Agricultural land use change Research Papers (original) (raw)

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper " Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation? " , published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector... more

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper " Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation? " , published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector dynamics influence land use policies in conflicts revolving around urban sprawl, this paper aims to complement and, to some extent, widen the analytic lens deployed by Cash. The examination of the Spanish wine sector and its lack of zoning policies confirms Cash's argument about the need to go beyond discourses of 'good governance' and 'strong political will' to understand the dynamics underpinning real spatial processes. However, this exploration underscores the need to add layers of complexity to land use analyses, showing the relevance of intra-sector conflict and logics. In complicating any simplistic reduction of urban sprawl conflicts to rural–urban oppositions, the paper ultimately calls for a more dynamic and multiscalar planning theory to address complex governance issues.

The Kathmandu Valley of Nepal epitomizes the growing urbanization trend spreading across the Himalayan foothills. This metropolitan valley has experienced a significant transformation of its landscapes in the last four decades resulting... more

The Kathmandu Valley of Nepal epitomizes the growing urbanization trend spreading across the Himalayan foothills. This metropolitan valley has experienced a significant transformation of its landscapes in the last four decades resulting in substantial land use and land cover (LULC) change; however, no major systematic analysis of the urbanization trend and LULC has been conducted on this valley since 2000. When considering the importance of using LULC change as a window to study the broader changes in socio-ecological systems of this valley, our study first detected LULC change trajectories of this valley using four Landsat images of the year 1989, 1999, 2009, and 2016, and then analyzed the detected change in the light of a set of proximate causes and factors driving those changes. A pixel-based hybrid classification (unsupervised followed by supervised) approach was employed to classify these images into five LULC categories and analyze the LULC trajectories detected from them. Our results show that urban area expanded up to 412% in last three decades and the most of this expansion occurred with the conversions of 31% agricultural land. The majority of the urban expansion happened during 1989–2009, and it is still growing along the major roads in a concentric pattern, significantly altering the cityscape of the valley. The centrality feature of Kathmandu valley and the massive surge in rural-to-urban migration are identified as the primary proximate causes of the fast expansion of built-up areas and rapid conversions of agricultural areas.

Abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, nutrient defi ciency or toxicity, and fl ooding limit crop productivity world-wide. However, this situation becomes more problematic in developing countries, where they cause food insecurity for... more

Abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, nutrient defi ciency or toxicity, and fl ooding limit crop productivity world-wide. However, this situation becomes more problematic in developing countries, where they cause food insecurity for large populations and poverty, particularly in rural areas. For example, drought stress has affected more than 70 million hectares of rice-growing land world-wide. While salt stress and nutrient stress render more than 100 million hectares of agricultural land uncultivable thereby resulting in low outputs, ...

Basin characteristics such as land use/land cover, slope, and soil attributes affect water quality by regulating sediment and chemical concentration. Among these characteristics, land use/land cover can be manipulated to gain improvements... more

Basin characteristics such as land use/land cover, slope, and soil attributes affect water quality by regulating sediment and chemical concentration. Among these characteristics, land use/land cover can be manipulated to gain improvements in water quality. These land use/land cover types can serve as nutrient detention media or as nutrient transformers as dissolved or suspended nutrients move towards the stream. This study examines a methodology to determine nitrate pollution ‘contributing zones’ within a given basin based on basin characteristics. In this process, land use/land cover types were classified and basins and ‘contributing zones’ were delineated using geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) analysis tools. A ‘land use/land cover-nutrient-linkage-model’ was developed which suggests that forests act as a sink, and as the proportion of forest inside a contributing zone increases (or agricultural land decreases), nitrate levels downstream will decrease. In the model, the residential/urban/built-up areas have been identified as strong contributors of nitrate. Other contributors were orchards; and row crops and other agricultural activities.

Landscape structure, or the spatial organization of different land units, has an impact on erosion and sedimentation on agricultural land. However, current erosion models emphasize the temporal, and less the spatial, variability of... more

Landscape structure, or the spatial organization of different land units, has an impact on erosion and sedimentation on agricultural land. However, current erosion models emphasize the temporal, and less the spatial, variability of relevant parameters so that the effects of changes in landscape structure have hitherto not been studied in detail. Therefore, a spatially distributed water and tillage erosion model that allows the incorporation of landscape structure is presented. The model is applied to three study sites in the Belgian Loam Belt where significant changes in landscape structure occurred over the last fifty years. Erosion rates were shown to change by up to 28% however, with decreases as well as increases occurring. These could be explained by the interaction of changes in land use with changes in the position of field boundaries. Thus, landscape structure is an important control when the effect of environmental change on erosion risk is to be assessed.

Shifting cultivation is a traditional agricultural land use in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. It is, however, changing over the time under the influence of several internal and external pressures. In some areas, it is... more

Shifting cultivation is a traditional agricultural land use in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. It is, however, changing over the time under the influence of several internal and external pressures. In some areas, it is partly or completely replaced by more intensive land-use systems, but in other areas it is still dominant. Due to steadily increasing population pressure on land arising from natural growth of indigenous population and in-migration of lowland settlers combined with the government restriction on encroachment of reserve forests, farmers have been forced to shorten the fallow period, thereby accelerating deforestation, soil erosion and nutrient depletion. Such environmental problems have threatened undermining the livelihood of people depending on it. Policies and programs aimed at promoting alternative land-use systems have failed to achieve expected goals because of inadequate understanding of the evolution of existing land-use systems and forces driving the changes. Using cluster analysis, this study identified three types of land-use systems in Bandarban, a typical hill district of CHT, which are different from each other in intensity of use, degree of diversification and commercialization. Factors influencing the development of land-use systems were explored through factor and discriminant analyses. The results show that institutional support, productive resource base and distance to the market and service center were the main factors responsible for the development of three different types of land-use systems.Sustainable land-use systems such as agroforestry, commercial plantation and horticulture have evolved in areas where such support and facilities were favorable. While in other areas with insecure land tenure, difficult access to market centers, and unavailability of credit and extension services shifting cultivation was the dominant type of land use. It has been suggested to provide necessary institutional support, such as secure land tenure, and make provision of services and facilities such as improved transportation, extension and credit to enable farmers to shift gradually from shifting cultivation to environmentally and economically suitable land uses such as agroforestry, plantation and fruit farming.

Kazakhstan is the second largest country to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Consequent to the abrupt institutional changes surrounding the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Kazakhstan has reportedly... more

Kazakhstan is the second largest country to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Consequent to the abrupt institutional changes surrounding the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Kazakhstan has reportedly undergone extensive land cover/land use change. Were the institutional changes sufficiently great to affect land surface phenology at spatial resolutions and extents relevant to mesoscale