Urban land reform in China aims to build an efficient land market. However, it has led to a dual land supply system that consists of both market-based leasing and administrative allocation. In recent years, the control by local municipal government over land supply has strengthened substantially. This has caused concerns over whether the land reforms can achieve efficiency goals given the constraints

While soil degradation is continuing to threaten the global agricultural production system, a common understanding of how to encourage sustainable soil management is missing. With this study, we aim to provide new insights on targeted policies that address the heterogeneity of farmers. We scrutinized the plurality of views on soil management among arable farmers in the Austrian (and European) policy

The construction of polders in the coastal region of Bangladesh has significantly modified the patterns of flooding, as well as leading to significant land use/land cover (hereinafter, LULC) changes. The impact of LULC change and flooding on poverty is complex and poorly understood. This study presents a spatiotemporal appraisal of poverty in relation to LULC change and pluvial flood risk in the south

This paper reports on an empirical investigation of the impact of the Rural Land Registration and Certification Program (RLRC) on land rental among farmers in China. Propensity Score Matching and an IV-Tobit estimation are used in the estimate to overcome endogeneity problems caused by sample selection bias and reverse causality. The China Labor-force Dynamics Survey provides the data. Results show

It has been argued that the residential environment could play a role in the lower health and well-being commonly found in deprived areas. Yet, more knowledge is needed on how residential environmental quality together with neighborhood satisfaction relate to neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation. This paper explores the links between neighborhood deprivation and neighborhood characteristics, neighborhood

A contradictory policy in Chinese rapid urbanization comes from the twin demands for urban development land uses due to urban expansion and the protection of cultivated land for food security. Dipiao, a type of development rights transfer in Chongqing, aims at protecting cultivated land, optimizing the urban-rural land use structure, increasing villagers’ income and easing the tensions between cultivated

Wind erosion, an important topic of research on land-use and land-cover change, as well as global environmental change, is closely linked with social stability and regional or even global ecological security. In this study, wind erosion in the sandy regions of northern China in the period 1981–2015 was estimated using the revised wind erosion equation. Additionally, the rates of contribution of ecological

Urban regeneration represents an opportunity for sustainable development and smart growth of towns. The European best practices of urban regeneration demonstrate its effectiveness to valorize obsolete existing buildings, through integrated design of energy and structural upgrade. In countries of southern Europe, characterized by medium to high seismic risk, programs of urban regeneration, would make

This Viewpoint posits that cities need to rediscover financial models that direct land use to prepare for climate change. Research into Land Value Capture is needed to identify how land values are changing in light of climate change and how land-based finance can better support cities at risk.

In the process of rapid development of megacities, existing cost-benefit evaluation for economic and ecological benefits of urban land use cannot be easily applied to evaluation of suburbs in megacities. In this paper, a benefit evaluation model is constructed to solve this problem on the basis of the “core-edge” theory. A “population-economy-space” triangular element evaluation system and a two-dimensional

Governance arrangements directly influence decision making processes and the degree to which different stakeholder groups are engaged in planning, implementing, and receiving benefits from Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR). Narrow institutional and agency mandates must be better aligned to permit new ways of governing landscapes that are centered on the needs and capacities of local stakeholders

Land clearing and ecosystem degradation are primary causes of loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services worldwide, putting at risk sustainable options for Earth and humankind. According to recent global estimates, degraded lands already account for at least 1 and up to 6 billion ha. Given high rates of habitat degradation and loss of biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes with high levels of

Many studies of urban land use have focused on understanding the process and drivers of urban land expansion (ULE). However, these studies rarely examined the long-term trends and abrupt change points of ULE. Moreover, the feedback loop between ULE and land use policy (LUP) has less been investigated. Thus, stakeholders sometimes experience difficulties when utilizing the existing ULE theories in urban

City planning is a complex challenge that asks for problem-solving expertise to address stakeholders’ diverging interests, while its multidisciplinary essence imposes communication difficulties among specialists from different disciplines. After decades developing planning theories and practical solutions in isolation, transportation planners acknowledged the importance of mutual influences between

Contemporary global policy development is increasingly shaped through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In parallel, the United Nations initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) plays a leading role in the development and diffusion of policy frameworks with regard to geospatial information. Specifically, two frameworks, the Framework for Effective Land Administration

Good forest governance is a prerequisite for sustainable forest management and the successful implementation of initiatives that aim to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. The necessity for good governance is high in Zambia´s Miombo ecoregion, which is characterised by persistent deforestation that also threatens forest-dependent livelihoods. Zambia has adopted policies and initiatives to

Synergies between the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the deployment of bioeconomy that induces resource-efficient and sustainable biomass production patterns are in the core of discussion for the new CAP in Poland. Proactive greening mechanisms likely to enable a large-scale diffusion of willow plantation are investigated in this respect, including diversification schemes combined with incentives

The Green Infrastructure (GI) Strategy was adopted by the European Commission in 2013, to promote the deployment of GI by integrating it into main policy areas. Despite a high level of awareness for a policy integration across sectors at the EU level, urban and peri-urban farmland (UPUF) is up to now barely considered. A systematic evidence base addressing the contributions of UPUF can support a more

Loss or degradation of communal lands can have major implications for people’s livelihoods and well-being in rural underdeveloped areas. Mining operations are one driver of land loss with negative implications for people. This study assesses the livelihood effects of open-cast mining on a rural communal land village that lost 8 000 ha of land and compares it to another village nearby that did not.

In this paper we examine the question of whether and how municipal landscape plans exert a positive influence on and/or correlate with selected aspects of the landscape. To this end, a representative sample of municipal landscape plans in Germany and a statistical-quantitative evaluation approach are used to uncover correlations between planning and landscape development. As a result, we can show that

The concept of green infrastructure has been rapidly adopted by several disciplines and is increasingly appearing in policy discussions. While the use of the term has recently expanded, there is no single definition of green infrastructure. To date most of the research examining green infrastructure in policy has occurred in Europe and the US, and to a lesser extent Asia, highlighting differences in

The concepts of smart city cannot be understood without examining their links with the knowledge society. In this kind of society, knowledge must be considered as a capital shared not only with experts, but also with citizens, within the target of sustainable development. After studying those concepts, the scope is to examine how human knowledge and artificial intelligence can be combined in geographic

The establishment of national parks in China is attracting widespread attention from conservation scientists and managers. Yet, since most studies have mainly focused on conservation effectiveness, there is insufficient understanding of the socioeconomic outcome of national parks and their perception by local residents. To this end, we conducted a survey in Qianjiangyuan National Park Pilot (QJY) in

The effect of agricultural land on labour allocation between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors has profound policy implications for industrialization and urbanization. Using micro data from a nationally representative survey in China, this study attempts to examine how agricultural land affects rural people’s propensity to leave the farming sector and who is affected. We find that generally

Many experts agree that more agricultural investment is needed in the global South to improve local food security and reduce poverty. However, there is a lack of consensus about the types of investment needed to achieve these goals. This paper contributes to the literature on large agricultural investments and corresponding business models by inventorying and analysing such investments in Kenya’s Nanyuki

Promoting sustainable agricultural systems, maintaining biodiversity, and establishing measures to counteract climate change are the clear objectives of the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); however, there is still uncertainty regarding its implementation. At the level of the European Union, the justification for the CAP appears increasingly linked to the translation of policy objectives into

There are many studies examining the school district housing premium, and conclusions regarding the premium are quite diverse. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct an integrated analysis of the relevant literatures to determine the factors causing the premium, and to explore logically the relationship between housing prices and high quality basic education resources. Based on this goal, a theoretical

Farmland abandonment and the decline of livestock activity in the Mediterranean mountains have resulted in dramatic landscape changes, including the generalized expansion of shrublands and forests, and the homogenization of the old cultural landscapes. This process has a variety of consequences from ecological, geomorphological and hydrological points of view, as well as from the perspectives of land

There is a rising concern that the ongoing wave of off-farm employment will have profound effects on agriculture-based environment problems-measured by the intensity of chemical fertilizer (CF) usage. Yet, our understanding of the regional heterogeneities of this effect remains scant. This research gap is addressed by using panel data of selected cities in Sichuan and Henan provinces in China, which

This study provides evidence on the impact of a heavy-rail-based transit station on house prices by employing quantile regression method on a dataset that inventories sales transactions of single-family houses during the January 2000–April 2018 period, and within eight kilometers (five miles) of the Warm Springs station of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system. The station is located in Fremont

Since the 1960s, a significant percentage of railway networks have been closed all over the world. This represents a heritage that can be used to provide new features to local communities with regard to sustainable development and landscape regeneration processes. Disused railways can be converted into greenways which are only dedicated to not motorized users and people with reduced mobility. Greenways

Current Tanzanian land law offers registration of private interests in land in the form of Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) within a broader community lands approach. We conducted qualitative research on the issuance of CCROs along a mountain slope transect in Meru district in northeast Tanzania. This area features intensified smallholder agriculture that evolutionary theory suggests

Satellite data-driven discoveries are fuelling the literature on forest transitions, particularly in quantifying slow, large-scale trends. Mather’s forest transition concept depicts the inflection point marking a change from decreasing to increasing forest area. This theory is being elucidated using satellite images of global forest cover from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the

Climatic change has a negative impact on people’s livelihoods, agriculture, freshwater supply and other natural resources that are important for human survival. Therefore, understanding how rural smallholder farmers perceive climate change, climate variability, and factors that influence their choices would facilitate a better understanding of how these farmers adapt to the negative impacts of climate

Increasing the exploitation of renewable energy sources (RES) is a key element for reducing the detrimental consequences of greenhouse-gases emissions and for satisfying the growing demand for energy. Solar power plays a central role having the potential to completely satisfy the world energetic needs. Locating optimal sites for installing solar plants is therefore an important task deeply affecting

Biodiversity is declining across Europe. Modern agricultural practices, habitat fragmentation, land abandonment and climate change are key factors causing current trends in environmental change. Mobile organisms such as raptors, positioned high in the food chain, are good indicators of negative or positive landscape dynamics, since their response is fast. This assumption was tested by investigating

Coastal areas are worldwide characterized by multiple pressures generated by high levels of urbanization and by conflictual and inappropriate uses. The establishment of protected areas represents a tool to contrast such pressures. The integration between planning tools represents a key issue, in particular in the Mediterranean area; hence, it has been addressed by both legally binding acts and voluntary

Land consolidation plays an important role in increasing cultivated land, improving cultivated land quality and the ecological environment, and promoting the coordinated development of urban and rural areas. However, under the conditions of three decades of land consolidation being conducted and changing urban–rural human–land relationship, the areas of improvement in the land consolidation policy

The Brazilian Amazon has 49.8 million hectares (Mha) of public forestlands not allocated by the federal or state governments to a specific tenure status: the so called undesignated public forests (UPF). Historically, these public forests have been vulnerable to land grabbers and land speculation. Here, we highlighted the imminent threat in UPF by quantifying their accumulated deforestation, all of

By studying the case of China’s state land ownership regime, this paper examines the financialization of housing and land and illustrates how these processes are intertwined and reinforce each other. This paper reached three conclusions: first, housing financialization and land financialization cannot be separated in China; housing financialization boosts the demand for housing assets and land financialization

Excessive dependence on land finance (hereafter LF) in China’s urbanisation process has generated various problems and compromised the interests of future generations, hence a transformation from “land urbanisation” to “population urbanisation” is now called for. Nevertheless, before turning towards a new urbanisation strategy, the spatio-temporal variances of LF and associated risks for regional sustainability

Nowadays, urban flooding is becoming a severe issue in most of the developing and developed countries. The growth of the urbanization rate is also increasing, and the United Nations (UN) projected that 68 % of the world’s population would live in urban areas by 2050. People tend to migrate from rural to urban areas, which expose them more vulnerable to urban floods. The flood-related damages and deaths

Many developing countries face a major challenge today: how to safeguard the biodiversity maintained in the fields of the rural poor - which constitute a national and global public good - whilst meeting those same people's development needs and rights? A solution to this dilemma has thus been sought in adapting the design and implementation of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) concepts to the conservation

Urban renewal has been predominantly driven by themes of property-led and economic profit-driven redevelopment. The immense redevelopment pressures in dense urban cities have often posed unresolved conflicts in the conservation of historic quarters, particularly vernacular buildings with local significance instead of designated monuments with outstanding heritage value. This study examines the 20-year

Wetlands are systems of high biological diversity, productivity, and high economic and social importance to mankind. Despite its importance, wetlands are very threatened by human activities. World-wide, wetlands receive international recognition since 1971 by the Ramsar Convention. Guidelines adopted by Brazil to include its wetlands into the Ramsar List require that Ramsar sites are legally protected

Small-scale agriculture is an important livelihood in sub-Saharan Africa. In the face of land degradation, identifying the constraints to smallholder farmers in improving soil quality is important to inform institutional interventions. While previous policies and studies have concentrated on structural land management practices, less attention has been paid to farmers’ choice of land management strategies

Urban land suitability analysis is a complex process that requires geo-physical and environmental information and relevant expertise to analyse and interpret the information. This paper focuses on the integration of geographic information systems (GIS) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCA) for the assessment of potential suitability of urban development in Pendik district located in eastern Istanbul

Revealing the mechanism under the occurrence of farmland abandonment from the perspective of farming household diversity is conducive to proposing well-directed farmland protection policies. With a thorough consideration and study of cases in some hilly mountainous areas in China, this paper uses behaviour decision models of farming households to systematically understand and analyse the behavioural

Forests cover about 40 % of the European Union (EU), providing a wide spectrum of invaluable ecosystem services to more than half a billion people. In order to protect and harness this crucial asset, EU policies are advancing multifunctional management. This study lays a basis for such an effort by mapping the supply of key forest ecosystem services (FES) across the entire EU: wood, water supply, erosion

This study proposes an assessment of the regional agricultural efficiency convergence potential across the Romanian development regions during a period of sixteen years (from 2001 to 2017). Using the Cobb-Douglas function and the cluster analysis, it investigates the agricultural development and efficiency in the development regions of Romania, based on the available official datasets. The main aim

The association between city size and productivity has been widely investigated in the academic literature. On the contrary, less is known about the link between city size and material living conditions. Recently, a strong emphasis has been put on the process of urbanization without growth and on the burst of large cities. The creation of slums and large areas with underdeveloped housing characteristics

Based on the conceptual framework of neoliberal and post-neoliberal governance, this study explores the changing financial governance under the real estate boom-bust cycle in Ordos City, China. It finds that Ordos City’s neoliberal financial governance, featuring excessive deregulation, active public–private partnerships, market-friendly and growth-chasing institutional restructuring, land financialization

Climate change impacts the water sector in a manner that reduces the harvest and income of farmers, thereby exacerbating poverty and many other social problems. However, through adaptation measures, farmers can manage climate change impacts and thus reduce their vulnerability. To design effective public adaptation strategies, it is crucial to understand farmers’ behaviors at the farm level in response

The main purpose of the study is to present a new approach to comparing EU regions according to their level of innovation. For many years, different organizations have published reports related to the innovation level of EU countries and regions. Usually, taxonomic methods are used to measure development in this area. The main disadvantage of this approach is that it offers an assessment of EU innovation

This study sought to understand how the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment systematic structure works through their so-called Forest Administration System (FAS). This system has generated different perceptions among those that are involved in this system the repercussions of the informalities of the population that subsists off the exploitation of their forests which have changed the market chain

There exist problems of land abandonment and low-efficiency land use when China is undergoing active rural-urban migration. Whether increasing land scale can attract more labor engaged in land use is important to increase land-use efficiency and relieve labor shortage in agriculture. This paper uses data from the 2015 China Household Finance Survey to assess the relationship between land renting-in