Institutional Issues around Agricultural Land-Use Control for Groundwater Conservation—A Long-Term Perspective

Key aspects of policy development and implementation for the control of agricultural land use to conserve groundwater are overviewed. This is one of today’s greatest environmental challenges and one on which only limited progress has been made internationally. For this purpose, the objectives of agricultural land-use control in defined areas are either to reduce diffuse pollution of groundwater and/or to regulate excessive abstraction for crop irrigation to sustain groundwater resources. Progress on both of these fronts has been assessed from the published work, and the lessons learnt are summarised for global application.

Agricultural Land Use Change in Chongqing and the Policy Rationale behind It: A Multiscale Perspective

Agricultural land resources have been the central issue for the Chinese government in its attempts to secure food and agricultural sustainability. Yet strict land use control does not protect the agricultural land from erosion by urban expansion. Identifying the specific patterns and mechanisms of the agricultural land conversion, thus, is critical for land management and related decision making. Based on the annual nominal 30 m land use/land cover datasets (called CLUD-A), this study goes below the national/regional level to examine agricultural land conversion in Chongqing from a multiscale perspective. At the metropolis and its subdivision’s scales, the volume of the conversion area has been generally increasing, from 122.40 km2 in 1980–1990, 162.26 km2 in 1990–2000, and 706.14 km2 in 2000–2010, to 684.83 km2 in 2010–2015. Such a conversion in the main city area and its surroundings far outweighed that in the rural outskirts, as 68.9% (1990–2000), 92.2% (2000–2010), and 82.7% (2010–2015) of the conversion happened in the former. Moreover, values of Gini coefficients and coefficient of variation (CV) based on the county/district scale (Gini [0.46, 0.64], CV [0.69, 0.99] throughout the four periods) are much lower than those based on the town/village scale (Gini [0.88, 0.94], CV [3.18, 4.47] throughout the four periods), suggesting the uneven extent of spatial distribution of the agricultural land conversion trickles down along with the downscale of administration: the lower the administrative level, the more severe the unbalance. The policy rationale behind this transition is also discussed. This research argues for tangible approaches to a sustainable rural-urban transformation.

Perubahan Fungsi Lahan Pertanian Di Kawasan Wisata, Faktor Penyebab Dan Strategi Penanggulangannya

Interpretation of the function of agricultural land that is unstoppable can threaten the availability of food, and in the long term can cause environmental, economic, and social losses. On the other hand, the effectiveness of the implementation of land use control instruments has not run optimally as expected. The village of Tibubeneng, North Kuta sub-district, Badung Regency was used as the object of research because the amount of agricultural land conversion was very high due to the development of tourism facilities. The research was aims to determine the change in land used for tourism activities and the factors that influence it and to find out the changes in land use and driving factors using observation and interview methods. Data on land-use change uses overlay techniques while to determine the driving factors for agricultural land change using the method Principal Component Analysis. The results showed that the biggest changes in land use for tourism activities occurred in rice fields, with a change of 40.52%. Economic factors and the availability of infrastructure are the dominant factors in changing the function of agricultural land for tourism activities. Reducing the conversion of agricultural land functions needs to be done: 1) integration of agricultural activities with the tourism sector. 2) Increase and strengthen the economic role of rural communities through the establishment of BUMDes. 3) Increase and optimize supervision and control of buildings that violate applicable regulations. 4) Designing spatial products related to controlling land-use utilization. 5) Implement a system of incentives and disincentives so that the economic interests of the population can be sustained.

Planning Organization

From its very beginning in 1909, planning legislation has given to local authorities direct power and responsibility for the carrying on of the day-to-day administration of land-use control. Central government’s role in the administration of planning began as, and has since remained, the supervision and co-ordination of the way in which those powers and responsibilities are exercised.