biodiversity? (2) Where are regions of potential conflict between different aspects of high LUI and high biodiversity? LOCATION: Global. METHODS: We overlaid thirteen LUI metrics with endemism richness, a range size‐weighted species richness indicator, for mammals, birds and amphibians. We then used local indicators of spatial association to delineate statistically significant (P < 0.05) areas of high and low LUI associated with biodiversity. RESULTS: Patterns of LUI are heterogeneously distributed in areas of high endemism richness, thus discouraging the use of a single metric to represent LUI. Many regions where high LUI and high endemism richness coincide, for example in South America, China and Eastern Africa, are not within currently recognized biodiversity hotspots. Regions of currently low LUI and high endemism richness, found in many parts of Mesoamerica, Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia, may be at risk as intensification accelerates. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: We provide a global view of the geographic patterns of LUI and its concordance with endemism richness, shedding light on regions where highly intensive agriculture and unique biodiversity coincide. Past assessments of land‐use impacts on biodiversity have either disregarded LUI or included a single metric to measure it. This study demonstrates that such omission can substantially underestimate biodiversity threat. A wider spectrum of relevant LUI metrics needs to be considered when balancing agricultural production and biodiversity.
•China's urban and industrial lands increased by 4.23×104km2 between 1990 and 2010.•The urban lands’ expansion rate in the 2000s was 2.15 times that in the 1990s.•The industrial lands’ expansion rate ...in the 2000s was 5.79 times that in the 1990s.•National policies played a more important role than economic factors.•The use of China Land Use/Cover Dataset (CLUD) in national level analysis is effective.
The past two decades saw rapid and massive urbanization and industrialization in China. Despite much research has been reportedly done at local and regional scales, little has been reported on the trajectories, patterns, and drivers of these two intertwining processes at the national level. This is mainly due to the fact that until recently, high resolution spatial data of land use and land cover change were not available at national level. The research reported in this paper aimed to fill this knowledge gap. Employing the China Land Use/Cover Dataset (CLUD), a national land use/cover change database our research team developed over the past decade, we analyzed the two intertwining processes at a 5 year interval from 1990 to 2010 to identify their trajectories, spatiotemporal patterns, and driving forces. Among out key findings are that (1) the nation's urban and industrial land areas increased from 4.85×104km2 in 1990 to 9.08×104km2 in 2010; (2) compared to those in the 1990s, the expansion rates of urban land and industrial land in the 2000s were respectively 2.15 and 5.79 times higher; (3) the expansion rates varied significantly across regions, revealing a distinctive spatial pattern with coastal regions being the fastest and the northeastern the slowest; (4) national development strategies and regional land-use policies had prominent impacts on land expansions; while (5) socioeconomic factors along with local and regional land-use policies explained the regional variations.
A wide-ranging study of how different landownership models deliver sustainability in Scotland's upland areas Scotland is at the heart of modern, sustainable upland management. Large estates cover ...vast areas of the uplands, with a long, complex and emotive history of ownership and use. In recent decades, the Scottish uplands have increasingly been the arena for passionate debates over large-scale land management issues. Crucially, what kinds of ownership and management will best deliver sustainable futures for upland environments and communities? Although the globally unique dominance of private ownership remains a distinctive characteristic of Scotland's uplands, increasing numbers of estates are now owned by environmental NGOs and local communities, especially since the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003. A decade after the passage of this landmark Act, this book synthesises research carried out on a diverse range of upland estates by the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands. The findings from privately-owned estates as well as those owned by communities, charities and conservation groups will prove enlightening and relevant to upland managers, policy makers, and researchers across Britain and Europe.With the Scottish Government promoting a vision of environmental sustainability, and with the new diversity of ownerships and management now appearing, this timely and topical book investigates the implications of these different types of land ownership for sustainable upland management. Key Features: * Presents major new thinking on upland estate management * First dedicated textbook on upland estate management * Respected and experienced academic editorial team * An academic synthesis of theory and practical case-studies
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