Assessing impacts of land use policies on environmental sustainability of oasis landscapes with scenario analysis: the case of northern China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Binghua Gong ◽  
Zhifeng Liu
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Scenario Analysis ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Land Use Policies

scholarly journals Tobacco and Deforestation Revisited. How to Move towards a Global Land-Use Transition?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9242
Author(s):  
Helmut J. Geist
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Agricultural Crop ◽  
Farming Practices ◽  
Social Surveys ◽  
Sustainability Transition ◽  
Global Land ◽  
Land Use Policies ◽  
Political Priority

Articles 17 and 18 of the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control address the environmental sustainability of tobacco as a contested agricultural crop. They require regulatory land-use policies to be introduced and designed to enhance a sustainability transition to diversified farming practices and/or alternative livelihoods. Related activities of the UN Study/Working Group on Economically Sustainable Alternatives to Tobacco Growing are reviewed to assess and monitor the crop’s impact on natural resources with a focus on methods to identify tobacco-attributable deforestation (remote sensing, proxy values, secondary statistics, natural valuation, ecological/social surveys). It is posited that since 2007 no advances have been achieved in framing woody biomass destruction/degradation due to land extension and curing (i.e., drying green leaf using wood). Building on support by digital technologies and land surface monitoring systems, a novel post-2020 strategy is proposed to mainstream an extended set of indicators integratively, i.e., addressing biodiversity losses, soil carbon reservoirs and land degradation neutrality of tobacco as an agricultural crop. Thus, the point is emphasized that land stewardship requires political priority setting that makes the framing of land-use sustainability metrics more than a purely technical matter.

scholarly journals Multi-Scenario Analysis of Habitat Quality in the Yellow River Delta by Coupling FLUS with InVEST Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 2389
Author(s):  
Qinglong Ding ◽  
Yang Chen ◽  
Lingtong Bu ◽  
Yanmei Ye
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Scenario Analysis ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
Cultivated Land ◽  
Invest Model ◽  
Unused Land ◽  
Dongying City

The past decades were witnessing unprecedented habitat degradation across the globe. It thus is of great significance to investigate the impacts of land use change on habitat quality in the context of rapid urbanization, particularly in developing countries. However, rare studies were conducted to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of habitat quality under multiple future land use scenarios. In this paper, we established a framework by coupling the future land use simulation (FLUS) model with the Intergrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model. We then analyzed the habitat quality change in Dongying City in 2030 under four scenarios: business as usual (BAU), fast cultivated land expansion scenario (FCLE), ecological security scenario (ES) and sustainable development scenario (SD). We found that the land use change in Dongying City, driven by urbanization and agricultural reclamation, was mainly characterized by the transfer of cultivated land, construction land and unused land; the area of unused land was significantly reduced. While the habitat quality in Dongying City showed a degradative trend from 2009 to 2017, it will be improved from 2017 to 2030 under four scenarios. The high-quality habitat will be mainly distributed in the Yellow River Estuary and coastal areas, and the areas with low-quality habitat will be concentrated in the central and southern regions. Multi-scenario analysis shows that the SD will have the highest habitat quality, while the BAU scenario will have the lowest. It is interesting that the ES scenario fails to have the highest capacity to protect habitat quality, which may be related to the excessive saline alkali land. Appropriate reclamation of the unused land is conducive to cultivated land protection and food security, but also improving the habitat quality and giving play to the versatility and multidimensional value of the agricultural landscape. This shows that the SD of comprehensive coordination of urban development, agricultural development and ecological protection is an effective way to maintain the habitat quality and biodiversity.

Effects of Transportation and Land Use Policies on Air Quality

2010 ◽  
Vol 2158 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena C. McDonald-Buller ◽  
Alba Webb ◽  
Kara M. Kockelman ◽  
Bin (Brenda) Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Land Use Policies

scholarly journals Key Challenges for Land Use Planning and Its Environmental Assessments in the Abuja City-Region, Nigeria

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 443
Author(s):  
Evidence Chinedu Enoguanbhor ◽  
Florian Gollnow ◽  
Blake Byron Walker ◽  
Jonas Ostergaard Nielsen ◽  
Tobia Lakes
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Environmental Assessments ◽  
City Regions ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Land Cover Maps

Land use planning as strategic instruments to guide urban dynamics faces particular challenges in the Global South, including Sub-Saharan Africa, where urgent interventions are required to improve urban and environmental sustainability. This study investigated and identified key challenges of land use planning and its environmental assessments to improve the urban and environmental sustainability of city-regions. In doing so, we combined expert interviews and questionnaires with spatial analyses of urban and regional land use plans, as well as current and future urban land cover maps derived from Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing. By overlaying and contrasting land use plans and land cover maps, we investigated spatial inconsistencies between urban and regional plans and the associated urban land dynamics and used expert surveys to identify the causes of such inconsistencies. We furthermore identified and interrogated key challenges facing land use planning, including its environmental assessment procedures, and explored means for overcoming these barriers to rapid, yet environmentally sound urban growth. The results illuminated multiple inconsistencies (e.g., spatial conflicts) between urban and regional plans, most prominently stemming from conflicts in administrative boundaries and a lack of interdepartmental coordination. Key findings identified a lack of Strategic Environmental Assessment and inadequate implementation of land use plans caused by e.g., insufficient funding, lack of political will, political interference, corruption as challenges facing land use planning strategies for urban and environmental sustainability. The baseline information provided in this study is crucial to improve strategic planning and urban/environmental sustainability of city-regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and across the Global South, where land use planning faces similar challenges to address haphazard urban expansion patterns.

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