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

ABSTRACT This paper investigates to what extent the theories of Thomas Robert Malthus and Ester Boserup are still useful to analyse population and land-use trajectories in an industrial society at a regional scale. Following a model-based approach toward long-term socio-ecological research, we built two system dynamic models, each representing one theory, and calculated socio-ecological trajectories

The Cropland Supplement Policy (CSP) helps maintain the total area of cropland in China as urban areas expand, but can result in environmental degradation as areas of more natural habitat are turned into cropland. Current and future impacts of the CSP are explored under different land-use change scenarios by comparing the differences in ecosystem services value (ESV) at province level. Scenario-based

(2020). Land-system science to support achieving the sustainable development goals. Journal of Land Use Science: Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 477-481.

Land system science and affiliated research linked to sustainability require improved understanding and theorization of land and its change as a social-ecological system (SES). The absence of a general land-use theory, anchored in the social subsystem but with explicit links to the environmental subsystem, hampers this effort. Drawing on land-use explanations, meta-analyses, and associated frameworks

Farmland size is a key factor in debates over agricultural land use, food security, agrochemical pollution, and the future of smallholder systems. This paper examines relationships between farmland size, chemical fertilizers and irrigation management, and maize and wheat yield in Mexico. We used agricultural census data to estimate the mean farmland areas and crop yields of 5.5 million farms and nine

Although life and land decisions are individual, driven by perceptions of reality, they reflect broader social processes. This research aims to understand relevant land-use change processes and the context within which land-use change occurs in the study area. For this, we employ grounded theory techniques and procedures to analyze narratives and life history interviews. Based on these narratives,

Natural protected areas are recognized as key to the conservation of biodiversity and to face deforestation. Their effectiveness requires both an integrated model and the social participation of local actors. The present study analyzes the deforestation process and its relationship with governance at the Sierra de la Abra Tanchipa Biosphere Reserve (RBSAT), Mexico, and Piedras Blancas National Park

(2020). Transdisciplinary perspectives on current transformations at extractive and agrarian, frontiers in Latin America. Journal of Land Use Science: Vol. 15, Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Current Transformations at Extractive and Agrarian Frontiers in Latin America, pp. 99-107.

The Santa Cruz lowlands, east Bolivia, are one of South America’s most dynamic agricultural frontiers. In the Chiquitania, bordering Brazil, San Ignacio de Velasco was in 2017 ranked first nationally in terms of deforestation. There, two deforestation fronts meet with mechanized agriculture expanding from the West and South and cattle ranching from the East. Chiquitano communities are demographically

Urbanization leads to a continuous loss of agricultural land, both directly under the form of land take, and indirectly through the use of agricultural land for non-productive rural activities like recreation, horse keeping or hobby farming. These urbanization processes put pressure on farmers, making farming activities harder through reduced agricultural land, negative externalities and the competition

Land use/land cover (LULC) has changed dramatically in the peri-urban area (PUA) of greater Cairo (GC) since the Egyptian revolution of 2011. This study analyzes LULC change in the PUA of GC using two Landsat images from 2010 and 2018. The spatial trends of LULC change and visualizations of the gains and losses in LULC were analyzed using TerrSet software. The driving forces of LULC change from 2010–2018

The coexistence of different land uses in peri-urban areas is a well-known planning and managerial challenge, but explicit analyses of the boundaries and interfaces between different land uses are lacking. This paper suggests a method to explicitly quantify the spatial extent of the interfaces between different land uses. The analysis is carried out using urban development models and an empirical analysis

The conversion of open space to built land is a key feature of urban-rural transformations. In many countries, urban sprawl represents the dominant mode of urban growth. Against this background, urban growth management plays a crucial role in mediating between diverse spatial requirements and curbing sprawl-like land-use patterns, but its effectiveness is not fully understood. Relatively few studies

A major barrier to realising biofuels’ climate change mitigation potential is uncertainty concerning carbon emissions from indirect land use change (ILUC). Central to this uncertainty is the extent to which yields can respond dynamically to increased demand for agricultural commodities. This study examines the elasticity of soybean and corn yields in the USA for 1990–2017 using Bayesian network models

Reflecting on the 2019 Open Science Meeting of the Global Land Program and on commentaries since, we argue that the time is ripe for the land system science community to fully embrace the thorny issue of land ownership and control. Beyond land governance and institutions, the issue of who actually owns and controls land, and how land holding and rents are distributed across society, is central to the

Old cadastral maps represent a historical reference dataset for long-term land-use reconstructions. This study presents identification of inconsistencies in the nineteenth century Franziscean cadastre, one of the largest sets of old cadastral maps worldwide, by comparing three versions of the maps and written documents created in the same period. We identified all parcels and their land-use in the

This paper highlights the colonized perspective, and aims to reflect on the consequences of a predominant perspective of land control and use for Amazonian indigenous people. The demarcation of indigenous territories has been presented by external public actors, the ‘Others’ to explicitly support indigenous people defend their territories. However, demarcation effectively creates a frontier and enclosure

Although Brazilian Quilombolas possess specific land rights referring to their past as African slaves, the realization of such rights often fails due to the absence of land surveys, clarified institutional competencies and the general lack of power under which minorities suffer. Additional factors such as an expanding commercial agriculture contributing to land and water degradation and new actors

ABSTRACT Post-frontier governance in the Brazilian Amazon highlights the interaction of regulatory technologies, institutions and practices to combat illegal deforestation and appropriation of public lands. While the Amazon fires received tremendous media coverage in 2019, the dismantlement of environmental laws and regulatory agencies has supported the rise in deforestation as early as 2012. We discuss

Currently, land cover changes occur in wood-pastures all over Europe driven by abandonment of traditional farming, as well as by management and policy changes. Based on reviewing of official documents, semi-structured interviews and one case study we examined how policies and governance settings for mountain wood-pastures have led to forest cover loss in Romania. In general, wood-pastures are formal

It is important to understand environmental and conservation consciousness, commonly referred to as ‘environmentalism’, considering the crisis of global environmental change. Environmentalism of the North has been characterized as focused on ‘pristine’ landscapes of wilderness. In contrast, discussions on environmentalism of the South focus on indigenous and long-settled communities with intrinsic

The rapid expansion of cities and the impacts of urbanization on local and global environmental factors such as biodiversity and climate change are of great concern. Reliable rapid approaches for mapping the expansion of cities are of increasing importance today. In this paper, we explore the use of Google Earth Engine to classify land cover in Indian cities from Landsat imagery, using a Random Forest

We consider trends in the use of modern agricultural inputs of migrant settlers and indigenous populations in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon and the demographic, socioeconomic, and land use-related factors affecting input use. It is widely believed that the different livelihood strategies, and therefore different relationships to the land, of indigenous populations and migrant settlers result in different

ABSTRACT The growing demand for natural rubber is increasingly threatening biodiversity and forest ecosystems. Recently, the French Michelin Group started a cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to establish environmentally and socially sustainable ‘model’ rubber plantations in Sumatra and Kalimantan, Indonesia. The framing of Michelin’s tyre production as ‘eco-friendly’ and their purported

Miombo Woodland is the major Land use/land cover with important ecological functions in Africa. In Malawi, government-management was designed to manage Woodlands. However, when illegal activities continued, Participatory Forest Management (co-management) in forest reserves was institutionalised for woodland sustainability. Currently, information on co-management mitigating deforestation and degradation

This triple case study attempts, from the viewpoint of economic and environmental anthropology, to take into account and to assess pertinent cultural, political, institutional, and economic factors that have an impact on how the açaí value chain develops or restrains according to the given regulatory frameworks. Based on the common-pool resources approach (CPR), the study examines how institutional

Historic land-use and land-cover data are important inputs for assessing the impacts of human activity on the environment. Our goal was to reconstruct land-cover change from 1770 to 2010 and to evaluate its spatial determinants and underlying drivers for three study sites in diverse agroecological settings in Ryazan province in European Russia. We used historic maps and statistics as well as satellite

The Green Revolution spread ‘modern agriculture’ to agricultural areas of the world through the creation of new products and practices. The adoption of agricultural technology brought about great changes in land use. The growth of new cultivated varieties, expansion of existing crops and deforestation are some of the results of this process. This article evaluates the relationship between agricultural

Deforestation driven by agricultural expansion is a major threat to the biodiversity of the Amazon Basin. Modelling how deforestation responds to environmental policy implementation has thus become a policy relevant scientific undertaking. However, empirical parameterization of land-use/cover change (LUCC) models is challenging due to the high complexity and uncertainty of land-use decisions. Bayesian

Understanding the patterns of cropland abandonment is important when formulating policies that can limit negative and facilitate positive outcomes of abandonment. We present a new approach to determining the dynamics of this phenomenon using aerial laser scanning (ALS) data. Assuming that the height of trees correlates with their age made it possible to reconstruct the dynamics of cropland abandonment

This study develops a methodology to distinguish vacant land types and introduces a classification scheme using a citywide vacancy inventory. Using Minneapolis, MN as a study area, three land characteristics associated with vacant properties – parcel size, ownership, and land use – are examined. Kaplan-Meier survival rates are then estimated to evaluate and compare the durations of vacancy between

This article, through the use of political ecology perspectives on coercive conservation, aims to explain how in two separate Colombian Natural Parks and buffer zones, environmental policies designed to (re)take control of the frontier, have produced a similar territorial differentiation in the contention of illicit activities. Los Farallones in the Colombian Pacific and La Macarena/Puerto Rico in

The signing of Colombia’s peace agreement in 2016 signaled the end of a decades-long war between the government and the FARC (Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), but also an emerging assault against the country’s forests. This article aims to understand the interactions between forests and peace. In doing so, it traces landscape transformations of deforestation and possibilities for making

This paper offers a critical assessment of how tourism development in the municipality of Los Cabos, Baja California Sur affects land and water use. Los Cabos is a seaside tourism Mecca located at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in Mexico’s northwest. There, subsidised profits and a process of dispossession in the tourism sector have to do mainly with land and water appropriation

Land-use changes across distant places are increasingly affected by international agricultural trade, but most of the impacts and feedback remain unknown. The telecoupling framework – an analytical tool for examining socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances – can be used to conceptualize the impacts of agricultural trade on land-use change and feedbacks across borders of importing

This paper follows the evolution of the discourse of agricultural productivity, from its inception in colonial land-use mapping to current land-use changes, using a case study of the expansion of an oil palm company onto the territory of an indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon that caused large-scale deforestation. Drawing on analytical tools of political ecology and insights from historical

Cross-site comparisons of case studies have been identified as an important priority by the land-use science community. From an empirical perspective, such comparisons potentially allow generalizations that may contribute to production of global-scale land-use and land-cover change projections. From a theoretical perspective, such comparisons can inform development of a theory of land-use science by

The objective of this paper is to examine issues in the inclusion of simulations of ecosystem functions in agent-based models of land use decision-making. The reasons for incorporating these simulations include local interests in land fertility and global interests in carbon sequestration. Biogeochemical models are needed in order to calculate such fluxes. The Century model is described with particular

Agricultural and extractive frontiers experiment rapid landscape transformation. Land-Use Sciences and Political Ecology are complementary approaches for analysing how landscape transformations are related to biophysical conditions, and socioeconomic, cultural and political processes developed at global, national and local scales. This study examines such relationships in a long-standing agrarian and

Urban growth transforms vegetated lands into impervious surfaces, thereby increasing runoff and peak discharge. In this study, the relationships between building growth, developed area, and impervious area were examined to determine the impact of peri-urbanization on peak discharge. This was modeled for four dates spanning 50 years (1964–2014) in a Mediterranean catchment located in S-E France. Imperviousness

(2019). Correction to “Designing spatiotemporal multifunctional landscapes to support dynamic wildlife conservation”. Journal of Land Use Science: Vol. 14, Linking Land Architecture and Landscape Ecology for Land Systems Science, pp. 190-190.

ABSTRACT This paper is about mining under communal ownership which makes this kind of mining a new mining frontier. The newness of the frontier is that it has introduced a series of institutional complexities that is uncommon to artisanal and large-scale mining. Mining companies have to negotiate deals with communities and their leaders to be able to prospect for mineral resources. We also argue that

Land-use change is considered one of the main causes of environmental degradation. Thus, its analysis will allow stakeholders to make reasonable decisions for land management. The objective of the present study was to understand the patterns of land-use/land-cover change and deforestation in a territory of importance for livestock development in Nicaragua: La Vía Láctea. The methodology was based on

This paper sought to determine how different forest management regimes influence the pattern of forest degradation at different periods in Ghana. The paper tested the hypotheses that timber production forests degrade faster than protection forests and forest degradation slows down with time. For monitoring the changes in forest cover, Landsat TM, ETM+ and Landsat 8 with a spatial resolution of 30 m

Between 1992 and 2015 Argentina lost 17% of its tree cover. Regionally, deforestation continues, but net forest loss recently came to a halt. Some scholars argue that this was facilitated by industrial agricultural intensification. This view is debated, but we focus on the neglected costs associated with this intensification. An almost tenfold increase of pesticide use in Argentina during the last

Explaining global environmental change requires an understanding of the relationships that exist between social systems and the natural environment. Creating integrative research frameworks capable of explaining these coupled human and natural systems has been a central activity in this long-standing intellectual project. One way to advance framework development is to focus on relationships among people

Food system activities have modified 40% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface. These activities affect the sustainability of food systems – and their ability to provide agroecosystem services. Here, we compare three food systems in Bolivia. One is agro-industrial (soybean), one is indigenous to a Guarani community (maize and beans), and one is an agroecological, horticulture-based food system. We use

This paper argues that new land conflict frontiers are emerging in the context of renewable energy production. The novel aspect of these frontiers is a ‘green’ framing of the use of land considered ‘degraded’, expressing it as a climate protection strategy, and consequently causing similar dynamics of conflict in different regions. With reference to political ecology debates on the notion of frontiers

Sketch-map-facilitated interviews were conducted in 23 villages in two adjacent regions in the southern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico – the Maya (and increasingly Mennonite) forest-agriculture mosaic of the Chenes, and the late-20th-century-settlement forest frontier of Calakmul – to determine the frequency and typology of local-scale reserves, including the external (e.g. Payments for Environmental

In forest frontiers, smallholder agrarian livelihoods remain uneasily juxtaposed with conservation interests. Agricultural intensification is often considered a viable means of reconciling competing environmental and livelihood objectives given its potential to concentrate production on less land. However, intensification may have unintended consequences, including loss of resilient agricultural systems

(2020). Evolving patterns of agricultural frontier expansion in Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert: a political ecology approach. Journal of Land Use Science: Vol. 15, Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Current Transformations at Extractive and Agrarian Frontiers in Latin America, pp. 270-289.

This paper analyzes the role of the main spatial determinants of land use dynamics and simulates past and future scenarios of land use in Paragominas, an old agricultural frontier in Amazonia. Deforestation rates have been reduced since 2007–2008 but soybean cropping and tree plantations are currently undergoing intense expansion. During this transition period, deforestation has shifted from areas

In this study, we present a critical account of the enforcement of the Forest Law in the Province of Salta, Argentina. We discuss whether the objectives of this law were accomplished and we analyze the role that some technical tools, coupled with specific theoretical approaches, could play in its future enforcement. We illustrate our analysis with data from a case study in the Chaco region of this

Understanding the sustainability of land use systems over time requires an accounting of the diversity of land uses and their varying influences on the environment. Here we present a standardized review of land use systems in the Peloponnese, Greece, from the Neolithic to the Roman period (~6500 BC–AD 300). Using a combination of sources, we synthesize the fundamental information required to characterize

Increasing sedentary agro-pastoralist livelihoods may be explained by land degradation, population pressure, agricultural commodification, and economic development. We reviewed scientific and ‘grey’ literature for the effects of enclosures on food security. Only 8% of the 114 reviewed scientific articles addressed food production, while 69% approached environmental parameters that indirectly affect

We applied a participatory mapping approach supported by very high-resolution satellite imagery to reconstruct spatially explicit, year-to-year land use transitions in two highly biodiverse, data-scarce forest frontier landscapes in north-eastern Madagascar. We explored these transitions in the light of major continuous trends and discrete events highlighted by local farmers as influencing their land

Forest fires in Indonesia continue to pose as an alarming governmental, environmental, and societal concern. This study examines the context of land ownership transformation mainly before and after forest fires in palm oil plantation activities. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews, observation, and Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping. The majority of land transformations occurred

Our work deals with the estimation of spatio-temporal vegetation trends in various land use types in a typical Mediterranean country like Greece. Analysis of vegetation during all seasons was performed using remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) during 2000–2017 in conjunction with the various land use environments. Results highlighted the dominating vegetation greening all