Values and attitudes of the urban public towards peri-urban agricultural land

Peri-urban agricultural landscapes around the world are undergoing rapid transformation due to urban expansion. While some landscape values are being protected by current land-use planning frameworks, we know little about the broader values and attitudes of the urban public shaping this transformation. The structure of the values assigned to peri-urban agricultural landscapes by residents of Melbourne, Australia was explored and related to stated landscape preferences and people's underlying values. Exploratory factor analysis was used to categorise assigned values in multifunctional, food and native biota groups, and stated preferences for photographs into four landscape categories: intensive landscapes, extensive landscapes, high tree cover and plantations. The structure of underlying personal values closely resembled other studies of environmental value orientations. Multiple regression analysis revealed that preferences for all landscape categories were predicted strongly by multifunctional assigned values. Significant relationships were also evident between all assigned value groups and the biospheric underlying value orientation. Attitudes towards residential development approaches were also related significantly to assigned but not underlying values. Assigned values appear therefore to mediate between underlying values and attitudes towards peri-urban landscapes. This research demonstrates that peri-urban agricultural landscapes are perceived as multifunctional systems by the urban public and are valued for a range of functions not typically included in land use policies. This study also suggests that in the context of rapid land use change, a variety of landscape types should be retained on the urban fringe for their benefit to the urban public, and synergies promoted between landscape functions.     

Navigating conflicting landscape aspirations: Application of a photo-based Q-method in Transylvania (Central Romania)

In combination, the economic realities brought about by globalization, and the sustainability goals set by the European Union, translate into contradictory challenges for European cultural landscapes. With its high natural and cultural diversity, Transylvania (Central Romania) is facing the choice between development based on a “production for profit” logic, with the risks of a liberalized land market, versus a largely untested development pathway based on sustainability, landscape multifunctionality and conservation. In the context of these largely externally imposed and contradictory development pathways, clarifying the viewpoints and preferences of local people is important, and may help explain the outcomes of past policies, as well as inform future interventions. We undertook a photograph-based Q methodology study – interviewing 129 residents from 30 villages – to understand and explore the diverse range of landscape preferences held by locals in Southern Transylvania. We clarified these preferences by identifying groups of participants who shared similar viewpoints regarding local landscapes and their changing purpose. Our findings revealed five different “preference narratives” about Transylvanian landscapes, namely (1) landscapes for prosperity and economic growth; (2) landscapes for traditions and balanced lifestyles; (3) landscapes for human benefit; (4) landscapes for farming; and (5) landscapes for nature. Our systematic assessment of narratives showed areas of consensus and disagreement among participants. We relate the five preference narratives to current management approaches targeting rural landscapes. We conclude by suggesting policy approaches to tackle the diversity of opinions and interests found in this culturally and ecologically diverse landscape. Important policy priorities include fostering economic diversification and improving social capital.     

Society's attitudes to and preferences for land and landscape

The relationship between society, land and landscape is deeply complex. Attitudes are reflected in behaviour, notably patterns of consumption through recreational activity, as well as in expressed preferences. Society attaches great importance to land. A large proportion of the population engages directly with it, through gardening and involvement in the management of allotments, community gardens and other public spaces. There is increasing evidence of the benefits of such engagement for individuals and communities. Society's attitudes and preferences have traditionally been dominated by expert or professional views, which have evolved over time and now place emphasis on everyday as well as special landscapes, and on urban greenspace and green infrastructure as much as on rural landscapes. The general public also seems to value the countryside as well as parks and green spaces nearer to home. Public attitudes are shaped by a number of different factors. Age, social and economic status, ethnic origin, familiarity, place of upbringing and residence, particularly whether urban or rural, are especially significant. Perhaps most important are environmental value orientations. At present, society seems to be polarised. At one extreme are older, more affluent, better educated, more environmentally aware people, often in social grades AB, who are often the most active users of the countryside and greenspaces. At the other extreme are younger age groups, ethnic minorities, and those who are in the DE social grades, who are often much less engaged. These groups have very different values and attitudes. But most people need to access and enjoy different types of landscape at different times and for different purposes, accessing what has been called a ‘portfolio of places’ that is particular to each person. It is by no means clear how the various factors that influence people's attitudes and preferences will play out in the future. Society may continue to become more detached from nature and landscape, and less caring about its future. Or there could be a rekindling of society's need to engage with the land and an increased desire to ensure that all sectors of society can benefit from green spaces and rural landscapes. This is likely to require interventions through education and campaigns to change attitudes and behaviour. Whether such initiatives can be effective in the face of competing drivers of attitudinal and behavioural change and over what timescale, may well determine how society's relationships with land and landscape evolve over the next 50 years.     

土地利用规划体系研究

中国土地利用规划体系的主要问题是区域规划、土地利用规划和城市规划各成体系,以各级行政区为单位编制的土地利用总体规划没有很好的整合区域社会经济发展对土地的需求,僵化的控制指标与区域社会经济的发展不相适应;同时由于土地利用总体规划与城市规划相脱节,难以有效地控制城市用地规模.因此,土地利用规划管理的发展方向应是整合土地利用规划体系,将区域规划、土地利用规划和城市规划融为一体;重视城市土地利用规划和乡村土地利用规划等控制性土地利用详细规划的编制和实施.     

Public evaluation of landscape content and change: Several examples from Europe

This paper considers rural land use by analysing stakeholder values and perceptions concerning various landscape components. The purpose is to show that landscape content and land cover interactions with societal connections should be a base for land use development. The practical goal is to deliberate research tools to quantify public opinions and attitudes, which could form bases for developing of decision support tools. The main research objectives are: (1) to assess existing opinions concerning land use changes and provide a clearer insight into public attitudes to the role of woodlands for an integrated development of the countryside; (2) to place ecological and socio-economic values on inanimate natural components of landscapes; and (3) to assess values and preferences held by land use policy and management experts regarding multiple landscape components and features to assist in decision-making. Through the different levels of importance (values) accorded by the respondents to the integration of nature components in rural landscapes public priorities were identified. The paper develops an understanding of why certain aspects of land use changes are unfavourably viewed by some people and favourably received by others. It suggests some innovative perspectives on the areas of consensus and conflict between people, providing initial information for the selection and evaluation of land use management decisions.     

Characterizing European cultural landscapes: Accounting for structure,management intensity and value of agricultural and forest landscapes

Almost all rural areas in Europe have been shaped or altered by humans and can be considered cultural landscapes, many of which now are considered to entail valuable cultural heritage. Current dynamics in land management have put cultural landscapes under a huge pressure of agricultural intensification and land abandonment. To prevent the loss of cultural landscapes, knowledge on the location of different types of cultural landscapes is needed. In this paper, we present a characterization of European cultural landscapes based on the prevalence of three key dimensions of cultural landscapes: landscape structure, management intensity, and value and meaning. We mapped these dimensions across Europe at a 1-km resolution by combining proxies on management intensity and landscape structure with new indicators such as social media usage and registered traditional food products. We integrated the three dimensions into a continuous “cultural landscape index” that allows for a characterization of Europe’s rural landscapes. The characterization identifies hotspots of cultural landscapes, where all three dimensions are present, such as in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, Eastern and Northern European cultural landscapes are mostly characterized by only one of the dimensions. Our paper can help to identify pressures to cultural landscapes and thus to target measures for the conservation of these landscapes, to link similar landscapes in different regions, and to inform policy design on the most important characteristics of cultural landscapes at a regional scale.     

Multifunctional peri-urban agriculture—A review of societal demands and the provision of goods and services by farming

Peri-urban areas around urban agglomerations in Europe and elsewhere have been subject to agricultural and land use research for the past three decades. The manner in which farming responds to urban pressures, socio-economic changes and development opportunities has been the main focus of examination, with urban demand for rural goods and services representing a driving factor to adapt farming activities in a multifunctional way. Working within the peri-urban framework, this review pays particular attention to the relevance of multifunctional agriculture. Academic discourses and empirical insights related to farm structure and practices beyond conventional agriculture are analysed. Diversification, recreational and environmental farming, landscape management and specialisation, as well as direct marketing are all taken into consideration and discussed within the context of landscape functions. The provision of rural goods and services is contrasted with societal demands on peri-urban agriculture. This review finds that multifunctional agriculture has been commonly recognised in peri-urban areas – a phenomenon that includes a large variety of activities and diversification approaches within the context of environmental, social and economic functions of agriculture. In response to the post-productive, consumption-oriented requirements of the urban society, peri-urban farmers have intensified their uptake of multifunctional activities. Nevertheless, not all multifunctional opportunities are being fully developed when one considers the large and growing urban demand for goods and services provided by agriculture carried out near the city. This paper discusses policy and planning approaches to support multifunctional agriculture in peri-urban areas.     

Landscape governance for or by the local population? A property rights analysis in Austria

Diverse and unique landscapes not only are one of the key assets of Austrian tourism industry, but are also highly valued for local identity, quality of life and their ecological functions. Society tries to prevent unintended landscape change and thereby purposefully intervenes in landscape development by countless environmental regulations, contracts with landholders, agri-environmental schemes, landscape and nature reserves, food-related activities such as ‘eat the view’ and labels of origin. In the face of increasing state control and the growing influence of (inter-) nationally acting civil society groups, the paper poses the question whether the local population still has a saying in the governance of their landscape. Is it the local people, their costumes and institutions that shape the diversity and uniqueness of landscapes (i.e., the ‘root meaning of landscape’ [Olwig, K.R., 2002. Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic. From Britain's Renaissance to America's New World. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.]) or is local peculiarity lost to national or international landscape control? The paper analyses the changing structures of use and control rights to Austrian landscapes and resulting shifts between locally driven and centrally controlled landscape change. The paper is a meta-analysis of ten empirically founded interdisciplinary research projects on cultural landscapes in Austria. The results are compared with international literature that indicates a loss of control of the local rural population over their natural resources. In the Austrian case however, the local population (re-) negotiates and (re-) interprets complex and conflicting international and state regulations according to their respective needs before concretizing them in actual land use practises. Some participation projects and self-governed local civic society movements integrate non-landholders. In few of homogenisation forces such as CAP and international regulations, diverse and unique landscapes call for the involvement of the local preferences, traditions, knowledge and skills—of both local non-landholders and landholders.     

An evaluation of contemporary China’s land use policy – The Link Policy: A case study from Ezhou,Hubei Province

Economic reform in China has resulted in rapid urbanisation over the past three decades, changing the urban and rural landscape dramatically. A large amount of farmland was developed, leading to conflict between construction demand and farmland protection. In response, the “Link Policy” was proposed in 2005 that seeks to concurrently preserve farmland while providing for urban expansion through land exchange. The effectiveness of the Link Policy has not been systematically investigated. The purpose of this study is to analyse and evaluate outcomes of the Link Policy objectives from both a participant and investigator’s interpretive perspective. Ezhou, the first experimental city to implement the Link Policy in Hubei Province in central China, was selected as a case study area. Eight different communities in Ezhou were visited and 160 semi-structured interviews were conducted with resettled rural residents in March 2016. A combination of interviews and investigator field observations were used to evaluate the Link Policy objectives. The results show that participants recognize and support improving rural living conditions and coordinating urban-rural development, but the Link Policy failed to achieve the objectives of preserving farmland, protecting farmers’ land use rights and interests, and facilitating agricultural production. Participants perceived concentrated resettlement communities to be more efficient in land use compared to more expansive rural settlements, but vacant apartments for commercial use in resettlement areas account for a large proportion of land suggesting inefficiency in the land exchanges. We suggest policy changes to achieve more successful implementation of the Link Policy.     

统筹城乡的建设用地空间重构机制与对策研究

统筹城乡发展要求重构建设用地空间。分析了我国土地政策促进城乡统筹的现实困境,表现为城乡用地供需错位、土地要素缺乏流动性、置换指标区际交易机制不健全、收益共享机制不完善等;以此为基础,从农村建设用地整理模式转换、置换指标跨县区流转、土地增值收益共享、规划引导4个方面构建了统筹城乡的建设用地空间重构机制;并提出要加强土地政策与相关政策的衔接,强化监管及保障体系建设,以充分发挥土地政策的宏观调控作用。     

区域景观格局视角的绿地生态网络优化研究——以徐州为例

[目的]基于景观格局演变的区域绿地生态网络与生态功能优化研究是景观生态学研究的热点领域之一。[方法]文章以徐州示范为例,在城市研究区景观格局演变及其异质性研究分析基础上,探索城市规划区城乡绿地景观格局的优化路径;运用经济学与生态学原理,按“山水林田湖草”一体化理念,以区域生态系统服务优化及人与自然和谐发展为前提,从市域与城市规划区视角,合理配置城乡绿地生态网络景观组分,进而优化区域绿地生态网络。[结果]研究得出2005—2015年研究范围城市化造成大量耕地消失,城市建设用地快速增加,随着生态园林建设的快速推进,林地面积占比大幅度增加;地表覆被变化直接表现为景观格局的快速破碎化和景观多样性的下降,景观类型的丰富度和复杂度急需提高,景观多样性指数、景观均匀度指数也均呈现较为明显的下降趋势。同时,重点提出了强化景观格局与过程的完整性与连通性,挖掘潜在生态功能等的区域绿地生态网络一系列优化方案。[结论]文章为研究区及延伸的城乡区域绿地生态网络构建和生态系统服务优化提供了科学的依据、方法与途径。     

Rural-urban gradient analysis of ecosystem services supply and demand dynamics

Urban regions are important places of ecosystem service demands and, at the same time, are the primary source of global environmental impacts. Although there is broad agreement on the importance of incorporating the concept of ecosystem services into policy strategies and decision-making, the lack of a standardized approach to quantifying ecosystem services at the landscape scale has hindered progress in this direction. Moreover, tradeoffs between ecosystem services and the supply/demand ratio of ecosystem services in urban landscapes have rarely been investigated. In our paper, we present a method to quantify and map the supply and demand of three essential provisioning services - energy, food, and water - along the rural-urban gradient of the eastern German region Leipzig-Halle. This urban region has experienced significant socio-economic dynamics and land use changes since the German reunification in 1990. The results show that both the demand and the supply of ecosystem services changed considerably during the time span under consideration (1990-2007). We identified an increasing supply/demand ratio of food and water but a decreasing supply/demand ratio of energy. In addition, the pattern of ecosystem demands shows a levelling of rural-urban gradients, reflecting profound modifications of traditional rural-urban relationships. The changes of ecosystem service supply gradients are determined more by land use intensity, such as the intensification of agricultural production, than by land cover changes such as urban sprawl. The comparison of supply/demand ratios and rural-urban patterns of ecosystem services can help decision-makers in landscape management in striving for a sustainable balance between resource supply and demand.     

The Index of Function Suitability (IFS): A new tool for assessing the capacity of landscapes to provide amenity functions

Integrating social demands into landscape management has been proven difficult because of a lack of suitable measures. In order to address this issue this article describes the development of the Index of Function Suitability (IFS). This offers an integrated conceptual tool for incorporating social demands into landscape management. The IFS links preferences to land cover spatial patterns as it uses quantitative indicators for gauging differences between the preferred landscape patterns by users, for a certain activity related to an amenity function (e.g. hunting), and the land cover patterns of a given rural area (either at the present or from scenarios developed for the future). Introducing the measurement of the difference between the preferred spatial patterns and the landscape patterns occurring in a given landscape is a fundamental conceptual development represented in the IFS. By using the same set of indicators to quantify different land cover patterns, the IFS gauges quantitatively the differences between their spatial patterns, thus providing landscape managers with an indication of the suitability of changing land covers to support the selected amenity functions. In this paper, the conceptual aspects, as well as the methodological steps of the IFS were explained and further applied to one empirical case study in the Alentejo region of Portugal. This paper also examines both the strengths and weaknesses of the IFS approach along with a discussion for improvement.     

Addressing the social landscape dimensions: The need for reconciling cross scale assessments for capturing Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES)

This special issue integrates eleven papers focussing on indicators able to convey the multiple expectations that society has concerning agricultural land. As scale issues have been so far overlooked within this research topic, a particular focus of this themed issue is to highlight the need for reconciling assessments across scales. The shared purpose of the contributions is to examine how the multiple societal expectations concerning agrarian landscapes might be incorporated into land use policy at different governance levels.A core set of these papers were presented in the symposium “Linking social indicators across scales”, to the European Congress of the International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE) in September 2013 in Manchester, UK. This symposium was organized to create the time and space for a discussion on the issues of scale when capturing societal preferences concerning agrarian landscapes. While the landscape scale was specifically addressed by four papers, seven papers examined broader geographic units in addition to up-scaling and downscaling issues.     

城市边缘区土地利用规划中的景观谐调问题

研究目的:在对城市边缘区景观要素及其矛盾进行分析的基础上,探讨城市边缘区景观要素的不谐调问题.研究方法:定性分析法.研究结果:应在土地利用规划中加强以下4方面的工作来营造边缘区谐调景观风貌:(1)城市边缘区的视觉形象设计;(2)城市边缘区的土地规划分区;(3)调控城市边缘区土地利用密度和强度;(4)创建边缘区和谐的生态空间.研究结论:城市边缘区存在景观不谐调问题,应利用边缘区土地利用规划予以缓解,创建边缘区谐调景观关系.     

Voters’ Acceptance of Land Use Policy Measures: A Two-Level Analysis

Sustainable spatial planning has become increasingly important during the last decades. Politics tries to counter land use related challenges such as urban sprawl by the implementation of policy measures. In a direct democracy, the implementation of policy measures requires citizens’ acceptance. This paper examines determinants of voters’ policy measure acceptance in the area of spatial planning. The study analyses 18 popular votes on spatial planning measures between 1984 and 2008 in Switzerland. A Bayesian multilevel modelling method is used to estimate both determinants at the individual level as well as the contextual level. Results show that the main individual factor for voters in Switzerland to accept spatial planning measures in a broad sense are the party affiliations of voters. Another important factor for the voting decision is being a homeowner. In contrast, whether voters live in urban or rural areas does not influence such voting decisions. At the contextual level, policy measures which contain incentive and market-based instruments have a higher probability to be accepted than bans and rules. Moreover, the degree of organisational capacity and conflict capability of interests concerned seem to influence democratic acceptance of spatial planning measures.     

Understanding rural landscape for better resident-led management: Residents’ perceptions on rural landscape as everyday landscapes

The rural landscape is “the dwelling place” of rural residents who generate a unique landscape through their daily activities. In order to strengthen the resident-led landscape management in rural areas, this study intends to gauge how and to what extent such rural landscapes are unique, as these landscapes are not easily appraised by existing landscape assessments that rely mainly on visual criteria, and suggest residents’ perception should be consider in the landscape planning. To conduct this study, residents’ subjective perceptions, in contrast with experts’ perceptions, were collected via a survey method referred to as photo-elicitation with walking. The survey revealed various everyday landscape objects perceived by the residents as meaningful, as well as scenes where visual characteristics were prominent. The results of survey also demonstrated that the residents are relatively insensitive to the visual and physical characteristics of landscapes objects, while sensitive to the “relationship” with the landscapes formed through the residents’ experiences. This pattern of sensitivity appears to be linked to the residents’ consideration of the landscape as a kinetic “dwelling place” rather than a static image. This pattern can be regarded as the reason residents perceive meaning in everyday landscapes. The results of this study suggest that by interpreting rural landscapes as everyday landscapes, landscape planning and management could be adapted to fit the needs and perceptions of rural residents and could, therefore, provide a basis for sustainable resident-led landscape management methods in connection with the everyday lives of rural residents.     

The Amenity Value of Agricultural Landscape and Rural–Urban Land Allocation

We analyse rural–urban land allocation in the light of the increasing environmental role of agricultural landscapes. The landscape amenity value of farmland varies across crops and as a result affects the optimal crop mix in addition to its effect on rural–urban land allocation. Investigating the effects of population and income growth processes, we find that, contrary to market outcomes, the socially optimal allocation may call for more farmland preservation under both processes. In an empirical application to a region in Israel, we find that the extent of market under‐supply of farmland is substantial and that population growth calls for more farmland preservation at the expense of urban land.     

Changing decisions in a changing landscape: How might forest owners in an urbanizing region respond to emerging bioenergy markets?

The global bioenergy market has considerable impacts on local land use patterns, including landscapes in the Southeastern United States where increased demand for bioenergy feedstocks in the form of woody biomass is likely to affect the management and availability of forest resources. Despite extensive research investigating the productivity and impacts of different bioenergy feedstocks, relatively few studies have assessed the preferences of private landowners, who control the majority of forests in the eastern U.S., to harvest biomass for the bioenergy market. To better understand contingent behaviors given emerging biomass markets, we administered a stated preference experiment to private forest owners in the rapidly urbanizing Charlotte Metropolitan region. Respondents indicated their preferences for harvesting woody biomass under a set of hypothetical market-based scenarios with varying forest management plans and levels of economic return. Our analytical framework also incorporated data from a previously-administered revealed preference survey and spatially-explicit remote sensing data, enabling us to analyze how individuals’ ownership characteristics, their emotional connection the forests they manage, and the spatial patterns of nearby land uses, influence willingness to grow bioenergy feedstocks. We found conditional support for feedstock production, even among woodland owners with no history of active management. Landowners preferred higher economic returns for each management plan. However low-intensity harvest options were always preferred to more intensive management alternatives regardless of economic return, suggesting that these landowners may be more strongly motivated by aesthetic or quality-of-life concerns than feedstock revenues. Our analysis indicated preferences were dependent upon individual and environmental characteristics, with younger, more rural landowners significantly more interested in growing feedstocks relative to their older and more urban counterparts. While this study focuses on one small sample of urban forest owners, our results do suggest that policy makers and resource managers can better inform stand-level decision-making by understanding how feedstock production preferences vary across populations.     

Social metabolism,landscape change and land-use planning in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region

The present work explores the synergies between socio-metabolic energy use and landscape patterns, starting from the hypothesis that there is a complex and changing relationship between the efficiency in both the societal use of energy, and land-use, and the ecosystem functioning of the whole land matrix of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR). It first compares changes in the social metabolism (i.e. the total energy or material throughput of the economy) and in landscape structure and function from 1850 to the present in three municipalities of the Vallès county (N of the BMR), as a first attempt to establish a link between the societal uses of land and energy together with their impact on landscape patterns. Secondly, the study explores the role of natural versus rural landscapes on the maintaining of basic functional properties such as connectivity in the whole BMR. We base our analyses on parametric methodologies that describe both structural and functional properties of landscapes, aimed at assessing the landscape efficiency of both energy-use and land-use planning. The first comparison reveals that the simultaneous loss of energy efficiency and land-use efficiency from the mid-19th century to present can be tracked by changes in the functional landscape structure. The second study shows the importance of the traditional rural landscapes in maintaining the ecological quality of non-built-up land. In consequence, the organized complexity of the land system necessary to host biodiversity and basic ecological processes cannot be guaranteed if the agro-forestry mosaic is not taken into account, together with the network of protected areas.