Increasing multiple cropping for land use intensification: The role of crop choice

Summary Neoliberal land reforms to increase economic development have important implications for biodiversity conservation. This paper investigates land reform in New Zealand’s South Island that divides leased state-owned stations (ranches) with private grazing leases into state-owned conservation land, private land owned by the former leaseholder and private land under protective covenant (similar to conservation easement). Conserved lands had less threatened vegetation, lower productivity, less proximity to towns and steeper slopes than privatized lands. Covenants on private land were more common in intermediate zones with moderate land-use productivity and slope. Lands identified with ecological or recreational ‘significant inherent values’ were more likely to shift into conserved or covenant status. Yet among lands with identified ecological values, higher-threat areas were more likely to be privatized than lower-threat areas. This paper makes two novel contributions: (1) quantitatively examining the role of scientific recommendations about significant inherent values in land reform outcomes; and (2) examining the use of conservation covenants on privatized land. To achieve biodiversity goals, it is critical to avoid or prevent the removal of land-use restrictions beyond protected areas.

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The role of bacterial communities in shaping Cd-induced hormesis in ‘living’ soil as a function of land-use change

Journal of Hazardous Materials ◽

10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124996 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 124996

Author(s):

Diwu Fan ◽

Shengyan Wang ◽

Yanhui Guo ◽

Jian Liu ◽

Evgenios Agathokleous ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Bacterial Communities

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More Reliable Land Price Index: Is There a Slope Effect?

Land ◽

10.3390/land10030261 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 261

Author(s):

Yi Huang ◽

Geoffrey Hewings

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Price Index ◽

House Price ◽

Land Values ◽

Price Indices ◽

Land Price ◽

House Price Indices ◽

Physical Attributes ◽

Constant Quality

This paper focuses on the physical attributes of land that intrinsically limit land use and possibly affect land values. In particular, we investigate if the slope of a land does decrease its price and investigate the role of land slope in forming more reliable constant-quality land price indices and aggregate house price indices. We find that, while land slopes do decrease the land price per unit, they have a small effect on the quality-adjusted land price indices in selected neighborhoods in Auckland, New Zealand, where sloped terrain is common.

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The Role of Technology in Greenhouse Agriculture: Towards a Sustainable Intensification in Campo de Dalías (Almería, Spain)

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11010101 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 101

Author(s):

Antonio J. Mendoza-Fernández ◽

Araceli Peña-Fernández ◽

Luis Molina ◽

Pedro A. Aguilera

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Economic Development ◽

Water Resources ◽

Natural Resources ◽

Temporal Evolution ◽

Technological Development ◽

Sustainable Intensification ◽

Short Period ◽

Cultivation Techniques

Campo de Dalías, located in southeastern Spain, is the greatest European exponent of greenhouse agriculture. The development of this type of agriculture has led to an exponential economic development of one of the poorest areas of Spain, in a short period of time. Simultaneously, it has brought about a serious alteration of natural resources. This article will study the temporal evolution of changes in land use, and the exploitation of groundwater. Likewise, this study will delve into the technological development in greenhouses (irrigation techniques, new water resources, greenhouse structures or improvement in cultivation techniques) seeking a sustainable intensification of agriculture under plastic. This sustainable intensification also implies the conservation of existing natural areas.

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Spatial Differentiation of Cultivated Land Use Intensification in Village Settings: A Survey of Typical Chinese Villages

Land ◽

10.3390/land10030249 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 249

Author(s):

Quanfeng Li ◽

Zhe Dong ◽

Guoming Du ◽

Aizheng Yang

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Food Security ◽

Socioeconomic Development ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Spatial Differentiation ◽

Cultivated Land ◽

Output State ◽

Land Use Intensification ◽

Development Levels ◽

Business Entities

The intensified use of cultivated land is essential for optimizing crop planting practices and protecting food security. This study employed a telecoupling framework to evaluate the cultivated land use intensification rates in typical Chinese villages (village cultivated land use intensifications—VCLUIs). The pressure–state–response (PSR) model organizes the VCLUI indexes including the intensity press, output state, and structural response of cultivated land use. Empirical analysis conducted in Baiquan County, China, indicating that the cultivated land use intensification levels of the whole county were low. However, the intensifications of villages influenced by physical and geographic locations and socioeconomic development levels varied significantly. This paper also found that variations in the VCLUIs were mainly dependent on new labor-driven social subsystem differences. Thus, the expanding per capita farmland scales and increasing numbers of new agricultural business entities were critical in improving the VCLUI. Overall, the theoretical framework proposed in this study was demonstrated to be effective in analyzing interactions among the natural, social, and economic subsystems of the VCLUI. The findings obtained in this study potentially have important implications for future regional food security, natural stability, and agricultural land use sustainability.

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