Agricultural land expansion and intensification, driven by human consumption of agricultural goods, are among the major threats to environmental degradation and biodiversity conservation. Land degradation can ultimately hamper agricultural production through a decrease in ecosystem services. Thus, designing viable land use policies is a key sustainability challenge. We develop a model describing the coupled dynamics of human demography and landscape composition, while imposing a trade-off between agricultural expansion and in-tensification. We model land use strategies spanning from low-intensity agriculture and high land conversion rates per person to high-intensity agriculture and low land conversion rates per person; and explore their consequences on the long-term dynamics of the coupled human-land system. We seek to characterise the strategies' viability in the long run; and understand the mechanisms that potentially lead to large-scale land degradation and population collapse due to resource scarcity. We show that the viability of land use strategies strongly depends on the land's intrinsic recovery rate. We also find that socio-ecological collapses occur when agricultural intensification is not accompanied by a sufficient decrease in land conversion. Based on these findings we stress the dangers of uninformed land use planning and the importance of precautionary behaviour for land use management and land use policy design.

中文翻译：

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农业土地利用和社会生态系统的可持续性

在人类消费农产品的推动下，农业用地扩张和集约化是环境退化和生物多样性保护的主要威胁之一。土地退化最终会通过减少生态系统服务来阻碍农业生产。因此，设计可行的土地使用政策是一项关键的可持续性挑战。我们开发了一个模型来描述人类人口和景观构成的耦合动态，同时在农业扩张和集约化之间进行权衡。我们模拟了从低强度农业和高人均土地转化率到高强度农业和低人均土地转化率的土地利用策略；并探索它们对耦合的人地系统的长期动态的影响。从长远来看，我们试图描述策略的可行性；并了解由于资源稀缺而可能导致大规模土地退化和人口崩溃的机制。我们表明，土地利用策略的可行性在很大程度上取决于土地的内在回收率。我们还发现，当农业集约化没有伴随土地转化的充分减少时，就会发生社会生态崩溃。基于这些发现，我们强调了不知情的土地利用规划的危险以及预防行为对土地利用管理和土地利用政策设计的重要性。我们表明，土地利用策略的可行性在很大程度上取决于土地的内在回收率。我们还发现，当农业集约化没有伴随土地转化的充分减少时，就会发生社会生态崩溃。基于这些发现，我们强调了不知情的土地利用规划的危险以及预防行为对土地利用管理和土地利用政策设计的重要性。我们表明，土地利用策略的可行性在很大程度上取决于土地的内在回收率。我们还发现，当农业集约化没有伴随土地转化的充分减少时，就会发生社会生态崩溃。基于这些发现，我们强调了不知情的土地利用规划的危险以及预防行为对土地利用管理和土地利用政策设计的重要性。