Evaluating the effects of land‐use development policies on ex‐urban forest cover: An integrated agent‐based GIS approach

Urban and peri-urban forestry has emerged as a complementary measure to contribute towards eliminating urban hunger and improved nutritional security. However, there is scanty knowledge about the composition, diversity, and socioeconomic contributions of urban food trees in African cities. This paper examines the diversity and composition of the urban forest and food trees of Accra and sheds light on perceptions of urbanites regarding food tree cultivation and availability in the city. Using a mixed methods approach, 105 respondents in six neighborhoods of Accra were interviewed while over 200 plots (100-m2 each) were surveyed across five land use types. Twenty-two out of the 70 woody species in Accra have edible parts (leaves, fruits, flowers, etc.). The food-tree abundance in the city is about half of the total number of trees enumerated. The species richness and abundance of the food trees and all trees in the city were significantly different among land use types (p < 0.0001) and neighborhood types (p < 0.0001). The diversity of food-bearing tree species was much higher in the poorer neighborhoods than in the wealthier neighborhoods. Respondents in wealthier neighborhoods indicated that tree and food-tree cover of the city was generally low and showed greater interest in cultivating food (fruit) trees and expanding urban forest cover than poorer neighborhoods. These findings demonstrate the need for urban food policy reforms that integrate urban-grown tree foods in the urban food system/culture.

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Growth of urbanization in Himachal Pra-desh : A statistical analysis

International Journal of Engineering & Technology ◽

10.14419/ijet.v7i1.4.9200 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (1.4) ◽

pp. 39

Author(s):

Ridima Sharma ◽

Sakshi Tanwar ◽

Safder Rizvi

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Developed Countries ◽

Himachal Pradesh ◽

Land Resource ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Land Use Management ◽

Global Integration ◽

Development Policies

Cities appear as a major role player in the economy of any area reflecting the global integration of its economy as they house majority of large business groups. Migratory population and urban growth are direct contributors in this economic expansion, particularly in the present-day phase of globalization which in under developed countries causes densification and instability of agriculture and other existing land use thus bringing in the need of a proper land resource management.Focused attention is needed to integrate infrastructure development in various cities and linkages should be established between the creation and management of assets through a system of reforms for long-term sustainability. Himachal Pradesh is a hill state with some most difficult terrains of the country making the preparation of complete cadastral record of land nearly impossible only 80% of land is under revenue records. Thus the amount of habitable land decreases further with around 50 % of the land under forest cover. The aim of the study is to analyze the growth of urbanisation in Himachal Pradesh along with the factors responsible. This growth pattern can later be used to formulate proper land use management and infrastructure development policies for equitable development of the area.

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The Examination of the Effects of Land Use Development on the Balance of Mass Transit Ridership

Engineering Journal ◽

10.4186/ej.2020.24.2.1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Achara Limmonthol ◽

Jittichai Rudjanakanoknad ◽

Pongsun Bunditsakulchai

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Mass Transit ◽

Transit Ridership ◽

Land Use Development ◽

Effects Of Land Use

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Agent-based modeling of urban land-use development, case study: Simulating future scenarios of Qazvin city

Cities ◽

10.1016/j.cities.2012.09.002 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 31 ◽

pp. 105-113 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Farhad Hosseinali ◽

Ali A. Alesheikh ◽

Farshad Nourian

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Urban Land ◽

Agent Based Modeling ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Future Scenarios ◽

Agent Based ◽

Land Use Development

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Simulation of Land-Use Development, Using a Risk-Regarding Agent-Based Model

Advances in Artificial Intelligence ◽

10.1155/2012/964148 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 2012 ◽

pp. 1-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

F. Hosseinali ◽

A. A. Alesheikh ◽

F. Nourian

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Land Use ◽

Information Systems ◽

Geographic Information Systems ◽

Spatial Data ◽

Agent Based Model ◽

Or Education ◽

Agent Based ◽

New Methods ◽

Land Use Development

The aim of this paper is to study the spatial consequences of applying different Attitude Utility Functions (AUFs), which reflect peoples’ simplified psychological frames, to investment plans in land-use decision making. For this purpose, we considered and implemented an agent-based model with new methods for searching landscapes, for selecting parcels to develop, and for allowing competitions among agents. Besides this, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) as a versatile and powerful medium of analyzing and representing spatial data is used. Our model is implemented on an artificial landscape in which land is being developed by agents. The agents are assumed to be mobile developers that are equipped with several land-related objectives. In this paper, agents mimic various risk-bearing attitudes and sometimes compete for developing the same parcel. The results reveal that patterns of land-use development are different in the two cases of regarding and disregarding AUFs. Therefore, it is considered here that using the attitudes of people towards risk helps the model to better simulate the decision making of land-use developers. The different attitudes toward risk used in this study can be attributed to different categories of developers based on sets of characteristics such as income, age, or education.

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Identifying Climate and Human Impact Trends in Streamflow: A Case Study in Uruguay

Water ◽

10.3390/w11071433 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 1433 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Rafael Navas ◽

Jimena Alonso ◽

Angela Gorgoglione ◽

R. Willem Vervoort

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Mixed Model ◽

Climate Forcing ◽

Rainfall Runoff ◽

Rainfall Runoff Model ◽

Effects Of Land Use ◽

Runoff Model

Land use change is an important driver of trends in streamflow. However, the effects are often difficult to disentangle from climate effects. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that trends in streamflow can be identified by analysing residuals of rainfall-runoff simulations using a Generalized Additive Mixed Model. This assumes that the rainfall-runoff model removes the average climate forcing from streamflow. The case study involves the Santa Lucía river (Uruguay), the GR4J rainfall-runoff model, three nested catchments ranging from 690 to 4900 km 2 and 35 years of observations (1981–2016). Two exogenous variables were considered to influence the streamflow. Using satellite data, growth in forest cover was identified, while the growth in water licenses was obtained from the water authority. Depending on the catchment, effects of land use change differ, with the largest catchment most impacted by afforestation, while the middle size catchment was more influenced by the growth in water licenses.

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