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Land use projections are crucial for climate models to forecast the impacts of land use changes on the Earth’s system. However, the spatial resolution of existing global land use ...projections (e.g., 0.25°×0.25° in the Land-Use Harmonization (LUH2) datasets) is still too coarse to drive regional climate models and assess mitigation effectiveness at regional and local scales. To generate a high-resolution land use product with the newest integrated scenarios of the shared socioeconomic pathways and the representative concentration pathways (SSPs-RCPs) for various regional climate studies in China, here we first conduct land use simulations with a newly developed Future Land Uses Simulation (FLUS) model based on the trajectories of land use demands extracted from the LUH2 datasets. On this basis, a new set of land use projections under the plant functional type (PFT) classification, with a temporal resolution of 5 years and a spatial resolution of 5 km, in eight SSP-RCP scenarios from 2015 to 2100 in China is produced. The results show that differences in land use dynamics under different SSP-RCP scenarios are jointly affected by global assumptions and national policies. Furthermore, with improved spatial resolution, the data produced in this study can sufficiently describe the details of land use distribution and better capture the spatial heterogeneity of different land use types at the regional scale. We highlight that these new land use projections at the PFT level have a strong potential for reducing uncertainty in the simulation of regional climate models with finer spatial resolutions.
The optimal allocation of land resources is an important prerequisite for sustainable land use and for synergic development of regional resources-environment-economy. The question on how to optimize ...and allocate the regional land resources has become a hotspot in land use and land cover change studies. However, the allocative efficiency of China’s construction land is currently a rather rudimentary and subjective issue. This study used an extended Cobb-Douglas production function to measure the allocative efficiency of construction land at the national and regional levels using balanced provincial panel data from the 1985–2014 period. The results showed that China’s construction land has exhibited a significant increasing trend over the past three decades, and its growth rate in the central region was relatively higher than that in the eastern and western regions. There is little or no available arable land that can be occupied by construction uses in China’s economically developed provinces. Further investigations demonstrated that capital, labor and land investment all contributed to the non-agricultural GDP growth in China. The allocative efficiency of construction land in the eastern region was greater than that in the central and western regions. The efficiency of construction land allocation in China needs to be further improved, and the intensive utilization of land resource is necessary, particularly in the context of China’s “new normal” economy. Because of the regional disparities in the efficiency of construction land allocation, formulating specific region-oriented land use planning may be more urgent. These findings can provide policymakers with a sound basis for land use and urban planning.
Two oxen ahead Halstead, Paul; Halstead, Paul
2014., 2014, 2014-01-22, 2014-01-23
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This revealing study shows how careful analysis of recent farming practices, and related cultural traditions, in communities around the Mediterranean can enhance our understanding of prehistoric and ...Greco-Roman societies. * Includes a wealth of original interview material and data from field observation * Provides original approaches to understanding past farming practices and their social contexts * Offers a revealing comparative perspective on Mediterranean societies' agronomy * Identifies a number of previously unrecorded climate-related contrasts in farming practices, which have important socio-economic significance * Explores annual tasks, such as tillage and harvest; inter-annual land management techniques, such as rotation; and intergenerational issues, including capital accumulation
Background
Land use is the major driver of the current biodiversity crisis. However, its impact is not yet adequately reflected in biodiversity scenarios. In particular, effects of land‐use intensity ...are often neglected although natural limits to land conversion will likely enforce further land‐use intensification in the future.
Aims and innovation
We argue that integration of land‐use intensity into biodiversity models should ideally be based on a proper conceptualization of the land‐use intensity phenomenon. We, therefore, present terminological distinctions and a conceptual framework developed in land system science. The framework distinguishes three dimensions of land‐use intensity: input intensity, output intensity, and alterations of system properties. We discuss nonlinearities and intricacies of the relationships among these dimensions as well as their direct and indirect relationships to biodiversity. In an explorative literature assessment we demonstrate that the multi‐dimensional nature of land‐use intensity appears insufficiently reflected in biodiversity research. Finally, we discuss issues of data availability that limit integration of land‐use intensity into spatially and temporally explicit biodiversity modelling.
Conclusion
Research on the relationship between land use and biodiversity would profit from a more systematic and comprehensive consideration of land‐use intensity. While there is no standard recipe for combining indicators of land‐use intensity in biodiversity studies the input–output–system distinction is a useful conceptual basis for study designs. More generally, better integration of biodiversity and land system science would foster understanding and predicting the consequences of land‐use intensification on biodiversity.
Accounting for carbon fluxes from land use and land cover change (LULCC) generally requires choosing from multiple options of how to attribute the fluxes to regions and to LULCC activities. Applying ...a newly developed and spatially explicit bookkeeping model BLUE (bookkeeping of land use emissions), we quantify LULCC fluxes and attribute them to land use activities and countries by a range of different accounting methods. We present results with respect to a Kyoto Protocol‐like “commitment” accounting period, using land use emissions of 2008–2012 as an example scenario. We assess the effect of accounting methods that vary (1) the temporal evolution of carbon stocks, (2) the state of the carbon stocks at the beginning of the period, (3) the temporal attribution of carbon fluxes during the period, and (4) treatment of LULCC fluxes that occurred prior to the beginning of the period. We show that the methodological choices result in grossly different estimates of carbon fluxes for the different attribution definitions.
Key Points
We use a spatially explicit model to attribute C fluxes to land use activities
We compare several accounting options for a post‐Kyoto climate agreement
The different choices result in grossly different estimates of carbon fluxes
Urbanization, an unavoidable global process, has driven land use change, impacted ecosystem services, and induced serious environmental problems. As a result, urban planning is a critical issue in ...sustainable development. In this study, we developed a framework to quantify how urbanization influences ecosystem services (ESs) in order to provide suggestions for urban planning during large scale urban agglomeration in northwestern China. We separated the region into three sub-regions (developed urban, developing urban, and rural areas), quantified five critical ESs (crop production, carbon storage, nutrient retention, sand fixation, and habitat quality), analyzed the relationships (trade-off, synergy, and bundle) among ES changes, and investigated the impacts of urbanization on these ESs. The results show that urbanization results in large scale reclamation and small scale deforestation in rural areas; it comprehensively results in an increase of four ESs (not habitat quality). Urban expansion mainly occurs in developing urban areas and causes a decrease in four ESs (not sand fixation). Based on temporal change in ESs, synergy relationships exist among them, except for between nutrient retention and crop production, which have an insignificant correlation. Urban expansion would strengthen the synergy relationships among regulating services, while green infrastructure in core urban areas would weaken these relationships. Based on the spatial distribution of ES change, two bundles were identified among the five ESs: 1) crop production, carbon storage, and nutrient retention; and 2) sand fixation and habitat quality. Based on these findings, several suggestions for urban expansion and land use planning are proposed to achieve an optimized balance between urbanization and ES protection. Investigating the impacts of rapid urbanization on ESs and their relationships could provide scientifically based suggestions for urban planning according to ES protection, sustainable urban development, and human well-being.
Biodiversity plays an important role in ecosystem functioning, habitat recovery following disturbance and resilience to global environmental change. Long‐term ecological records can be used to ...explore biodiversity patterns and trends over centennial to multi‐millennial time‐scales across broad regions. Fossil pollen grains preserved in sediment over millennia reflect palynological richness and diversity, which relates to changes in landscape diversity. Other long‐term environmental data, such as fossil insects, palaeoclimate and archaeologically inferred palaeodemographic (population) data, hold potential to address questions about the drivers and consequences of diversity change when combined with fossil pollen records.
This study tests a model of Holocene palynological diversity change through a synthesis of pollen and insect records from across the British Isles along with palaeodemographic trends and palaeoclimate records. We demonstrate relationships between human population change, insect faunal group turnover, palynological diversity and climate trends through the Holocene.
Notable increases in population at the start of the British Neolithic (~6,000 calendar years before present bp) and Bronze Age (~4,200 bp) coincided with the loss of forests, increased agricultural activity and changes in insect faunal groups to species associated with human land use. Pollen diversity and evenness increased, most notably since the Bronze Age, as landscapes became more open and heterogeneous. However, regionally distinctive patterns are also evident within the context of these broad‐scale trends. Palynological diversity is correlated with population while diversity and population are correlated with some climate datasets during certain time periods (e.g. Greenland temperature in the mid‐late Holocene).
Synthesis. This study has demonstrated that early human societies contributed to shaping palynological diversity patterns over millennia within the context of broader climatic influences upon vegetation. The connections between population and palynological diversity become increasingly significant in the later Holocene, implying intensifying impacts of human activity, which may override climatic effects. Patterns of palynological diversity trends are regionally variable and do not always follow expected trajectories. To fully understand the long‐term drivers of biodiversity change on regionally relevant ecological and management scales, future research needs to focus on amalgamating diverse data types, along with multi‐community efforts to harmonise data across broad regions.
Biodiversity plays an important role in ecosystem functioning and resilience to global environmental change. Here we test a model of centennial‐scale palynological diversity change through a synthesis of fossil pollen and insect records from across the British Isles. The connections between population and palynological diversity become increasingly significant since around 3,000 years ago, implying intensifying impacts of human activity overriding climatic effects.
The Global Carbon Project (GCP) has published global carbon budgets annually since 2007 (Canadell et al. 2007, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 104, 18866–18870; Raupach et al. 2007, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, ...104, 10288–10293). There are many scientists involved, but the terrestrial fluxes that appear in the budgets are not well understood by ecologists and biogeochemists outside of that community. The purpose of this paper is to make the terrestrial fluxes of carbon in those budgets more accessible to a broader community. The GCP budget is composed of annual perturbations from pre‐industrial conditions, driven by addition of carbon to the system from combustion of fossil fuels and by transfers of carbon from land to the atmosphere as a result of land use. The budget includes a term for each of the major fluxes of carbon (fossil fuels, oceans, land) as well as the rate of carbon accumulation in the atmosphere. Land is represented by two terms: one resulting from direct anthropogenic effects (Land Use, Land‐Use Change, and Forestry or land management) and one resulting from indirect anthropogenic (e.g., CO2, climate change) and natural effects. Each of these two net terrestrial fluxes of carbon, in turn, is composed of opposing gross emissions and removals (e.g., deforestation and forest regrowth). Although the GCP budgets have focused on the two net terrestrial fluxes, they have paid little attention to the gross components, which are important for a number of reasons, including understanding the potential for land management to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and understanding the processes responsible for the sink for carbon on land. In contrast to the net fluxes of carbon, which are constrained by the global carbon budget, the gross fluxes are largely unconstrained, suggesting that there is more uncertainty than commonly believed about how terrestrial carbon emissions will respond to future fossil fuel emissions and a changing climate.
This figure shows the average annual emissions (+) and removals (−) of carbon between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere for the period 2009–2018. (Left) The total net global flux (tan) is composed of net emissions from land management (green) and a net removal attributed to environmental change (blue). (Center) The net emissions from land management are composed of gross emissions and removals. (Right) The net removals from environmental changes are composed of gross emissions and removals. The gross emissions and removals from environmental changes are unknown and largely unconstrained.
Almost fifty years ago, America's industrial cities-Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore, and others-began shedding people and jobs. Today they are littered with tens of thousands of abandoned ...houses, shuttered factories, and vacant lots. With population and housing losses continuing in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis, the future of neighborhoods in these places is precarious. How we will rebuild shrinking cities and what urban design vision will guide their future remain contentious and unknown.
InDesign After Decline, Brent D. Ryan reveals the fraught and intermittently successful efforts of architects, planners, and city officials to rebuild shrinking cities following mid-century urban renewal. With modern architecture in disrepute, federal funds scarce, and architects and planners disengaged, politicians and developers were left to pick up the pieces. In twin narratives, Ryan describes how America's two largest shrinking cities, Detroit and Philadelphia, faced the challenge of design after decline in dramatically different ways. While Detroit allowed developers to carve up the cityscape into suburban enclaves, Philadelphia brought back 1960s-style land condemnation for benevolent social purposes. Both Detroit and Philadelphia "succeeded" in rebuilding but at the cost of innovative urban design and planning.
Ryan proposes that the unprecedented crisis facing these cities today requires a revival of the visionary thinking found in the best modernist urban design, tempered with the lessons gained from post-1960s community planning. Depicting the ideal shrinking city as a shifting patchwork of open and settled areas, Ryan concludes that accepting the inevitable decline and abandonment of some neighborhoods, while rebuilding others as new neighborhoods with innovative design and planning, can reignite modernism's spirit of optimism and shape a brighter future for shrinking cities and their residents.
Transit Oriented Development (TOD), the integration of transport system with land use, has gained considerate priorities in planning strategies towards urban sustainability. To accrue a better ...overall leverage of the benefits arising from TOD practice, it is necessary to explore the variations and typology among TODs. This paper extends the classic ‘node (transport) – place (land use)’ model by incorporating the oriented characteristics that represent the morphological and functional ties between transport and land use. The model is applied to the case of Shanghai, China. Fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) is used to construct the indicators system of each dimension (node, tie and place) in the model and typology among TODs is divided by SOM (self-organizing map). We find that the TOD index value declines from the urban center to the outskirts of the city obviously. Four typologies are identified among TODs, including the Integrated (all high node, tie and place index value), the Functionally place-developed (low node index value and high tie and place index value), the Morphologically node-developed (high node index value and low tie and place index value) and the Dispersed (all low node, tie and place index value). Based on the evaluation, we put forward an optimization plan for the areas with low TOD index values, which are consistent with the planned lines under construction. All the methods demonstrated in this study are easy to perform and can be widely applied to the assessment of TOD typologies worldwide. This study produces some generalized knowledge that are useful for implementing TOD practice within land use planning.
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