Compliance of land cover changes with municipal land use planning: Evidence from the Lisbon metropolitan region (1990–2007)

In the past few decades, urbanisation has become a major phenomenon in European cities, thus representing one of the key human land cover changes with socio-economic and environmental impacts. In the Lisbon metropolitan region it is estimated that 17% of natural and farmland have been transformed into artificial areas. Since the end of 1990s, specific EU guidelines have been issued to contain urban sprawl and preserve agricultural land. Spatial planning in Portugal obviously is integrating these assumptions into the statutory land-use master plans. But what is the performance of this land use planning system regarding land cover evolution itself? Based on the Lisbon metropolitan region (LMR), one of the major areas of urban growth in Portugal, we examine spatio-temporal land cover patterns between 1990 and 2007 by integrating cross-matrix analysis, spatial metrics, and gradient analysis. Additionally, we overlay these land cover dynamics with municipal master plans that regulate land development in order to assess the compliance levels of this land-use regulatory system. Results indicate that: artificial areas are growing by coalescence and/or by scattered development along an urban–rural gradient; agricultural land is reducing and fragmentation is increasing to enlarge peri-urban spaces; there are high levels of conversion of agricultural land into urban land in protected areas, thus showing a lack of compliance to the land use regulatory system visible in the existing gaps between the original land-use assignments of the master plan and the actual developments.     

Co-ordination of land exploitation,exploitable farmland reserves and national planning in China

Land exploitation, as an important strategy to mitigate farmland loss and stabilize grain production, has been adopted to compensate farmland loss due to rapid urbanization in China. Bounded by the limited capacity and obvious spatial variations of national farmland reserves, it is essential to arrange land exploitation activities timely and reasonably. In this study, we propose an indicator for the status of regional land exploitation, the Exploitation Degree, to facilitate an overview of land exploitation programs in China at both provincial and prefectural levels based on project data from 2006 to 2012. To further our understanding of the regional features of land exploitation activities, we employ the Lasso model to identify and quantitatively assess influencing factors on land exploitation. Our study shows that: (1) contemporary land exploitation practices in China are significantly inconsistent across exploitable farmland reserves. Some areas are greatly over-exploited and such irrational land exploitation has been persistent; (2) related national land plans designed to guide land exploitation efforts centered on resource-rich regions and critical areas do not function as intended. Therefore, we suggest that China⿿s land exploitation policy shall be improved by reconsidering the orientation of land exploitation policy, coordinating land exploitation activities with productivity improvements and eco-system protection, and enhancing the power and scope of the plans in controlling and guiding land resource management.     

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.     

Land consolidation,customary lands,and Ghana's Northern Savannah Ecological Zone: An evaluation of the possibilities and pitfalls

Land fragmentation has been identified to greatly undermine crop production in many countries. In the case of Ghana’s customary tenure system, household farmlands are relatively small and are highly fragmented. Recent agricultural drives, however, have focused on farm level interventions that are ad hoc with short-term benefits. A sustainable long-term application of land consolidation which reorganises farmlands may improve yields, reduce the cost of production and improve the incomes of farmers. The successful implementation of land consolidation depends greatly on the suitability of local conditions with respect to land tenure and land use. However, in Ghana’s customary lands, the alignment between the requirements for land consolidation and existing conditions remains unexplored. This study investigated the feasibility of land consolidation within the customary tenure by juxtaposing the local conditions of the study areas with the baseline conditions for land consolidation outlined in literature. Using both qualitative and spatial data, the study revealed some traits of convergence and divergence with respect to the baseline conditions in the study areas. For example, conditions such as the existence of land fragmentation, suitable topography and soil distribution were fully met. Conditions such as the existence of a land bank, technical expertise, and infrastructure and supportive legal frameworks were partially met. The remaining conditions such as the willingness to participate, availability of a land information system and favorable land ownership structure were non-existent. The circumstances surrounding these unmet conditions are deeply embedded in customs and traditions that hardly yield to change. Since these conditions are fundamental for land consolidation, their absence negates the feasibility of land consolidation under the current tenure system of the study areas.     

“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.     

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.     

中西部欠发达城市土地利用结构地域差异研究——以河池市为例

以河池市2014年土地利用变更数据为基础,运用计量地理模型与GIS软件等方法,分析其土地利用结构的地域差异情况。河池市各县市均具有较大区位意义的土地利用类型,其土地利用多样性与信息熵较高,但土地利用集中度都处于低水平,市内县市具有多种不同最优土地利用类型组合。河池市未有效利用优越的地理优势发展其特色优势产业,这将成为河池市今后土地利用规划研究的重中之重。     

大连市建设用地节约集约利用差异研究

本文通过系统化、标准化的评价,全面摸清大连市建设用地节约集约利用现状,掌握各县(市、区)间建设用地节约集约利用的差异,为协调土地利用与人口、经济发展步伐,转变土地利用方式,促进经济结构调整和发展方式转变具有重大意义。     

绥中地籍登记信息平台构建

地籍登记信息平台的建立能够支持地籍登记工作实现信息实时更新和共享。系统基于C/S架构进行开发,以绥中县为例,建立农村宅基地数据库,集成多源地理空间数据,为用户提供宅基地信息的基本浏览和查询,实现数据的信息化管理,提高土地管理部门的工作效率和服务质量,对当前登记信息平台的建立进行了有益的探索。     

常德市土地利用/覆被变化分析

通过GIS空间分析功能,选取常德市的四个县市:桃源县、汉寿县、临澧县、津市市,从土地利用现状、土地利用时空变化、土地利用类型动态度、土地利用程度变化以及土地利用变化区域差异等五个方面对常德市2009年和2012年土地利用、覆被变化进行定量、定性分析比较。研究结果表明:12009-2012年期间,四个县市的城镇、交通水利等建设用地需求持续增加;2 2009-2012年期间,土地利用程度综合指数呈增长的趋势;3常德市2009-2012年间土地利用程度变化不大,并且区域不平衡;4 2009-2012年期间,四个县市中相对变化最大的为临澧县城镇建设用地。