The future of soils and land use in the UK: Soil systems for the provision of land-based ecosystem services

Historically, soils have always underpinned civilisation. Their role is fundamental to the provision of food and water, along with a wide range of ecosystem goods and services. Soils are arguably the most complex systems on Earth, and are intimately linked to human security and the integrity of the wider environment. In this paper we propose 18 ecosystem services that are critical for soils and land use in the UK. Soils are extremely heterogeneous and not all soils can fulfil the full spectrum of services required for the future of the UK, so there is a need to protect their multifunctional attributes in order to preserve national and international natural capital. There are concerns that anthropogenically induced changes in land use or management will result in soils not being utilised to provide the functions to which they are best suited. For example, soils primarily suited for food supply may be given over to provide a platform for construction. This is an all-pervading and recurring concern and highlights the importance of critical decisions, thresholds and potential ‘tipping points’. Once critical soil functions are lost they are irrecoverable, potentially for millennia, representing a loss of resource that is fundamental to the UK's national livelihood and well-being. Pressures from changes in climate and to the Earth system will bring about complex and systematic change to soils and their abilities to provide essential functions. We therefore recommend national needs for ensuring the sustainability for soils and future land use in the UK. They are to maintain the long-term base for soil science through education and intellectual investment, including communication of the value of soils and land as natural capital; to manage soil resources so that multi-functionality prevails and critical tipping points are avoided; to audit the national soil resource through soil mapping; preparation of appropriate databases and provision of long-term monitoring networks and observatories; and to synthesise adaptable predictive frameworks for soil system science through integrated modelling.     

UK land use and soil carbon sequestration

This review explores the role of land use and land use change as a determinant of the soil's ability to sequester and store carbon in the UK. Over 95 percent of the UK land carbon stock is located in soils which are subjected to a range of land uses and global changes. Land use change can result in rapid soil loss of carbon from peatlands, grasslands, plantation forest and native woodland. Soil carbon accumulates more slowly (decadal) but gains can be made when croplands are converted to grasslands, plantation forest or native woodland. The need for land for food production and renewable forms of energy could have considerable influence on UK soil carbon storage in the future. There is a need to recognise the risk of soil carbon losses occurring when land use change to increase carbon storage is offset by compensatory land use conversions elsewhere that result in net carbon release. The protection of peatland and other organic soil carbon stocks, and the management of cropland, grassland and forest soils to increase carbon sequestration, will be crucial to the maintenance of the UK carbon balance. It will be necessary to develop policy to balance trade-offs between soil carbon gains with other land use priorities. These include the sustainable production of food, bio-energy and fibre crops and livestock, water quality and hydrology, greenhouse gas emission control and waste management, all of which are underpinned by the soil.     

Agricultural technology and land use futures: The UK case

This paper explores how agricultural technology has interacted with recent land use in the UK and how it might do so in the next 50 years. From 1960 to 1985, farmers successfully used technology to increase the output of crop and animal products per unit of land and particularly of labour. This reduced the number of people employed in agriculture, and promoted larger and more specialised farm enterprises. Between 1985 and 2006, food prices were relatively low, and although labour productivity continued to increase, land productivity remained relatively static. However during this period, farmers started to address the effects of agriculture on reduced water quality and habitat loss.For established agricultural products, technological innovation tends to have an incremental effect, working through genetic improvement, the removal of abiotic and biotic stress (e.g. crop nutrition and protection, irrigation and drainage, and animal nutrition, health and housing) and the substitution of labour. Whereas the first two processes tend to be scale-neutral, the substitution of labour is usually easiest to achieve on larger farms. Other key areas for technological innovation include addressing air, soil and water quality, biodiversity, waste reduction, and information management. Over the next 50 years, large step-changes in land use arising from agricultural technology are predicted to arise from the development of new markets for agricultural products. A strong bioenergy sector will strengthen the links between crop commodity and energy prices and will have a major effect on future land use. Climate change and the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will alter the relative profitability of crop and animal production systems. Lastly, increased public awareness of the links between food, health and the environment could substantially shift the demand for specific agricultural products.Continual improvements in agricultural technology are pivotal to providing society with the flexibility to balance the challenges of improving human well-being with the management of the planet's ecosystem. Increased technological innovation increases the probability that agricultural land can be used for other purposes, but the exact relationship is dependent on trade and environmental policies. The large external effects of agriculture mean that decisions regarding the adoption of future technologies should be taken by farmers working with other stakeholders.     

Rural land ownership in the United Kingdom: Changing patterns and future possibilities for land use

The broad pattern of rural land ownership exhibits quite modest change over the past 30 years, but this impression is misleading. It understates substantial changes in property rights, evidence of which is not readily available from published statistics. These changes reflect the growing urbanisation of the countryside, which has required owners to pay more attention to consumption interests, sometimes at the expense of traditional agricultural and forestry interests, which in turn have experienced mixed fortunes. Rural land is expected to supply, and is increasingly valued in terms of, multiple goods and services.Major trends in ownership, occupancy and land prices are reviewed, noting that the divisibility and flexibility of the bundle of rights which constitute ownership have allowed holders to respond to urban pressures and farming difficulties with practices including short-term leasing, contracting, supplying life-style residential properties and accommodating increased environmental regulation. But linking land use to land ownership type is difficult, not least because there are many other drivers of land-use change. Moreover, local and individual circumstances are now more significant than in the past, not least the ageing occupational structure of farming. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of some of the political, economic and environmental drivers that may affect future land ownership patterns.     

The relationship between land use and surface water resources in the UK

Land use and water resources are inextricably entwined. The need to protect the quantity and quality of water resources can impact potential land uses and land management practices, while water availability is a pre-requisite for land uses requiring irrigation. Land use and land management changes impact on water resources for example through changes in catchment yields, infiltration rates, dissolved organic carbon and nutrient transfers. While there is no absolute shortage of water resources across the UK as a whole, spatial and temporal variations already result in water stress across much of the south and east of England during dry summers. In the future, water stress is expected to become more widespread in response to population growth, increasing environmental protection and climate change. Surface water quality is reported to be improving at present, though there are doubts as to the adequacy of the monitoring coverage. Climate change is likely to adversely affect surface water quality, with less dilution in summer and more extreme rainfalls in winter leading to increased erosion and pollution. To conserve usable water resources, land uses which increase evapotranspiration or rapid runoff should be discouraged, particularly in the south and east, and there need to be continuing efforts to maintain good chemical water quality in rivers and groundwater. Water resource constraints will limit opportunities to use irrigation as a counter to climate change, and will influence where irrigated production can be located.     

Evaluating the impact of government land use policies on tree canopy coverage

Many cities around the world are experiencing the negative effects associated with not sustaining a sufficient level of tree canopy coverage. Tree canopy provides environmental benefits such as clean water and air, erosion prevention, climate control, and native species habitat and provides economic benefits such as higher housing values and lower energy expenditures. We study local government policies in a large U.S. metropolitan area (the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area) to find which policies perform the best at preserving or increasing urban forests. Empirical analysis reveals that a set of effective tree ordinance clauses, zoning ordinances, and having high quality smart growth projects in the community all help in preserving tree canopy in economically and environmentally meaningful amounts. Other actions, such as simply having a tree ordinance, designating a key management person in charge of tree programs, the presence of a tree board, and multiple communication channels were shown to be ineffective for our data set. Because benefits from tree canopy accrue to the local government's budget, to residents and to business owners, the entire community should gain from the passage of effective policies to preserve their local tree canopy. Estimated economic benefits from preserving tree canopy through an effective set of public policies are in the range of $10–15 million annually in an average county, mostly due to savings on stormwater management.     

宜昌市土地利用变化及其驱动力研究

分析了湖北省宜昌市土地利用现状及1996～2004年土地利用动态变化特征,发现宜昌市的土地利用变化特征主要是耕地面积的减少和建设用地面积的不断增多;利用相关分析方法对宜昌市土地利用变化的驱动力进行研究,结果表明,人口、城市化水平、GDP、第二和第三产业增加值、政府政策等社会经济因素与建设用地面积具有明显正相关,与耕地面积具有明显负相关;说明社会经济因素是宜昌市土地利用变化的主要驱动力。     

土地利用规划中土地利用空间结构和布局研究进展

土地利用空间结构和布局是土地利用规划工作中的关键所在,是决定土地利用规划是否科学合理的重要步骤;开展土地利用空间结构和布局优化研究有利于促进土地资源利用的集约高效,有利于新一轮的土地利用规划修编的编制和实施;综述了目前我国土地利用空间布局相关理论的研究进展,回顾了土地利用空间布局所采取的主要技术和手段,对我国土地利用空间结构和布局研究进行了展望;研究表明：我国土地利用空间布局理论研究有了长足进展,但还未形成严密的科学理论体系;在研究视角上,多注重耕地和基本农田保护,在“统筹兼顾”“以人为本”“理性发展”等方面应加强;在研究方法上,应加强现代数学模型与计算机空间模拟等方法在土地利用规划布局中的应用研究,加强参与式土地利用规划理论和方法研究,与传统的规划研究方法和手段相结合,形成客观、准确、科学的土地利用规划技术体系。     

Modelling the likely impact of healthy eating guidelines on agricultural production and land use in England and Wales

Quadratic programming techniques were applied to household food consumption data in England and Wales to estimate likely changes in diet under healthy eating guidelines, and the consequences this would have on agriculture and land use in England and Wales. The first step entailed imposing nutrient restrictions on food consumption following dietary recommendations suggested by the UK Department of Health. The resulting diet was used, in a second step as a proxy for demand in agricultural commodities, to test the impact of such a scenario on food production and land use in England and Wales and the impacts of this on agricultural landscapes. Results of the diet optimisation indicated a large drop in consumption of foods rich in saturated fats and sugar, essentially cheese and sugar-based products, along with lesser cuts of fat and meat products. Conversely, consumption of fruit and vegetables, cereals, and flour would increase to meet dietary fibre recommendations. Such a shift in demand would dramatically affect production patterns: the financial net margin of England and Wales agriculture would rise, due to increased production of high market value and high economic margin crops. Some regions would, however, be negatively affected, mostly those dependent on beef cattle and sheep production that could not benefit from an increased demand for cereals and horticultural crops. The effects of these changes would also be felt in upstream industries, such as animal feed suppliers. While arable dominated landscapes would be little affected, pastoral landscapes would suffer through loss of grazing management and, possibly, land abandonment, especially in upland areas.     

土地利用总体规划与土地资源可持续利用

土地利用总体规划是实现土地持续利用的保障土地持续利用是以保护土地生态环境为基础,能够满足当前与未来人们的食品需求和社会经济协调、平衡发展的土地利用行为。土地可持续利用是人类社会经济发展的客观要求,没有土地的可持续利用,也就谈不上经济社会的可持续发展。而土地利用总体规划首先是土地利用和管理长期宏观控制性的规划,是充分合理利用土地的基础和依据。其次,土地利用规划在整个土地管理工作中处于“龙头”地位,是土地管理依法行政的重要内容和基本依据。土地利用总体规划的作用,概括起来说,一是协调各业用地需求,保护土地资源,…     

The impact of sustainable energy production on land use in Britain through to 2050

Historically, land use in Britain has been shaped by the environment's capacity to provide energy as well as food, water and shelter. Over the next decades, energy will again become a major driver in land cover change as we seek to capture the necessary energy to replace fossil fuels, reduce environmental damage and substitute for insecure supplies. Britain was one of the first places to exploit fossil fuels extensively, initially coal, and it has the potential to generate considerable amounts of renewable energy from tides, waves, the wind, biomass and sunlight. The UK Government's policy is to develop a suite of technologies that will provide a resilient supply without compromising its economy or its international commitments to environmental protection.This paper examines the three major terrestrial options for renewable energy and assesses each by successively filtering them for feasibility, achievability and practicality incorporating existing developments, designation and public opinion. Technology and opinion are dynamic, so the outputs need to be viewed as indicative of alternative scenarios rather than as fixed forecasts. Implications for changes in the energy supply infrastructure needed to match the new supply chains are highlighted.The demand for energy depends on the demographic profile (population size, age distribution, lifestyle and expectations) and on economic activity. Here total demand is predicted using the UK Energy Research Centre's Energy 2050 model, which uses linear programming to balance economics and environmental capacity by major demand sectors in five-year time steps. The core model often generates challenging results.     

Future UK land use policy and the risk of infectious disease in humans,livestock and wild animals

We explore the degree to which the consideration of infectious diseases may be of importance in the formulation of land use policy. We look at the diseases of humans, domestic livestock and wild vertebrates, and distinguish two types of human disease: those which form epidemics involving transmission from person to person, and those which are contracted from non-human sources and spread very little through the population. Land use affects the density and distribution of people, and urbanisation typically increases the risk of an epidemic and the speed with which it spreads. More subtle effects may occur through changes in the network of contacts between individuals. Land use policy that affects the distribution of breeding sites for disease vectors (e.g. mosquitoes) or the passage of potential pathogenic microorganisms through the environment from farm animals to humans can also influence non-epidemic disease risk.Livestock disease is critically affected by stocking density and the network of contacts between individuals and herds. Land use and agricultural policy can be very important in reducing the risks of disease outbreaks. We explore the complex relationship between intensification and disease risks. We suspect that land use policy may affect the viability of threatened species of vertebrates, though our relatively poor knowledge of disease epidemiology in wild animals makes policy formation difficult. Though climate change may act together with land use policy to determine disease risk, we consider this interaction to less important than that between land use and the socioeconomic drivers of global change. We conclude by assessing the importance of disease in the three types of host to land use policy. We suggest that the consideration of wildlife diseases is a low to medium priority for land use policy, though we attach high uncertainty to our conclusion; the consideration of human diseases we think a low priority (with medium uncertainty); while that of livestock diseases we argue is a high priority (with low uncertainty).     

Impact of land tenure on land use in low-income countries

The role of land tenure in agricultural development has been a subject of intensive research, particularly within the context of land and agrarian reform. The complexity of the world's major land tenure systems is well recognized and no attempt is made here to go beyond an overview as this paper limits itself to the impact of land tenure on land use in low income situations. Present land use is determined by a host of factors, of a physical/biological and socioeconomic nature. In applying land evaluation, the question it is necessary to ask is to what extent, when and where land tenure conditions act as a considerable constraining factor impeding a more optimal use of land resources. Even in what used to be low-population density areas (such as Sub-Saharan Africa) it appears that the frontier phase is becoming exhausted and the intensification of agriculture proceeds; it becomes imperative to examine land tenure in relation to land use implications. It is shown that so far a multi-disciplinary approach has often been lacking in treating land tenure and related issues.     

Farmer-specific relationships between land use change and landscape factors: Introducing agents in empirical land use modelling

Traditional empirical land use change models generally assume one average land use decision-maker. Multi-Agent System (MAS) models, on the other hand, acknowledge existence of different types of agents, but their poor empirical embedding remains a serious handicap. This paper demonstrates how agent information can also be incorporated into empirical, biophysical land use models.     

我国城市用地扩展与土地集约利用

分析了我国城市用地增长弹性系数和城市用地扩展幂指数规律,发现土地利用效益偏低、扩张速度偏快是目前我国城市用地扩展的主要特征;分析了城市用地扩展的主要驱动力,发现固定资产投资和人口增长是城市扩展的主要动力,而第三产业发展有助于抑制城市用地扩张;认为城市扩展是我国现阶段经济发展的必然结果,但我国城市土地利用应变外廷扩展为外延扩展和内涵挖潜相结合的利用方式,提高土地利用的集约度与综合效益.     

Dynamic land use and land cover changes and their effect on forest resources in a coastal village of Matemwe,Zanzibar, Tanzania

Recent land cover change estimates show overall decline of tropical forests at the regional and global scales caused by multiple social, cultural and economic factors. There is an overall concern on the prevailing land use practices, such as shifting cultivation and extraction of forest materials as agents of forests losses, but also new, emerging land uses are threatening tropical forests. Understanding of the long-term development and driving forces of forest changes are needed, especially at local levels where many decisions on forest policies and land uses are made. This paper addresses the importance of such information for improved estimates of forest dynamics by studying local level land cover and land use changes during the last 50–70 years in the Eastern African tropical island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The paper discusses the role of traditional and new land uses mainly subsistence farming, tourism and government interference through tree planting, in the long-term development of the forests at the village level. The material for the study is gathered from the interpretation of archival maps and aerial photographs combined with contemporary digital aerial photographs. The analyses are based on the mapping, spatial sampling and spatio-temporal change trajectory analysis (LCTA) of forest land cover, forest land uses and settlement patterns with GIS and statistics. Six distinct forest land cover change trajectories were identified and these illustrate dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the forests. Closed forest cover has dominated throughout due to cyclical land use patterns, but over 70% of the land area has been continuously transforming between closed, semi-open and open land cover conditions. Land use turnover rates indicate that hardly any forest areas are left untouched from the forces, which remove and re-establish forest vegetation in the long run. Land cover and land use change trajectories are spatially fragmented in the studied landscape. Majority of forest loss-gain dynamics is caused by shifting cultivation, while forest losses are most dramatic along the coast, where traditional and new land uses meet and land uses pressures are highest. The study suggests that landscape change trajectory analyses, where contemporary and historical information on land uses and land cover changes are spatially linked, can provide valuable aspects into local level forest land use planning and management strategies. For the case study, the findings suggest the following key forest management strategies for consideration: (1) establishment of a protected forest/scrubland in participation with the local stakeholders, especially the farmers, (2) promotion of areas for permanent agricultural practices, while simultaneously introducing management controls in the traditional slash-and-burn farming areas, and (3) promoting new livelihood opportunities for the farmers, who have traditionally been dependent on forest resources, meanwhile introducing alternatives for fuel wood for cooking.     

Urban land and property ownership patterns in the UK: trends and forces for change

The first part of this review examines what is meant by ‘urban land and property’ (ULP) and looks at the background of ULP in the light of trends in UK urban areas over the past 50 years.Key conceptual approaches to the ULP ‘ownership issue’ are identified, together with the constraints to empirical analysis, which include a lack of data and patchy and inconsistent datasets. Three main components of ULP ownership in the UK are then examined using published data on commercial property, residential property and urban land, including ‘previously developed land’ (PDL) and ‘development land, covering both the private and public sectors.The review examines past trends in ULP ownership patterns in these sectors within the UK, and the key drivers which have created the present day patterns of ULP ownership. It concludes by identifying possible future trends in ULP ownership over the next 50 years to 2060 in the three main ULP sectors.