Equity in informal land delivery: Insights from Enugu, Nigeria

Mounting exclusionary forces have made the task of achieving equity in urban land delivery more elusive than it has ever been. Statistics show that, in practice, most land for urban development (especially that occupied by the poor) is supplied outside state regulatory frameworks and there is overwhelming evidence of the importance of secure access to land and housing to the livelihood strategies of poor urban households. This paper, therefore, explores the issue of equity in informal channels of land delivery by drawing from insights gained from a recently concluded DFID-funded research of informal land delivery processes and access to land for the poor in Enugu, Nigeria. It finds that escalating costs and the resistance of pre-capitalist elements (some aspects of traditional culture) have meant that informal channels of land delivery are increasingly failing to meet equity concerns in providing access to land in cities, and that poor city immigrants and other vulnerable groups, especially women, are particularly disadvantaged.     

试论土地工程学

研究目的:推进土地工程学科的发展,完善土地科学的学科体系。研究方法:理论分析法、文献检索法。研究结果:(1)土地工程学是以未利用、未合理利用、损毁的土地和退化与污染的土地作为研究对象,以增加利用土地数量、提高土地利用率与产出率、改善环境(条件)、实现人地关系的协调和可持续利用为目标;(2)土地工程学可以作为土地科学的二级学科;(3)土壤重构是土地工程学的核心理论;(4)待整治土地调查和评价、土地工程规划设计、土地工程技术与工艺等组成土地工程学的应用技术。     

Large-scale agricultural investments under poor land governance in Zambia

This paper looks at how large-scale land acquisitions made by foreign investors in Zambia are implemented. It scrutinizes both the steps that an investor has to go through in order to attain land within the Zambian land governance system as well as the actors shaping the acquisition process.As the most important formal change introduced to the Zambian land governance system, the Lands Act 1995 paved the way for foreign investments in land. The new actor “investor” on the other hand has emerged as a result of rising prices for food and non-food commodities. The study finds that the enforcement of formal rules in the process of acquiring land is currently weak and largely determined by a number of actors: while investors, local authorities and government officials have strong leverage, local land users are excluded from the process. If the process of transformations of customary land into state land continues, land administration will be inevitably shifted toward statutory jurisdiction. As a result, local chiefs will lose their discretionary power thereby further marginalizing local land users. As it stands, welfare implications are chiefly down to the individual actors. However, it is only the government that can issue a guarantee that local land users will also benefit from land acquisition.     

快速城市化地区城市土地开发模式比较分析

研究目的:以珠江三角洲为例,剖析目前在快速城市化地区普遍存在的5种土地开发模式,分析政府面临的主要问题。研究方法:案例比较分析法。研究结果:土地开发模式的多元化是中国快速城市化地区城市建设中普遍存在的现象,在一定程度上映射出传统的土地使用制度与社会经济发展的不协调问题。研究结论:尽快统一对集体用地流转的管理思路,加强流转环节的税费管理,防止政府土地收益的进一步流失,强化政府的统筹作用,充分集约利用土地,促进城市用地开发的可持续发展。     

Land management for erosion prevention: A case study for a Turkish nature reserve

As a result of landslides and soil erosion, a substantial amount of soil has been lost in Turkey. Particularly, fertile lands have long been faced with the threat of erosion, largely as a result of traditional (unplanned) land use practices. This threat is more evident in the Black Sea Region with its rough topography and rainy climate. The basic reason for this threat is the lack of organization in land use planning and control. Although proposals, in the context of this requirement, are included in national development plans, they have not been implemented. Accordingly, in this study research based on spatial data evaluation was carried out for Sera Lake located in Akcaabat, Trabzon, Turkey. For this purpose, temporal area, depth and volume changes of the lake were determined by utilizing topographic maps, aerial photographs and hydrographical measurements. To evaluate determined changes in the size of the lake and to produce suggestions to legislators for required sustainable land management activities, information on land use/cover types, land ownership and climate in the vicinity of the lake was utilized. As a result, it was determined that the area, depth and volume of the lake were significantly decreased during the last decades, as a consequence of erosion mainly caused by traditional land use practices; thus, the lake is threatened with the danger of extinction due to erosion. Precautions required for the alleviation of erosion and other adverse environmental effects which largely seem to be caused by harsh physical properties (caused basically by topography) of the region were discussed. In support of the information inherent to the region, traditional arable land use was logically determined as the basic non-natural factor (which is directly prone to erosion) to be rearranged in the context of sustainable land management. In this context, beyond nationwide actions (national agricultural policy and Soil Protection and Land Use Law), which may provide the required land management tools in the long term, it is proposed that planning and accordingly land management activities specific to the study area (Sera Valley) should immediately be commenced in close collaboration with the related public (owners or farmers). However, behaviours of different types of land users (engaged in commercial, subsistence and semi-subsistence farming) and also high number of owners and/or farmers (caused by small pieces of land parcels owned/used in shares) make the desired collaboration almost impossible. This socio-economical problem may be solved by further developing the current land registry and cadastre system in terms of customary land use rights, land use/cover changes and updating procedures.     

安徽省土地承载力研究

为服务土地管理实践,从耕地人口承载力、建设用地人口承载力的角度研究了安徽省及各市县的土地承载力,还从生态环境承载量的角度研究了建设用地最大量。研究结果表明,安徽省建设用地还有很大挖潜空间。按人均100m2计算,安徽省及各市建设用地人口承载水平在20%~40%之间。多元回归结果表明,区域常住人口、土地总面积对建设用地人口承载水平的影响显著。但GDP、人均GDP和二三产业占比对建设用地人口承载力的影响不显著。利用GIS的研究表明,在扣除生态必需用地后,安徽省建设用地生态适宜量为36 847km2,超过目前的建设用地总面积。耕地人口承载力研究结果表明,安徽省目前的耕地面积能满足全省常住人口粮食需求,但各市县差别很大。若不提高单产,在耕地面积不断减少的情况下,安徽省到2020年可能会面临粮食缺口。     

不同征地合作模式社会成本分析

研究目的:运用制度经济学和交易费用理论,从治理结构层面比较分析不同征地合作模式的社会成本,剖析现行征地制度的效率难题,探索征地制度改革方向。研究方法:比较研究、逻辑分析。研究结果:(1)政府—农民关系与合作方式决定征地的社会成本内容与阶段分布;(2)强势政府模式与弱势政府模式的社会成本均较高,平等合作征收模式的社会成本较低;(3)政府—农民地位不对等加大征地的社会成本。研究结论:(1)社会成本上升将成为倒逼征地合作模式改革的重要因素;(2)提升农民参与、谈判权利,建立政府—农民合作征收模式是征地制度改革的重要方向。     

经济转型期土地征收增值收益形成机理及其分配

研究目的:基于土地资源优化配置和保障农民权益的政策体系比较,研究经济转型期的土地征收增值收益形成机理及其分配机制,为建立合理的分配机制,保障农民权益提供政策性参考。研究方法:理论模型法、实证分析法、比较研究法。研究结果:经济转型期土地征收增值收益由自然增值和土地价格扭曲两部分组成,其中政府失灵导致价格扭曲是现有土地征收中收益分配不当、农民权益受损的主要原因。研究结论:改革的首要任务不是自然增值分配规则的变更,而是要消除土地价格扭曲,让市场成为调节国家和农民利益的主要机制。