ABSTRACT

Formal institutions, especially policies, play a key role in land system change. Compared to other drivers of change, however, the impact of policies on landscapes is under-addressed in land system science, in part due to difficulties isolating their effect on longitudinal land change. We address this gap by examining land system architecture changes in Cuba brought about by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting economic crisis: El Período Especial (‘Special Period’). Employing a satellite imagery time-series alongside a review of policy documents, we identify statistically significant land system changes linked to the era’s institutional shifts. We find that concentrated policy efforts to transform agriculture and protect forests corresponded to considerable changes for agriculture but minimal changes to forests. Some changes resulting from the institutional shifts of the Período Especial became visible in the landscape as soon as a few years, while others took decades to manifest.

摘要

正式机构，特别是政策，在土地制度变化中起着关键作用。但是，与其他变化驱动力相比，土地系统科学并未充分考虑政策对景观的影响，部分原因是难以隔离政策对土地纵向变化的影响。我们通过研究由1991年苏联解体和随之而来的经济危机在古巴造成的土地系统架构变化来解决这一差距：ElPeríodoEspecial（“特殊时期”）。利用卫星图像时间序列以及对政策文件的审查，我们确定了与该时代的制度变迁相关的具有统计学意义的土地系统变化。我们发现，集中力量进行农业转型和保护森林的政策努力与农业的巨大变化相对应，而对森林的变化却很小。