Environmental impact assessment of urban land use transitions—A context-sensitive approach

Land consumption due to residential development, economic growth and transportation belongs to the most serious environmental pressures on landscapes worldwide, in particular in urbanised areas. Accordingly, the aim of containing the development of land is rated increasingly high on the agenda of environmental policy, at least in densely populated countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands or the UK. As a result, different strategies and instruments to prevent excessive land consumption are being discussed. However, many of these strategies and instruments adopt a rather general approach, while it seems more effective to define the particular areas where the goal of reducing land consumption is to be pursued. Such an approach must draw on information about how detrimental specific land use transitions are with regard to, for instance, the functionality of soils, water balance or habitat quality at specific locations. This paper introduces a conceptual framework for the impact assessment of land use transition in urban areas which highlights how such information can be acquired. This framework includes the differentiation of two levels of impact assessment: the level of the single land unit and the context level which takes into account regional and aggregated impacts of land use transition bound to the spatial context. The conceptual framework provides a basis to disaggregate (supra-)national policy targets regarding land use, to scale them down to the regional level, and thus to clarify the spatially explicit implications of land use policies.     

Watershed management in an urban setting: process, scale and administration

Efforts in post-industrial countries to refine environment and planning administration in the face of unprecedented urban growth have important implications for ecological systems and human quality of life. This paper uses the case of an urban riparian corridor in South East Queensland, Australia to contribute to understandings of interactions between land use planning processes, watershed management initiatives and broader administrative structures in urban and rapidly urbanising settings. In particular it examines the understudied application of watershed management to an urban setting. Analysis of changes to the structure and function of urban riparian corridor management over time show that changes have occurred as a result of broader policy and institutional change in three distinct phases: top-down watershed management policy (1996-2000), regional natural resource and population growth management policy (2001-2005) and the recent re-emergence of local government as the dominant actor in a multilevel networked context (2006-2008). Trends toward regional scale approaches and increased urban planning initiatives have tended to concentrate responsibilities for urban environmental management with local government. This is in contrast to most rural natural resource management experience, and highlights the importance of meta-governance frameworks in ensuring the enduring applicability of the watershed management model to urban and rapidly urbanising catchments.     

Synergy between urban planning, conservation of the cultural built heritage and functional changes in the old urban center—the case of Tel Aviv

The old urban center of Tel Aviv, like other urban centers in the western world, is undergoing accelerated development processes. Together with the trend towards gentrification are processes of urban renewal and infrastructure development and increasing demand for land and buildings, all of which increase the value of the land. The difference between Tel Aviv and other cities in the western world, as well as in Israel, is its young age and its quick pace of change. The old urban center of Tel Aviv is unique in that it is less than one hundred years old and is changing rapidly. Tel Aviv, which in 1909 was a small suburb of Jaffa, has evolved into an independent city, which is today the center of economic and cultural activities in Israel. Tel Aviv's short but significant history, together with its rapid changes, creates its image as an active and vivid metropolis with embedded heritage values. However, rapid development brings with it dilemmas. On the one hand, urban planners, tourists and entrepreneurs identify the center of town with its historical nucleus and heritage values. On the other hand, the rapid development and need for urban renovation are clearly in conflict with the need to preserve Tel Aviv's historical values and unique qualities. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that conservation of built heritage and urban development in ‘Young Tel Aviv’ can coexist and synergistically support each other, and that the historical values have economic potential, which may contribute to urban development. Heritage values can be formulated and even artificially produced to promote urban development. Although Israel has many very old cities with universal historical values, the young city of Tel Aviv is at the forefront of conservation.     

Spatial planning as policy integration: The need for an evolutionary perspective. Lessons from Uzbekistan

We start out from the premise of a continued need for policy integration to address both economic and environmental issues in society, arguing that spatial planning is a privileged site to locate such endeavor. While policy integration in planning can acquire many forms, we understand those forms as ways to manage interdependencies between organizations. Spatial planning can contribute to the integration of policies in comprehensive visions, but a planning system, in the sense of a network of organizations, does not escape from the evolutionary rigidity introduced by interdependence and path-dependence. In a study of the evolutionary path of spatial governance in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, we investigated the shifting patterns of policy integration that affected the organization of space. Policy integration in planning, it is found, is path-dependent, worked out positively and negatively, and necessarily relied on informal coordination mechanisms. Thus, a planning system striving to manage interdependence has to be highly reflexive, to understand the extent to which its transformation options are constrained by history and by present linkages between organizations.     

Reconciliation ecology in practice: Legal and policy considerations when implementing temporary nature on undeveloped lands in the European Union

Strict regulations, such as the EU Nature Directives, remain pivotal for halting the downward spiral for some protected species. In recent years, though, it has become clear that nature protection rules, are also generating perverse incentives, especially when rigidly applied to areas that have already been transformed by human use, such as agricultural land, quarries and port sites. With the arrival of novel incentive concepts, such as temporary nature in several EU Member States, an unprecedented window of opportunity exists to reframe current nature protection rules. Temporary nature fosters private landowners, ranchers and project developers to actively participate in the recovery of endangered species, also in urban and industrial environments. In return for allowing nature to develop on their undeveloped and vacant lands, the project developers are provided with the legal guarantee that they can still subsequently develop their lands at a later stage. These newly founded conservation policies, which are increasingly endorsed by stand out as striking illustrations of the recently emerged branch of reconciliation ecology, since they aim at increasing biodiversity by opting for win-win scenarios in human-dominated landscapes. It is concluded that a more reconciliatory approach towards nature conservation, which goes beyond the ambit of protected areas, can serve as a catalyst for biodiversity recovery across the wider landscape. Further research will need to underpin whether the ambitious presumptions with regard to these well-intentioned and innovative approaches to nature conservation are justified.     

There is an I in nature: The crucial role of the self in nature conservation

In this paper we analyze the social-psychological determinants of private nature conservation. As a theoretical framework we use the Theory of Planned Behavior, to which the concepts connectedness to nature, self-identity, and place attachment were added. 94 landowners participated in our survey. Results of this pilot study show that perceived behavioral control, self-identity and connectedness to nature are the key factors influencing the intention to conserve. The more farmers feel that they are capable of conserving nature on their farm, the more they see themselves as conservationists, and the more they feel connected to nature, the more likely they are to intend to conserve. An important finding is that self-identity mediates the relation between CNS and conservation intentions. This implies that with an increased connectedness to nature, people come to see themselves as conservationists and this in turn influences their intentions. Of course, these results need to be replicated and validated across different contexts. We discuss the implications of this study for future research and policy.     

Public participation and local environmental planning: Testing factors influencing decision quality and implementation in four case studies from Germany

Public and stakeholder participation in environmental planning is often assumed to enhance effectiveness through improving the environmental quality of decisions and enhancing implementation. We draw on the literature on participatory environmental governance in order to derive key participation-related factors that are hypothesized to impact on decision quality and implementation. We then outline four cases of decision-making processes in local environmental planning in Germany, representing a variety of forms of public participation, and what we suggest can be seen as four different pathways to ‘success’ in participatory planning. The case studies, recounted on the basis of stakeholder interviews and secondary research, are subjected to a cross-case analysis in order to examine the influence of participation in each case. We consider how key participation-related factors played out across the cases, and assess both decision quality and implementation against counterfactual non-participatory, or less-participatory, scenarios. In moving beyond accounts of ‘what happened’, and considering how participation changed the order of things relative to ‘what would have happened’ under different scenarios, the research highlights how very different pathways may lead to ‘success’ in participatory environmental planning from the viewpoint of process organizers and planners sympathetic to environmental issues. We conclude that, given the significance of context and surprises, planners and process organizers must be open to different pathways to the successful conclusion of participatory planning processes.     

Reducing agrochemical use for nature conservation by Italian olive farmers: an evaluation of public and private governance strategies

A variety of public policies and private strategies have been implemented to stimulate farmers to implement nature conservation measures. Examples include publicly funded agri-environment schemes (AES) but also eco-labels and Alternative Food Networks; strategies that have been implemented in response to the continuous decline in species abundance and diversity due to agricultural intensification and scale enlargement. Whereas AES as a distinct governance strategy has been evaluated in detail, less is known about other strategies. In this paper, we assess the relative importance of the variety of public and private strategies aimed at enhancing species abundance and diversity in Italian olive farming through a reduction in agrochemical use. In a survey of olive farmers in the region of Tuscany, we found that although farmers are exposed to a variety of public and private strategies, personal motives to reduce agrochemical use are most important. Moreover, having a Corporate Social Responsibility plan or engaging in direct sales to consumers are the only strategies that are related to a reduction in agrochemical use. These findings suggest self-governance is a powerful strategy for enhancing species diversity and abundance in agricultural landscapes. Yet it also means contributing to nature conservation and restoration is a voluntary act. Olive farmers who do not voluntarily contribute to nature conservation by reducing agrochemicals need to be incentivized by show-casing farmers who did reduce their agrochemical use, by critical consumers or by stricter rules in AES or in generic agri-environmental legislation.     

Urban planning in office markets: A methodological approach

This article stresses the importance of urban planning interventions on real estate office markets in an environment increasingly characterized by globalization processes and progress of information and communication technologies, leaving behind the traditional influence of more market-related variables spread abroad vast literature. It contends that a better indirect control exerted by municipal authorities may launch the performance and characteristics of these markets. Within this scope, an innovative methodology and model are proposed, aimed at assisting municipal decisions in the definition of strategic policies concerning location or relocation of offices, and respective influences over rents. This methodology and this model have a flexible ongoing character that fits the anytime concrete features of local office markets. They are applied, as a case study, to the office market of Oporto city (Portugal). Implications for urban policy are inferred and generalized from this analysis.     

Zionism and agricultural land: National narratives,environmental objectives,and land policy in Israel

The 1990s saw two different and even contradictory trends in Israel. On the one hand, there was a substantial increase in environmental awareness, on the part of both the general public and decision-makers, that led to a change in the land use planning policy at the national level. On the other hand, the Israel Lands Council (ILC), the body empowered by law to shape the national land policy, made a series of decisions that severely violated the principle of preserving agricultural land and led to massive conversion of agricultural land and open space for commercial, industrial, and residential development. Thus the national land policy became incompatible with the land use planning policy and the rise in environmental awareness it reflected.     

Toward a systemic analysis of city-agriculture interactions in West Africa: A geography of arrangements between actors

Despite the importance of urban agriculture in developing countries, urban agriculture is not well understood by public authorities. This lack of knowledge impedes its inclusion in public policies of urban planning. A substantial body of literature deals with urban agriculture but little research has analyzed the multidimensional city-agriculture interactions facilitating its enduring presence within the city. We suggest the hypothesis that informal processes are at the core of the persistence of urban agriculture and propose the concept of socio-spatial arrangements (SSAs) between the actors. To study urban agriculture in Bobo-Dioulasso, a West African city, we propose to develop a geography of arrangements to understand the social and spatial characteristics of SSAs and the way they influence urban agriculture development. Taking the example of market gardeners and pig breeders, we highlight how farmers overcome urban constraints through localized social networks. Results show that arrangements between the actors are at the core of the persistence of urban agriculture. We underline two different socio-spatial morphologies (SSMs) of urban agriculture according to differences in urban agriculture characteristics. These SSMs illustrate how market gardeners and pig breeders integrate differently into the urban space. The systemic approach of studying arrangements between actors helps us understand how urban farming activities function, and how they are connected to each other and to the urban and regional system, thus building a picture of an agri-urban system. We discuss the policy and theoretical implications of this research. This study is aimed at providing a better understanding of urban agriculture that can enhance its consideration as a viable component of the city.     

New institutional approach to collaborative forest planning on public land: Methods for analysis and lessons for policy

Collaborative planning has become an increasingly popular approach in environmental decision-making, particularly in situations where there are multiple actors with conflicting interests. In this paper, collaborative environmental planning is perceived as being embedded in an institutional environment that has an impact on the processes and outcomes of planning. Building on the theory of new institutionalism, the paper combines legal analysis of forest regulation with interviews and policy document data from two case studies on collaborative Natural Resource Planning in state-owned forests in Finland. These approaches will be used to analyse how formal regulations and informal norms are interpreted and implemented in the planning processes. The paper highlights the important role institutions can play in promoting or hindering successful collaborative planning, and makes recommendations for developing a forest governance system that is equipped to deal with the identified challenges.     

Urban agriculture and land use in cities: An approach with the multi-functionality and sustainability concepts in the case of Antananarivo (Madagascar)

Urban planners are increasingly interested in agriculture around cities and have to decide whether to maintain or not areas of agricultural land use within and close to growing cities. There is therefore a need for researchers to design tools to guide public decision-making on land use. Various approaches, originating from different disciplines, may be adopted in this respect. We designed an interdisciplinary research program in order to test two related concepts: the “sustainability” and the “multi-functionality” of agriculture. We show that these concepts provide a useful framework for obtaining appropriate knowledge about urban agriculture, which urban planners could apply in real situations. In close collaboration with urban planners, we applied an interdisciplinary research methodology, based on common farm surveys and territorial approaches, to the Antananarivo area (Madagascar). The main functions analyzed were the food production and environmental roles of urban agriculture. Two aspects of sustainability were assessed: the farm sustainability and the territorial sustainability, with expert scores. This approach identified a wide diversity of farming systems that performed differently, depending on their intra- or suburban location. The food supply function appeared to be important not only for fresh produce but also for rice consumption. The function of protection against flooding is now important and this importance will increase with climate change. A diagnosis of sustainability was made and discussed with urban planners: several farming systems and zones were identified in which agriculture was considered important as a means of maintaining or developing the food supply, employment and incomes, and even landscape or environmental quality. We also identified other areas in which poor production conditions and/or the negative effects of urbanization on agriculture jeopardized its sustainability. This methodology appeared to be useful for determining the most appropriate role of urban agriculture in the land-use planning of this city. Our study raises new questions on the subject and should lead to more focused research programmes. We discuss several points of interest and the limitations and possible extension of this method.     

Environmental farm planning in Ontario: exploring participation and the endurance of change

The Ontario Environmental Farm Plan Programme (EFP) represents a significant departure from previous agri-environmental initiatives in Canada. In this programme, the focus is not on the promotion and adoption of any particular farming innovation, but rather on the completion of a farm-level environmental appraisal and the development of a farm-specific environmental action plan. As with more traditional schemes, there is interest in understanding how the programme is performing and in documenting outcomes. Evidence suggests that a significant proportion of farmers who enter the programme complete only part of the process or apply the evaluation to only certain aspects of their operation. In effect, there is variation in the way participants participate. This paper examines the nature of, and reasons for, differing levels of engagement among participants in the EFP Programme. Results from a survey of past participants suggests that farm-specific environmental conditions, farmers’ motivations concerning the environment, and positive perceptions of the programme itself are associated with more complete levels of participation. Underlying some of the revealed variations in participation are abiding concerns for the confidentiality of the process and more general concerns relating to the intervention of the state in agricultural land use.     

Assessing the fragmentation of construction land in urban areas: An index method and case study in Shunde, China

The fragmentation of construction land due to decentralised urban development, disorderly mixed land use, and large-scale transportation infrastructure poses a threat to urban integrity. There is a need to quantify the fragmentation level in a consistent way for inclusion in planning-related decisions. In the context of China's urban sprawl, this study develops a quantitative and intuitive index approach that planners can use to analyse multiple fragmentation features of construction land within urban areas. The approach can be used in planning policy reviews for timely land-use assessment and can be integrated into urban planning processes for developing strategic land-use scenarios. The method was applied in Shunde, a typical urban area in southern China, and construction-land fragmentation and its impacts on environmental quality were analysed. The results show that the entire built-up area in Shunde displays a high level of fragmentation. Patches of industrial and rural residence have been identified specifically higher fragmentation level. The shortage of available construction land makes land consolidation within built-up areas very important in planning Shunde's future development. Moreover, the land shortage requires the progressive reduction of construction land fragmentation. The results of the study also indicate that although land fragmentation has been affected by transportation infrastructure and the existence of rivers and hills in this region, decentralised decisions from hierarchical local governance regimes have greatly exacerbated this situation. Shunde provides examples of typical land-use problems associated with quasi-urbanised regions in China; construction-land fragmentation is a greater determinant for the sustainable development of urban and rural areas than construction-land growth.     

Internalising the costs of fragmentation and nutrient deposition in spatial planning: Extending a decision support tool for the Netherlands

The Land Use Scanner (LUS) is a decision support system for land use planning that is widely used in the Netherlands. The model yields solutions that have a high resolution (500×500 m) and reflect economic equilibrium in the land market, in which eighteen types of land use and nine aggregated habitat types competitively bid for locations. Here, an extension to the LUS is presented that enables the internalisation of environmental externalities. The focus in this study is on two important externalities, namely ammonia emissions from agriculture and habitat fragmentation. We simulate four IPCC-based land use scenarios and assess the level of fragmentation of the nine habitat types. We also perform sensitivity analyses in the most market-oriented scenario on the effectiveness of market-based instruments in promoting more efficient land allocation. The simulation results suggest that particularly the habitat type ‘rain-fed mires and bogs’ is susceptible to fragmentation. The sensitivity analyses show that internalising the damage costs of fragmentation resulted in smaller changes in land allocation than internalising those of nitrogen deposition. For both instruments, the policy effort was large in relation to the efficiency gains in land allocation.     

Urban land administration and planning in China: Opportunities and constraints of spatial data models

China's economic reforms over the past decades have given rise to the development of a rudimentary urban land market. Although one cannot speak of a land “market” in the strict sense of the word, there is an urban land allocation system in which land lease rights can be acquired through the payment of a land-use fee. If the urban land market is to develop in a sustainable manner, new credible institutions need to be established that can safeguard greater legal security and transparency. For these purposes, it is necessary to establish a management system that can support the legal (tenure security), economic (leases, taxes) and broader aspects (spatial and environmental land use policies) of land administration. To make an urban land administration system socially credible and functional, land-related information should be registered and structured at a detailed spatial level, such as parcels. There is no parcel-based information system in China, but the country has developed a population registration system at a detailed spatial level that could be a starting point to develop integrated information systems, or a so-called “local spatial data infrastructure”. This paper reviews China's population registration system and their spatial units and presents a proposal for an information system that can be expanded or adapted to meet the requirements of an effective land administration system.     

Land degradation in the Lao PDR: Discourses and policy

While there is an important body of research on environmental discourses and policy in Southeast Asia, the situation in the Lao PDR remains understudied. This paper builds on debates related to environmental change and knowledge production and examines the socio-political construction of the current mainstream discourse on land degradation in Laos. It highlights that, despite significant uncertainties as regard the extent and severity of the issue, land degradation in the uplands is represented by the Laotian authorities and many of their development partners as a major and imminent threat to the development of the country. The paper also examines the way this perspective is translated into policies specifically aimed at resolving the upland issue and proposes an alternative reading of this process where mainstream discourse and associated policy appear partly shaped by the subjectivities and political economic projects of Laos’ policy-makers. Finally, drawing on the case of Laos, the paper provides a critical reflection on conventional approaches to assessing socio-environmental issues and defining policy interventions.     

Playing musical chairs with land use obligations: Market-based instruments and environmental public policies in Brazil

In Brazil, market-based instruments focusing on land use dimensions are increasingly promoted as a means to make public environmental policies effective. Landowners and farmers call for more flexible regulations and economic incentives to adopt ecologically sound practices, while public agencies and conservation NGOs seek new ways of financing and legitimising legal standards. Market-based instruments are considered by these actors as having the potential to both achieve their own goals and conciliate all interests. As a result, legal frameworks (including cap-and-trade systems, biodiversity offsetting and payments for ecosystem services) are being designed which allow to exchange land use rights and obligations. Under a sociolegal approach, this article provides an overview of such instruments. It shows to what extent they may entail a reconfiguration of the burden sharing and the priority setting of nature conservation. Depending on how actors use legal standards, their responsibilities may be eased and the level of conservation may be lowered, both facts that raise significant controversy.