The dynamics of land use change in England and Wales, 1930-2000: a spatial and temporal analysis

The nature of Britain's landscape at any one point in space and time reflects both current and past interactions between socio-economics, geography and climate. Although an ancient landscape, it is highly dynamic and human use of this resource has changed over both spatial and temporal scales. For the first time, historical data from the 1st and 2nd Land Utilisation Surveys of Great Britain in the 1930s and the 1960s have been integrated with the later Countryside surveys of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (1978, 1984, 1990 and 1998). These disparate data sources have been used to create a unique time-line of historical land use change for a sample of rural landscapes throughout England and Wales and a suite of spatial analysis tools are used in this thesis to illuminate the patterns and processes within. Overall this targeted sample proved remarkably effective at capturing the key trends in land use change of the 20th Century including: the increase in forestry, the intensification and spatial polarisation of agriculture and the expansion of urban areas. The efficacy of the Countryside Survey as a mechanism to monitor such important change is discussed. A new method of summarising the process of change is presented and the results generated by this approach show that on average only 40% of the sample squares were stable throughout the time-span and that different types of change (cyclical, stepped, dynamic) were often interspersed throughout a 1km landscape. Successful data archaeology has allowed a contemporary audit of land use change for representative rural landscapes in England and Wales during the 20th Century and provides useful insight into the impact of post war rural policy on known locations. Land use science often focuses on the environmental aspects of landscapes, but true understanding of the socio-economic drivers for change is required to set these physical observations in their true context. The emerging findings of the geographic analysis are discussed within the context of a detailed, interdisciplinary case study which combines quantitative and qualitative data to provide a holistic understanding of how global, European and national policy have combined to produce land use patterns at the local scale

Land use change and carbon fluxes in East Africa quantified using earth observation data and field measurements

Carbon-based forest conservation requires the establishment of ‘reference emission levels’ against which to measure a country or region’s progress in reducing their carbon emissions. In East Africa, landscape-scale estimates of carbon fluxes are uncertain and factors such as deforestation poorly resolved due to a lack of data. In this study, trends in vegetation cover and carbon for East Africawere quantified using moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover grids from 2002 to 2008 (500-m spatial resolution), in combination with a regional carbon look-up table. The inclusion of data on rainfall and the distribution of protected areas helped to gauge impacts on vegetation burning (assessed using 1-km spatial resolution MODIS active fire data) and biome trends. Between 2002 and 2008, the spatial extents of forests, woodlands and scrublands decreased considerably and East Africa experienced a net carbon loss of 494 megatonnes (Mt). Most countries in the area were sources of carbon emissions, except for Tanzania and Malawi, where the areal increase of savannah and woodlands counterbalanced carbon emissions from deforestation. Both Malawi and Tanzania contain large areas of planted forest. Vegetation burning was correlated with rainfall (forest only) and differed depending on land management. Freely available global earth observation products have provided ways to achieve rapid assessment and monitoring of carbon change hotspots at the landscape scale

Mapping socio-economic scenarios of land cover change: A GIS method to enable ecosystem service modelling

We present a GIS method to interpret qualitatively expressed socio-economic scenarios in quantitative map-based terms. (i) We built scenarios using local stakeholders and experts to define how major land cover classes may change under different sets of drivers; (ii) we formalised these as spatially explicit rules, for example agriculture can only occur on certain soil types; (iii) we created a future land cover map which can then be used to model ecosystem services. We illustrate this for carbon storage in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania using two scenarios: the first based on sustainable development, the second based on ‘business as usual’ with continued forest–woodland degradation and poor protection of existing forest reserves. Between 2000 and 2025 4% of carbon stocks were lost under the first scenario compared to a loss of 41% of carbon stocks under the second scenario. Quantifying the impacts of differing future scenarios using the method we document here will be important if payments for ecosystem services are to be used to change policy in order to maintain critical ecosystem service

Mapping socio-economic scenarios of land cover change: A GIS method to enable ecosystem service modelling

We present a GIS method to interpret qualitatively expressed socio-economic scenarios in quantitative map-based terms. (i) We built scenarios using local stakeholders and experts to define how major land cover classes may change under different sets of drivers; (ii) we formalised these as spatially explicit rules, for example agriculture can only occur on certain soil types; (iii) we created a future land cover map which can then be used to model ecosystem services. We illustrate this for carbon storage in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania using two scenarios: the first based on sustainable development, the second based on ‘business as usual’ with continued forest–woodland degradation and poor protection of existing forest reserves. Between 2000 and 2025 4% of carbon stocks were lost under the first scenario compared to a loss of 41% of carbon stocks under the second scenario. Quantifying the impacts of differing future scenarios using the method we document here will be important if payments for ecosystem services are to be used to change policy in order to maintain critical ecosystem service

Towards transferable functions for extraction of Non-timber Forest Products: A case study on charcoal production in Tanzania

Mapping the distribution of the quantity and value of forest benefits to local communities is useful for forest management, when socio-economic and conservation objectives may need to be traded off. We develop a modelling approach for the economic valuation of annual Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) extraction at a large spatial scale, which has 4 main strengths: (1) it is based on household production functions using data of actual household behaviour, (2) it is spatially sensitive, using a range of explanatory variables related to socio-demographic characteristics, population density, resource availability and accessibility, (3) it captures the value of the actual flow rather than the potential stock, and (4) it is generic and can therefore be up-scaled across non-surveyed areas. We illustrate the empirical application of this approach in an analysis of charcoal production in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania, using a dataset comprising over 1100 observations from 45 villages. The total flow of charcoal benefits is estimated at USD 14 million per year, providing an important source of income to local households, and supplying around 11% of the charcoal used in Dar es Salaam and other major cities. We discuss the potential and limitations of up-scaling micro-level analysis for NTFP valuation.<br/

The importance of local forest benefits:valuation of non-timber forest products in the Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania

Understanding the spatial distribution of the quantity and value of Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) collection gives insight into the benefits that local communities obtain from forests, and can inform decisions about the selection of forested areas that are eligible for conservation and enforcement of regulations. In this paper we estimate transferable household production functions of NTFP extraction in the Eastern Arc Mountains (EAM) in Tanzania, based on information from several multisite datasets related to the behaviour of over 2000 households. These micro-level models can be used to predict the value of NTFP collection across a broader spatial scale. The study shows that the total benefit flow of charcoal, firewood, poles and thatch from the EAM to the local population has an estimated value of TSH 59 billion (USD 42 million) per year, and provides an important source of additional income for local communities, especially the poorest. We therefore argue that further restrictions on forest access to promote conservation will require additional policies to prevent a consequent increase in poverty, and an enforced trade-off between conservation and energy supply to rural and urban households