An interactive dynamic multi-objective programming model to support better land use planning

This study develops a dynamic multi-objective programming (DMOP) approach to handle problems of optimization under conditions of uncertainty typified by multiple goals and dynamic subsystems. The proposed approach seamlessly integrates multi-objective programming, fuzzy set theory, and system dynamics tools to conduct optimal land use planning in dynamic and complex environmental systems. Based on the DMOP approach, this study constructs an interactive dynamic multi-objective programming model, investigates the connection between land use and future urban development, and incorporates the preferences of decision makers using a compromise index. A case study from Taiwan shows that the proposed modeling framework can accommodate more complete information, allowing improvements to be made in strategic planning for land use.     

Capitalization by formalization? – Challenging the current paradigm of land reforms

Most of the land reforms in developing countries in recent decades follow a blueprint that is based on the property rights theory. This blueprint was supported by Western government-backed development aid institutions and the World Bank and intends to achieve a capitalization of property rights on land by formalization and individualization. Its supporters expect higher efficiency of the land markets and higher tenure security. The focus of the article is not so much on the formalization efforts themselves, but on the capitalization of the use rights. In contrast to the opinions of the property rights theorists, it is argued that this approach leads to a decoupling of benefits and costs of land use, which causes external costs, encourages rent-seeking behaviour and weakens the state. The central statement of supporters of privatization, namely that this strategy supports the efficiency of land markets, is rejected. Instead, the approach gives way to economically efficient and powerful interests at the expense of other groups and a diversity of living forms. Some evidence is provided using the examples of Germany (as a Western “blueprint”) and Cambodia (as a land in reform process). The plea is to couple the benefits and costs of land use and thus to eliminate external effects. This coupling can be achieved by a “decapitalization” of the use right on land.     

Capitalization by formalization? – Challenging the current paradigm of land reforms

Most of the land reforms in developing countries in recent decades follow a blueprint that is based on the property rights theory. This blueprint was supported by Western government-backed development aid institutions and the World Bank and intends to achieve a capitalization of property rights on land by formalization and individualization. Its supporters expect higher efficiency of the land markets and higher tenure security. The focus of the article is not so much on the formalization efforts themselves, but on the capitalization of the use rights. In contrast to the opinions of the property rights theorists, it is argued that this approach leads to a decoupling of benefits and costs of land use, which causes external costs, encourages rent-seeking behaviour and weakens the state. The central statement of supporters of privatization, namely that this strategy supports the efficiency of land markets, is rejected. Instead, the approach gives way to economically efficient and powerful interests at the expense of other groups and a diversity of living forms. Some evidence is provided using the examples of Germany (as a Western “blueprint”) and Cambodia (as a land in reform process). The plea is to couple the benefits and costs of land use and thus to eliminate external effects. This coupling can be achieved by a “decapitalization” of the use right on land.     

Tidal river management for sustainable agriculture in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta: Implication for land use policy

The tidal river management (TRM) approach is an indigenous management practice in the Southwest part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. This approach has a high potential for extending area under agriculture with a positive impact on sustainable production and consequently on sustainable land use planning. Until recently, no studies provide a quantitative assessment on agricultural benefits of TRM operation. In this study, we aim to assess the benefits of TRM operation by using innovative approaches such as comparing land use change, agricultural production and economic cost-benefit analysis for two scenarios (with and without TRM) in the Hari-Teka-Bhadra catchment. We found that the financial benefit of TRM operation was 85.5 million US dollar per year from the agriculture sector. The results are useful for promoting land use policy through TRM approach in achieving greater sustainability in the area.     

基于土地税收的土地利用效率计算方法研究

研究目的:提出一种基于土地税收的土地利用效率计算方法,解决土地利用效率计算中指标数据多源异构的问题,为土地资源集约节约评价提供方法。研究方法:基于从土地征收到土地保有全生命周期各项税收信息,叠加用地单位累计土地面积、土地等级、全环节土地税征收政策,采用模型分析法建立基于土地税收、面向土地使用者的土地利用效率计算模型,并以武汉市为例进行了验证。研究结果:基于该方法建立了武汉市土地税源管理地理信息系统,截至2013年底,共清理闲置低效用地71宗,31家企业退出土地445亩。研究结论:该计算模型可定量计算用地单位累计土地利用效率,能够为闲置低效用地的清理提供手段,为土地资源的合理分配和高效集约利用提供方法。     

Sustainable crop production intensification in the Senegal and Niger River basins of francophone West Africa

This paper reports on how the farmer field school (FFS) approach has been used to successfully catalyse important changes among stakeholders in the savannah zones of West Africa. Improved agronomic practices, better decision-making skills and diversification of smallholder farms in developing countries are shown to provide farmers the opportunity to rebuild soil fertility, optimize input use and introduce new sources of food and nutrition and marketable products for local populations. This is a knowledge-intensive endeavour best addressed through community-based processes of education. By the end of 2010, approximately 116,000 rice, vegetable, cotton and other farmers would have been involved in season-long FFS in four West African countries, resulting in improved yields and incomes and ushering substantial progress in both reducing the use of chemical pesticides and improving the use of fertilizers and organic amendments. The programme is increasingly being successfully integrated into local, provincial and national structures. Experienced personnel are being employed to initiate similar programmes in nearby countries. The evolving network of experienced actors and committed countries provides a platform for collaboration by a growing set of partners and represents a large-scale, long-term programmatic approach to helping sustainably intensify and develop agriculture in Africa.     

浅议建立开发区土地集约准入动态“门槛”的必要性

开发区经济发展的核心生产要素是土地,而我国的开发区土地后备资源十分有限,因此,高效地利用这些弥足珍贵的土地资源是开发区可持续发展的关键所在。通过总结归纳我国开发区准入制中有关土地集约相关的执行标准,发现其中存在着有无不一、标准不一、更新滞后的缺点,旨在探求提高开发区土地集约程度的途径。用对开发区土地集约利用制度中不足之处的分析,来论证建立开发区土地集约准入动态"门槛"的必要性,为规范并提高我国开发区土地集约准入标准提供理论基础。     

THE APPLICATION OF SIMULATION TECHNIQUES TO THE STUDY OF GRAZING SYSTEMS

Decision making studies in agriculture are often made difficult by the complex and dynamic nature of bio-economic systems. Simulation is one of the newer systems research techniques which as yet has had limited use in farm management research. This paper discusses some methodological aspects of simulation with specific reference to grazing systems. Problems arising in the development and use of simulation models are discussed and the need for inter-disciplinary co-operation to overcome data problems is indicated. One approach to experimentation is illustrated by reference to a model of a sheep grazing system and the problem of cropping for winter grazing. It is concluded that simulation is a potentially useful technique for management-oriented systems research in agriculture.     

Is Wheat a Homogeneous Product?

A hedonic approach is used to test for two kinds of product differentiation for wheat. It is shown that wheat is differentiated by end use and by country of origin. This simply recognizes the fact that buyers purchasing wheat for different purposes put different weights on quality criteria and that country-specific factors such as weather as well as grading and inspection systems matter. The results suggest that between 1980 and 1988, wheat protein content had a significant influence on price. This influence varies over time and across wheat categories.     

A factor-income approach to estimating grassland protection subsidy payments to livestock herders in Inner Mongolia,China

This paper contributes to the growing literature on land use policies designed to prevent livestock overgrazing. It offers a straightforward factor-income approach to calculating payments for ecosystem services (PES) to livestock producers who reduce or suspend grazing for the purpose of grassland restoration. Our approach requires only cross-sectional farm-level accounting data and is thus feasible where policies have either not yet been applied or specialized data is sparse, as is common in many developing regions. We apply and validate this approach with empirical analysis of sheep and goat herders in the Ulanqab prefecture in Inner Mongolia, China where herders currently receive payments in exchange for reduced grazing intensity on vulnerable land. However, observed stocking rates are still commonly higher than recommended. Our results suggest payments are currently insufficient to offset the financial loss incurred by herders who reduce their grazing intensity, a finding consistent with previous studies. Using an approach we refer to as the factor-income method, we estimate and validate new levels of recommended payments. This demonstrates how future payments could be tailored to meet the financial needs of individual herding communities using basic farm-level data.     

Land use planning and the ecosystem approach: An evaluation of case study planning frameworks against the Malawi Principles

Global land use change continues to undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain ecosystem service (ES) flows. Much attention in policy and research has therefore been given to concepts, tools and processes for sustainable land use planning, including consideration of ES and the ecosystem approach. However, there are limited empirical cases or evaluations of ecosystem approach based planning from which lessons can be drawn. The aim of this research therefore was to identify and evaluate existing case study planning frameworks that have the potential to operationalise the ecosystem approach. Based on the Malawi Principles, a new suite of evaluation criteria was developed. This was used to assess case study documentary evidence and evaluate the extent to which the 12 Malawi Principles had been considered. The evaluation also assessed the planning methods/approaches used by the case studies and their potential to help translate the Malawi Principles into land use planning outcomes. Finally, a SWOT analysis was used to structure the main findings. Our results show that the Malawi Principles have been considered across the case studies “fully” or “partially” in 64% of instances suggesting, therefore, that the case studies present a reasonable interpretation of the ecosystem approach. However, poor consideration of biodiversity and environmental limits across the cases highlights the risk of land use management decisions continuing to contribute to the degradation of natural capital.     

Analysing outdoor airflow and pollution as a parameter to assess the compatibility of mass-scale low-cost residential development

Land use compatibility has always remained an integrally crucial factor for city development. Traditional contentious theories integrating land use planning principles, demand-oriented market development and industry-induced air pollution regulations have debated the adjacency of residential and industrial land uses. However, in the event of inevitable and unprecedented urbanization, where land shortage has compelled cities to expand towards the industrial peripheries, low-income resettlement planning turns evident. However, this process turns detrimental when land use incompatibility affects newly settled population. Adjacent industrial pollution degrades health and liveability, ultimately forcing the population to vacate the housing and recur poverty recycling phenomenon. This study aims to assess micro-level land-use compatibility from health and liveability viewpoint using environment-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis as a surrogate measurement technique. It is assumed that if site-based ventilation potential and airflow assessment can be performed at early design for site-selection and post-construction stages for rational retrofitting, it would deliver a liveable environment to the low-income inhabitants. While industrial development is irresistible, this study focused on environment-sensitive built-environment planning, utilising aerodynamically potential morpho-metrics of urban form density, inter-building gaps and integrated open spaces. Simulated results demonstrated that while existing built-environment planning failed to deliver improved ventilation, the simulation-based approach of iterated built-environment designs created air channelling and pollutant transport paths, thus reducing the air pollution stagnancy quotient. This study, by applying a system-driven methodological approach aided in bridging the knowledge gaps of micro-level land use compatibility assessment from environmental perspective and health viewpoint.     

Environmental policy integration: Towards a communicative approach in integrating nature conservation and urban planning in Bulgaria

As urban areas continue to expand, the need to consider nature conservation objectives in planning is growing. Policy makers across Europe recognize that effective nature conservation requires an integrated approach to land use planning that includes relevant ecological and spatial knowledge. Although a number of such integrated approaches have been developed, many local authorities in Europe encounter important institutional barriers to this integration. This is particularly true for countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) like Bulgaria. The post-socialist transformation in Bulgaria led to intensified urban growth and local authorities struggle to find a balance between environmental and socio-economic interests. Meanwhile, the Environmental Policy Integration ‘principle’ (EPI) has been gaining prominence in Europe, aiming to address the trade-offs between environmental and economic incentives. Research highlights that successful EPI depends on institutional processes within different economic sectors and across governmental scales. These processes have not yet been comprehensively studied in the CEE and in Bulgaria. This article assesses the EPI process in urban planning in Bulgaria and identifies the institutional approaches that may contribute best to EPI in urban planning. Using the example of the “Corner Land” project in the city of Burgas, we discuss the key challenges that the local authorities face in addressing nature conservation in land use plans. The findings indicate that EPI is to a high degree constrained by the lack of an efficient communicative process across fragmented organizational structures throughout the entire planning process. While a procedural approach to EPI appears to be prevalent it is concluded that a communicative approach is urgently needed if the sustainability of urban plans is to be safeguarded and negative impacts on nature prevented.     

Redistributive Land Reform: No April Rose. The Poverty of Berry and Cline and GKI on the Inverse Relationship

At the theoretical heart of the Griffin, Khan and Ickowitz (GKI) case for redistributive land reform ('a many-splendoured thing') lies the highly influential study by Albert Berry and William Cline, Agrarian Structure and Productivity in Developing Countries, published for the ILO in 1979. That study is regarded by many as the definitive work on the inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity. This paper subjects Berry and Cline, and by extension GKI, to critical scrutiny with respect to their policy implications, theoretical framework and empirical evidence. It also provides an alternative class-theoretic approach to understanding the inverse relationship which undermines the use of the latter as the central rationale for redistributive land reform. If the approach of Berry and Cline can be shown to be theoretically, methodologically and empirically flawed, then perforce the argument and policy recommendations of GKI, who replicate that approach, can be shown to be fundamentally defective.     

Street network accessibility-based methodology for appraisal of land use master plans: An empirical case study of Wuhan,China

In rapidly developing countries where master plans quickly lead to new cities, planning professionals still lack a robust methodology for the appraisal of land use at the proposal stage. This research proposes a novel approach to master-plan appraisal based on examining whether the relationship between the planned land use pattern and the proposed street layout follows a systematic spatial logic, with land use allocation correlated to accessibility characteristics of a location. Each land use zone is given a score that reflects the degree to which it is connected to every other land use zone in the master plan. The scores are derived from topological analysis of the urban street grid using sDNA (spatial domain network analysis) methodology.¹ Our analysis supports the hypothesis of a systematic link between connectivity and land use class in general and also reveals certain specific features of land use decision-making in the city. This includes a tendency for public uses to be located on small sites and in the periphery. This is consistent with profit-maximizing behaviors of local government. The potential for application of this methodology for evaluating urban-scale master plans is discussed.     

Spatially explicit micro-level modelling of land use change at the rural–urban interface

This paper describes micro‐economic models of land use change applicable to the rural‐urban interface in the US. Use of a spatially explicit micro‐level modelling approach permits the analysis of regional patterns of land use as the aggregate outcomes of many, disparate individual land use decisions distributed across space. In contrast to the models featured by Nelson and Geoghegan, we focus on models that require spatially articulated data on parcel‐level land use changes through time. In characterising the spatially disaggregated models, we highlight issues uniquely related to the management and generation of spatial data and the estimation of micro‐level spatial models.     

省级地勘基金项目预算编制与审查方法探讨——以四川省为例

从预算管理的起点着手,提高项目预算编制与审查质量,为财政资金使用的合理性、有效性和安全性提供一套系统、完整、规范的模式方法最为关键。以四川省为例从地勘基金项目预算的编制与审查原则、内容、依据和方法等方面,就如何建立系统化、规范化、统一化的项目预算编制与审查的模式及方法进行了探讨。     

Household Composition and Brazilian Food Purchases: An Expenditure System Approach

The use of household level data for food demand analysis requires the researcher to address issues such as purchase censoring and the impacts of household age/gender composition on such demand. This analysis adopts an estimation approach to modeling censored food expenditures. The major methodological contribution of this analysis is our incorporation of an endogenous equivalence scale measure within the expenditure system. Our empirical application is concerned with Brazilian household food expenditures. We use the estimated adult equivalence scales to evaluate a measure of household welfare represented by per-adult equivalent food expenditures. We find a significant shift of the distribution of per capita food distributions when comparing member count versus adult equivalent-based per capita distributions.     

山地丘陵区坡式梯田土地整治工程量快速测算方法

研究目的：提出山地丘陵地区坡式梯田土地整治工程的快速测算方法。研究方法：根据山地丘陵区土地整治规划设计基础图件的特点,结合GIS软件的坡度分区等统计功能,应用数字高程模型（DEM）原理,根据推导的坡式梯田土地平整工程量公式,提出山地丘陵区土地整治项目坡式梯田土地整治工程量的快速简捷测算方法和流程,并以湖北省阳新县三溪镇低丘岗地改造项目为案例验证该方法的可行性。研究结果：运用GIS进行坡式梯田土地整治工程量的测算具有可行性,只需运用GIS统计获得整治区不同坡度分区的面积,就可依据坡式梯田断面设计要素（田坎高度、田坎坡度和降坡后地面坡度）快速测算不同坡度范围的土地平整量。研究结论：该方法具有简便、快捷的特点,具有较强的实用性,可大大提高土地整治工程规划设计的效率。     

Sustainable locating of different forest uses

This study describes an approach whereby it is possible to promote social, ecological and economic sustainability by paying attention to the effectiveness of locating different forest uses and to anticipating conflict situations. It introduces a geographic information system (GIS) based method enabling the user to evaluate certain sub-areas in accordance with the requirements of each forest use to be practised in them. Moreover, the method enables the user to combine compatible forms of use and thereby to locate the areas most important from the point of view of the group of compatible forms of use. This information can be utilised when selecting small set-aside areas in commercial forests where wood production is not the main use form. Areas subject to use pressures from two or more incompatible forest uses can be found by comparing suitability maps of incompatible uses. Coming to a head of conflict situations can often be prevented by identifying those areas, which are subject to conflicting objectives. This method makes use of GIS tools when evaluating the sub-areas for the purpose of producing the required knowledge, and for combining and describing sub-areas in the form of suitability maps. The methods of multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) are used in evaluating and making commensurable the different objectives. The method produces theme maps describing (i) the best sub-areas from the point of view of compatible forest uses within a certain area and (ii) in the case of incompatible forest uses those sub-areas where the biggest conflicts can be expected. The method is illustrated by a case study in which the compatibility of the forms of use to be practised within a certain forest area are clarified and targets involving potential conflict situations are sought.