Integrated landscape initiatives in Europe: Multi-sector collaboration in multi-functional landscapes

Landscapes are linked to human well-being in a multitude of ways, some of which are challenged by global market forces and traditional management approaches. In response to this situation there has been a rise in local initiatives to sustain the values of landscape. The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic analysis of the spectrum of these initiatives in Europe in terms of patterns of organisation, participants, resources, problems, and landscape values addressed. This review collects examples of integrated landscape initiatives from all over Europe through systematic internet key word searches and canvassing of European umbrella organisations; followed by an online survey of representatives from the identified initiatives (n = 71). Our results show that the most relevant characteristics of integrated landscape initiatives in Europe are: a holistic approach to landscape management (acting in multifunctional landscapes and combining different objectives), the involvement and coordination of different sectors and stakeholders at many levels, and the role as agents of awareness raising and learning hubs. Integrated landscape initiatives mainly depend on impulses of local civil society. Identified barriers to their work include a lack of funding and institutional support. Therefore, political and societal action is needed to increase their effectiveness.     

Do Local Landscape Patterns Affect the Demand for Landscape Amenities Protection?

Agricultural support is increasingly flowing into the maintenance and improvement of landscape quality. While variations in the demand for landscape protection have been successfully attributed to variations in socio‐economic characteristics, the effect of the local landscape setting as a potential determinant of environmental preferences has received less attention. A framework is formulated that describes public support for regional landscape protection as a function of socio‐economic variables and land use patterns. Models are then estimated using detailed local land use statistics and voting records from a referendum on increasing public funding for local landscape amenities protection in the Swiss canton of Zurich. The land use variables represent proportions of open landscape and landscape features that are viewed as particularly valuable for aesthetic and other reasons. Cross‐sectional estimation results suggest that attitudes towards public landscape protection are indeed strongly associated with the local landscape. Approval for protection programmes increased with local scarcity of open space and with the presence of high‐amenity landscape features. Comparison with referendum outcomes on a national‐level environmental issue suggests that the positive association with high‐amenity landscape features may be partly attributable to individuals' self‐selection of residency.     

泽普县农村居民点空间格局演变及其影响因素

[目的]试图揭示出泽普县农村居民点的变化主要驱动力,以期为农村居民点的空间布局管理和科学的布局调整提供政策指导。[方法]文章综合使用GIS技术、景观指数定量分析的方法和空间分析方法对泽普县农村居民点2005~2014年用地规模结构、空间分布、形态结构的演变特征进行研究,并且分析了地形与自然资源因素、区位与环境因素和社会经济因素对其的影响。[结果]在社会经济快速发展的背景下,泽普县的农村居民点扩张明显,集约程度较低;农村居民点的斑块形态指数趋于规则,人为管控和村镇选址规划的效果初步体现;空间上斑块聚集特征明显,主要体现在大斑块低密度分布和小斑块高密度分布的景观格局;但是从整体来看泽普县近10年来空间格局变化不大,局部有聚集趋势,尤其是在海拔适宜、经济高速发展的地区集中趋势更为明显。[结论]农村居民点居住的景观格局变化主要与自然条件息息相关,但在时间和空间的微观层面上社会经济因素和区位条件具有更大的影响力。     

Economic Liberalization and Productivity Growth: Further Evidence From Bangladesh

The impact of economic liberalization reforms on the productive performances of manufacturing firms remains a contentious issue in the literature. This paper attempts to contribute to the debate by empirically estimating productivity growth of Bangladesh food manufacturing using firm level data before and after reform. Empirical results show that the share of output growth was accounted for by input growth in most sectors of this industry. In some sectors, the estimated rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth is negligible or even negative. Decomposition of the TFP growth shows that technological progress plays a significant role in TFP growth across firms within the sub-sectors of this industry. Empirical results also show that the relative contribution of capacity realization to TFP growth is not substantial in inhibiting the industry's high and sustained growth. These dismal performances indicate that the industries responded a little to the implementation of economic reforms.     

地质科技进步对经济发展的传导机制研究

采用定性分析法研究地质科技对经济发展的作用机制可知。地质科技进步对经济发展作用路线分为两条,一条是先直接作用于地质行业,再间接传播到其他相关部门,并最终促进经济发展;另一条则是通过促进经济建设的方式相对直接地促进经济发展。同时,随着经济的发展,对地质科技又会产生进一步的引致需求,形成地质科技和经济发展的循环促进。     

湘西州典型乡村聚落景观空间分异特征及驱动因素分析

[目的]乡村聚落景观是乡村景观的重要组成部分,乡村聚落景观的规划设计对乡村生态文明建设乃至可持续发展具有重要意义。[方法]文章基于175个典型乡村聚落景观研究样本,借助Google Earth与ArcGIS10.2,采用最邻近指数、地理集中指数等5种地理研究模型,分析湘西州典型乡村聚落景观的空间分布特征。并从聚落景观生态价值、社会价值、文化价值及经济价值等4个层面,构建包括18个指标在内的乡村聚落景观评价指标体系,对湘西州175个典型乡村聚落景观质量展开评价。[结果]湘西州175个乡村聚落景观总体呈集聚分布,且主要分布在中部和西部。农村常住人口和总产值与乡村聚落景观个数之间的地理联系率分别为81.6和80.5,乡村聚落景观的分布与经济规模和人口规模存在较紧密关联。质量评价发现,聚落质量评价分值为7.01,处于中等偏上的水平。通过对乡村聚落景观驱动因素进行分析,进一步说明聚落景观的分布与人口、经济、交通密切相关。[结论]湘西州乡村聚落景观空间分异呈现生态价值与社会价值高、文化价值与经济价值低,以及中西部集聚的特点,应稳固现有乡村聚落景观建设成效,并注重发展乡村旅游经济、现代农业经济。     

Integrated economic-hydrologic water modeling at the basin scale: the Maipo river basin

Increasing competition for water across sectors increases the importance of the river basin as the appropriate unit of analysis to address the challenges facing water resources management; and modeling at this scale can provide essential information for policy makers in their resource allocation decisions. This paper introduces an integrated economic‐hydrologic modeling framework that accounts for the interactions between water allocation, farmer input choice, agricultural productivity, non‐agricultural water demand, and resource degradation in order to estimate the social and economic gains from improvement in the allocation and efficiency of water use. The model is applied to the Maipo river basin in Chile. Economic benefits to water use are evaluated for different demand management instruments, including markets in tradable water rights, based on production and benefit functions with respect to water for the agricultural and urban‐industrial sectors.     

Neither State nor Market: The Influence of Farmers' Organizations on Agricultural Policies in Costa Rica

In recent decades, policies in many countries have been shaped by the implementation of economic liberalization, characterized by state withdrawal from marketing operations and control of trade. In this era of liberalization, policies regulating commodity marketing and trade were expected to disappear, but, in fact, this has hardly occurred. A comparative study is carried out of three farm sectors in Costa Rica, based on a dynamic analysis of behaviour in the context of the institutional change brought about by liberalization. The capacity of farmers' organizations to adapt and contribute to institutional change through their control over economic activity and their participation in policymaking processes is highlighted. In so doing, it is shown that, even in a liberalized era, policies regulating marketing and trade still exist and affect the functioning of agricultural markets. These policies differ according to the farm sector and can be linked directly to the influence of farmers' organizations within these sectors. It is shown that organizations play a key role in the regulation of farm sectors, and that their success depends on the institutional and organizational “thickness” to which they have contributed in each sector. Differences in historical trajectories can explain differences in the capacity of organizations to influence policymaking and to gain market share.     

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.     

Agricultural landscape dynamics in response to economic transition: Comparisons between different spatial planning zones in Ningbo region,China

Many major agricultural regions worldwide are experiencing drastic landscape transformations. Examining the complex links among agricultural landscape dynamics (ALD), land use and land cover (LULC) change, socioeconomic development and government planning is pivotal to enhance the efficiency of agricultural landscape management. With a case of the Ningbo region (China), this paper employs the structural equation modeling (SEM) to quantify and compare the relationships between ALD and economic transition as well as the mediating LULC factors in different spatial planning zones. ALD are quantified by time series remotely sensed imageries and a set of landscape metrics; and economic transition is described by a set of indicators from three aspects (globalization, decentralization and marketization). Results show that ALD present similar trend in the two spatial planning zones between 1979 and 2013. However, the magnitude of ALD is larger in the non-urban planning zone. In particular, agricultural landscapes change into the fragmented, irregular, decreased, and isolated patterns at a more rapid pace. Economic transition drivers and LULC mediators differ remarkably between the two spatial planning zones. For the urban planning zone, economic transition influences ALD through construction land morphological changes and water body spatial density increases. For the non-urban planning zone, economic transition influences ALD through forest morphological changes and construction land spatial density increases. In addition, the relative importance of ALD determinants differs between the two spatial planning zones. Marketization plays a more critical role in driving ALD in the urban planning zone, while decentralization has a stronger impact on ALD in the non-urban planning zone. It is argued that land use master plan for agricultural landscape protection should be implemented in the non-urban planning zones and land use plan in the two spatial planning zones should be integrated. This study contributes to the understanding of the complex mechanism of ALD in response to economic transition.     

The Ties Made in the Harvest: Nicaraguan Farm‐worker Networks in Costa Rica's Agricultural Exports

Traditional and nontraditional export agriculture expansion dramatically changed the social and economic landscapes in the global south. An examination of one aspect of south–south international migration, Nicaraguan migrant economic integration into Costa Rica's export agriculture sector, reveals how production systems in the traditional and nontraditional agricultural sectors shape migrant social networks in distinct ways in the global south and its significance for both migrant workers and the agricultural sectors they work in. The rapid expansion of nontraditional export agriculture – the essence of agricultural development in Costa Rica – depends on the traditional crop production structure of coffee farms. The experiences of Nicaraguan migrant workers and their social ties to each other in nontraditional export agriculture and the coffee farms in Costa Rica demonstrate how different production structures call for distinct fragile and conflicted social networks ties between migrants. The economic integration of migrant workers relies on opportunistic and weak ties that are both gendered and contradictory.     

The interface between growth,trade, pollution and natural resource use in Chile: evidence from an economy wide model

We investigate the implications of trade liberalization and pollution taxes on aggregate income, pollution, and natural resource use in Chile with a neoclassical economywide model comprising 75 sectors. The model incorporates 13 measures of pollution effluents which are linked to the use of polluting inputs and energy use. We estimate the economic and environmental impact of Chile's participation in NAFTA, MERCOSUR, of unilateral trade liberalization and effluent taxes. Unilateral trade liberalization induces substantial worsening of pollution emissions and expansion of resource-based sectors, partly because of access to cheaper energy. NAFTA integration is environmentally benign in terms of pollution emissions.     

MARKET DISTORTIONS IN BRAZILIAN AGRICULTURE: AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF GOVERNMENT POLICY ON THE BEEF AND DAIRY SECTORS

Intervention in the beef and dairy sectors has been the core of Brazilian agricultural policy. An econometric model of these sectors is used as a tool with which to measure the consequences of government-induced market distortions on prices, production, consumption and external trade. It is argued that large economic losses and a less egalitarian distribution of income have been the results of government policy to date.     

北戴河新区耕地景观生态安全时空变化研究

[目的]分析北戴河新区耕地景观生态安全,试图找出其格局变化规律和变化原因,以期为北戴河新区制定耕地保护对策提供借鉴。[方法]文章选取景观指数建立耕地景观生态安全评价模型,分析北戴河新区1991年、2001年及2013年的耕地景观生态安全时空变化特征,在此基础上,分析了耕地景观生态安全重心变动轨迹,进一步分析耕地景观生态安全的时空变化规律。[结果]研究表明:1991~2013年间,1991年为0.647 6,2001年为0.593 9,2013年为0.527 6;其逐年下降原因主要是人类活动加剧导致耕地景观连通性下降,耕地景观生态安全程度分布不均衡,各安全指数级别出现相互转化的现象;耕地景观生态安全重心总体呈现向东北部移动的变化规律,1991~2001年移动距离为4.06km,2001~2013年动距离为1.43km。[结论](1)北戴河新区耕地景观生态安全指数从1991~2013年持续下降且下降幅度不断增大,耕地景观生态安全受到威胁;(2)北戴河新区的耕地景观生态安全空间分布不均衡,安全程度不稳定;(3)利用景观格局分析耕地安全的研究方法可行。     

The estimated ex ante economic impact of Bt cowpea in Niger,Benin and Northern Nigeria

Genetically modified (GM) crops could increase economic growth and enhance living standards in Africa, but political issues have slowed the use of biotechnology. This is the first study that assesses the potential impact of GM crops in Africa while considering the preferences of producers and consumers towards GMOs as well as the income and price risks they face. The study uses a choice experiment to estimate the ex ante economic impact of a novel technology, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cowpea, on producers and consumers in Benin, Niger and northern Nigeria. The experiment involves the simulation of a market transaction similar to those in open air markets in West Africa. During the market simulation, respondents are informed about the advantages and disadvantages, including health risks, of Bt cowpea. The results from the study suggest that cowpea growers and consumers in Benin and northern Nigeria prefer Bt to conventional cowpea for health safety reasons. The results estimate that social welfare in Benin, Niger and northern Nigeria would increase by at least US$11.82 per capita annually with Bt cowpea, if seed sectors are operating smoothly. With inefficiencies in seed sectors and the potential for cowpea acreage increase, the estimated social welfare increase in the region would be about US$1.26 per capita annually.     

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。     

森林公园景观资产评估市场比较法初探

本文在分析森林公园景观资产特性基本属性的基础上 ,根据市场比较法的基本原理 ,将景观质量调整因素细分为景观质量调整系数和景观经济地理指数 ,从而针对性地解决了景观资产中景观质量调整因素的确定问题 ,文章首次将市场比较法应用于森林公园景观资产的评估中来 ,并给出了部分应用实例 ,为丰富森林公园景观资产评估方法做出了有益的探讨     

National policies and the sectoral pattern of economic growth

This article presents tests of whether the kinds of "national" policy variables used to explain cross-country variation in the growth of aggregate GDP per capita can also successfully explain per capita growth in the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors of developing countries. There are four main results of interest. First, relative to nonagriculture, convergence is much slower in agriculture and the burden of population growth is generally much higher. Second, while orthodox economic policies share positive associations with economic growth in the nonagricultural sectors of developing countries, such policies fail to robustly predict variation in agricultural growth. Third, size of government indicators often yield an "unexpected" positive association with agricultural growth. And finally, although there is some evidence that fewer price controls are associated with faster agricultural growth, these associations are statistically quite weak and quantitatively quite small.     

Assessing governance challenges of local biodiversity and ecosystem services: Barriers identified by the expert community

This paper assesses barriers to local biodiversity and ecosystem (BES) governance within cities, drawing on findings from an international expert survey encompassing 45 cities in 25 countries. BES is recognised as a key foundation for sustainable cities, yet current literature indicates that more clarity is needed on the factors which may undermine BES initiatives. Survey findings show broad agreement that officials in development sectors have inadequate BES knowledge, budgets for BES are insufficient, and planners in the locality lack knowledge about BES. Respondents not working for local governments were more likely to see policy change with administrations, budget limitations, and lack of expertise as barriers. Respondents for cities in less-developed countries agreed significantly more that there were harmful cultural activities, and were more concerned that inadequate consideration from governments at different scales and poor internal communication were barriers. Based on the findings, we suggest (a) a need to evaluate the effectiveness of collaboration both within government and between sectors; (b) the importance of building capacity within local government staff, both in techno-scientific knowledge and in engaging the policy landscape with this knowledge; and (c) the importance of further considering how BES conservation may relate to culturally meaningful practices.     

基于景观格局与生态过程的土地整理生态效应评价——以天津市七里海镇为例

目前,对土地整理项目效益的评价多集中关注于经济效益评价,对生态效应的评价较少,更没有将评价结果应用于土地整理项目的规划设计和实施中。该文从生态系统结构的整体出发,结合宏观的景观格局与微观的生态过程,选取了斑块个数、破碎化指数、景观隔离度、植被覆盖率、生物多样性指数、物质循环速率、干扰频率和土壤质量8个二级评价指标,构建了土地整理项目的生态效应评价体系,运用归一化方法对评价指标量化,并结合天津市七里海镇土地整理项目进行实证研究,结果表明该土地整理项目在景观格局方面得到了较好的优化,斑块个数减少,破碎化指数降低,总体景观隔离度降低,但局部区域由于修建水泥道路导致隔离度增加。在生态过程方面,植被覆盖率提高,但呈现季节性,生物多样性降低,物质循环速率和干扰频率增加,土壤质量有较大提高。总体上,土地整理项目取得了耕地面积和土壤质量改善方面较好的效益,但在生态系统方面受到较大干扰,带来了负效应。今后需要在土地整理项目中从生态学角度进行规划设计,以取得经济、社会和生态综合效益。