Socio-economic and biophysical determinants of land degradation in Vietnam: An integrated causal analysis at the national level

Recognizing the socio-economic and biophysical causes of land degradation at the national level is important for cause-targeted strategies when designing policies for combating land degradation. This study aims to identify the biophysical and socio-economic factors that significantly affect land degradation across Vietnam and to interpret the causalities underlying the effects. The dependent variables considered in the study are spatial, the extent and intensity of degradation in three land-use zones (agriculture, forest and severely degraded abandonment). The hypothesized explanatory variables are common economic and demographic drivers and bio-physical factors such as soil, terrain constraints, and neighborhood land-use structures that are often neglected in many large-scale land degradation assessments. Instead of using a single inferential statistic technique, we used multi-linear regression and binary logistic regression in a complementary manner to increase the detectability and credibility of the degradation cause analyses. The results showed agricultural production growth had strong and consistent effects on land degradation extent and intensity. Population growth, especially in rural areas, had a strong effect on the extent of overall land degradation. The importance of a neighboring forest was revealed for its ability to reduce land degradation intensity in abandoned, unproductive lands. The concrete faceting of the causal analysis for each land-use zone as social–ecological stratum allowed us to combine the defined social–ecological contexts, contemporary theories, and hypotheses in the field to clarify the causal factors of a complex phenomenon like land degradation. The study demonstrates these contemporary inferential statistics can be complementarily used to sufficiently detect and understand land degradation causes at the national level. The results suggest implications for national land management policy: internalizing land degradation costs in the farming system evaluation for payment for ecosystem services policy, restricting forest conversion, and improving extension services and education in agrarian communities.     

Analyzing the welfare‐improving potential of land in the former homelands of South Africa

This article contributes to the debate on the role of land in reducing poverty in rural South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the former homelands as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy is based on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands during the apartheid. Due to increasing population pressure, later arrivals were less likely to be assigned land. The results show that land has a large positive effect on household welfare. Because the homelands are relatively disadvantaged areas, these results provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.     

“Money can’t buy me land”: Foreign land ownership regime and public opinion in a transition society

In recent years, as part of the broader policies of economic liberalization, the sale of agricultural land to foreign citizens has attracted considerable political, social and media attention in transition societies. The regime of land ownership in Georgia has evolved from the complete restriction of foreign acquisition in the beginning of the 1990s, to the unrestricted sale of land to foreign citizens from 2010 onwards. An analysis of newly-available data from International Social Survey Programme’s (ISSP) National Identity module suggests that respondents in Georgia, along with Russia, hold the most negative attitudes toward selling land to foreigners compared to other countries. I hypothesize that this is the result of a confluence of factors such as the communist legacy, historical memory, rural nationalism, agricultural underdevelopment and inequality. The quantitative part of this article tests socio-demographic, geographic, ideological, and identity-based explanations of within-country variation in attitudes toward the purchase of land by foreigners. The results suggest that socio-demographic and geographic variables such as respondents’ age and regional belonging explain some variance in the dependent variable, but that the major effects stem from individuals’ perceptions of economic protectionism, xenophobia, and ethnic national identity.     

Transdisciplinarity in land use science – A review of concepts,empirical findings and current practices

In the search for solutions to complex real-world problems, the benefits of transdisciplinary research (TDR) have been widely heralded. Land use science appears to be a designated field for TDR. However, to date, the additional expenses of TDR are accompanied by a so far not proved added value, and empirical findings are claimed to be scarce and dispersed over several disciplines and case studies.We reviewed 299 articles obtained from a structured literature search to (1) investigate the current differences between theory and practice, (2) identify empirical findings, and (3) ascertain the contributions of TDR to promoting sustainable land use management.Our results demonstrate that, in spite of an increasing conceptual consistency in the theoretical discussion of TDR, the implementation of TDR remains a substantial challenge, in part because of the gap between theory and practice. In addition, research on TDR is science and process centred. The benefits of TDR in addressing real-world problems within the field of land use remain unproven.     

Identifying and mapping the tourists⿿ perception of cultural ecosystem services: A case study from an Alpine region

Landscapes provide an array of services to society, from the provision of food and material, to the provision of cultural ecosystem services such as recreation, aesthetics or spirituality. Studies on cultural ecosystem services, however, remain rare and little is known about the spatial localisation of these services. In this study, we adopt and test a framework to identify and map the provision of cultural ecosystem services as perceived by tourists in an Alpine region, i.e. the region of South Tyrol in Italy. A photo-based questionnaire survey is combined with cartographical representations of landscape types to elicit hot and coldspot areas of cultural ecosystem service provision. We statistically test for influences of the land use type and the respondents' socio-demographic background on the tourists' perception of these services. The results show that different spatial patterns emerge for each of the investigated cultural ecosystem services depending on the distribution and extent of the landscape types to which they are related. In particular traditionally managed landscapes, small in extent and mainly scattered over large areas between 1000 and 2200 m a.s.l., are hotspot areas of aesthetic beauty, leisure activities and spirituality. In contrast, intensively managed landscapes, mainly located in the lowland plains of the study site, are considered to be more important for the provision of cultural heritage values. While the results suggest that land use type exerts the strongest influence upon tourists' perception, factors such as the respondents' perceived importance of the services, their gender, cultural background, environmental engagement and experience with the landscape play a significant but subordinate role. We conclude that the spatially explicit information about the provision of cultural ecosystem services can serve as a helpful basis for the design and further implementation of land use policies that acknowledge the high touristic value of traditionally used landscapes in mountain regions.     

Experimental evidence on the resilience of a cap & trade system for land consumption in Germany

The German government has committed to substantially limiting future land consumption. Among the most prominently discussed policy instruments is the implementation of a cap & trade system for land consumption, in which a limited amount of certificates is allocated to and traded by municipalities. Since these certificates would be a prerequisite for conducting building projects, this system is expected to reduce urban sprawl and foster the efficient allocation of land consumption projects. While previous empirical studies have supported these projections, the potential fragility of a cap & trade system in the case of macroeconomic shocks has not been considered. In three laboratory experiments, we simulate the impact of economic and budgetary crises within a cap & trade scheme for land consumption. We find that a market-based system succeeds in compensating macroeconomic disturbances with only minor welfare losses. Certificate prices in auctions and trading are somewhat more volatile before shocks, yet normalize afterwards. Trading volumes and the specifics of project realizations remain largely unaffected. Unrelated to the macroeconomic shocks, auction and market prices persistently diverge, leading to income redistributions to the state. Overall, our evidence supports the introduction of a market-based certificate scheme to reduce land consumption in Germany due to its resilience against potential shocks.     

Well-being effects of self-employment: A spatial inquiry

Our paper presents an empirical analysis of entrepreneurial well-being using a large-scale longitudinal household survey from the UK that tracks almost 50,000 individuals across seven waves over the period 2009–2017, as well as a number of exploratory case studies. We contribute to the existing literature by investigating how entrepreneurial well-being varies across locations along the urban-rural continuum, and across wealthy-deprived neighbourhoods. We use a Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) approach to compare the well-being outcomes of individuals who switch into self-employment from waged employment, and show that entrepreneurial well-being, in the form of job satisfaction, is significantly higher for those living in semi-urban locations, relative to those living in urban and rural locations. We argue that semi-urban locations provide an optimal combination of ease of doing business and quality of life. Our results also show that individuals in wealthy neighbourhoods who switch into self-employment experience higher job satisfaction than otherwise comparable individuals living in materially deprived neighbourhoods, although the latter experience greater levels of life satisfaction following the switch.     

Assessing land use plan implementation: Bridging the performance-conformance divide

The assessment of land use plan implementation is a contentious issue. The debate centers on whether the crucial evaluation element is conformance of development to plan directives or alternatively, plan performance, i.e. the degree to which the plan is actually used. An analytic framework combining both conformance and performance in the evaluation of (regional) land use plans is applied to the case of the Central District Plan in Israel. Qualitative and quantitative simulation methods are exploited. Qualitative analysis reveals that both performance and conformance are greater than indicated by non-contextualized, numeric evaluations. Additionally, high conformance does not necessarily imply good plan performance. Quantitative simulation suggests that plan performance with respect to land values and densities is initially pronounced as expectations for development are subdued but subsequently tends to wane merging with the counterfactual trend. Findings imply that plan assessment needs to consider the transaction costs of land use re-designation and actors’ perceptions of the probability that plan amendments will be approved. These perceptions differ across actors as a function of the political influence that they wield.     

Lineage and land reforms in Malawi: Do matrilineal and patrilineal landholding systems represent a problem for land reforms in Malawi?

Based on government statistics and interviews with villagers across Malawi this article argues that customary matrilineal and patrilineal land tenure systems serve to weaken security of land tenure for some family members as well as obstructing the creation of gender-neutral inheritance of lands. Data from the National Census of Agriculture and Livestock 2007and the 2008 Population and Housing Census are used to characterize marriage systems and landholding patterns of local communities. Marriage systems correspond to customary land-tenure patterns of matrilineal or patrilineal cultures. The differences between the two ways of land holding represent a challenge for land reforms aimed at unifying rules for land tenure and land devolution. Drawing on an analogy of the resilience of the patrilineal land holding system in Norway, we argue that it will be difficult to remove the preferential rights of lineage members directly. We recommend that, instead of creating a unified national system, existing land rights should be formally recognized and circumscribed by fair procedures. A well-designed landholding system should aim to ease the transitions of diverse customary tenure systems towards the requirements of a modern large-scale society.     

Food,farmers, and the future: Investigating prospects of increased food production within a national context

With international food price shocks in 2008 and 2011, food security became a political priority in many countries. In addition, some politicians have recently adopted a more nationalistic stance. Against that background, this paper critically investigates the prospects of increased food production within a national context. We use a small, high-income country, Norway, as an empirical case. In 2012, the government set a goal of increasing agricultural food production by 20% by 2030. We ask: 1) How has food production in Norway developed before and after the goal was set? 2) What plans do farmers have, and what do they regard as the main obstacles to increased production? We apply a mixed method combining public statistics, a survey, and interviews. We analyze four production systems: a) milk; b) grass-based meat; c) combined pig and grain; and d) grain. These systems represent around 80% of the domestically consumed food produced on farms in Norway. Since 2000, aggregate food production has had a slight downward trend with periodic fluctuations. Based on a political economy approach, we identify land and labor as the most limiting factors. Capital is less of a hindrance and offers a potential for increased production. Farmers have modest expectations of increased production, though. This outlook resonates with the strong integration of agriculture into the wider economy, at both micro and macro levels, making it challenging to implement new policies and change farm practices on a broad basis. Increases in some specific products, however, are realistic.