Economic-based Projections Of Future Land Use In The Conterminous United States Under Alternative Policy Scenarios

The article presents a study which constructs and parameterizes an econometric model of land-use change to project future land use to the year 2051 at a fine spatial scale across the conterminous U.S. under several alternative land-use policy scenarios. It parameterizes the econometric model of land-use change with the National Resource Inventory (NRI) 1992 and 1997 land-use data for 844 000 sample points

Catalyzing Transformations to Sustainability in the World's Mountains

Mountain social‐ecological systems (MtSES) are vital to humanity, providing ecosystem services to over half the planet's human population. Despite their importance, there has been no global assessment of threats to MtSES, even as they face unprecedented challenges to their sustainability. With survey data from 57 MtSES sites worldwide, we test a conceptual model of the types and scales of stressors and ecosystem services in MtSES and explore their distinct configurations according to their primary economic orientation and land use. We find that MtSES worldwide are experiencing both gradual and abrupt climatic, economic, and governance changes, with policies made by outsiders as the most ubiquitous challenge. Mountains that support primarily subsistence‐oriented livelihoods, especially agropastoral systems, deliver abundant services but are also most at risk. Moreover, transitions from subsistence‐ to market‐oriented economies are often accompanied by increased physical connectedness, reduced diversity of cross‐scale ecosystem services, lowered importance of local knowledge, and shifting vulnerabilities to threats. Addressing the complex challenges facing MtSES and catalyzing transformations to MtSES sustainability will require cross‐scale partnerships among researchers, stakeholders, and decision makers to jointly identify desired futures and adaptation pathways, assess trade‐offs in prioritizing ecosystem services, and share best practices for sustainability. These transdisciplinary approaches will allow local stakeholders, researchers, and practitioners to jointly address MtSES knowledge gaps while simultaneously focusing on critical issues of poverty and food security

Identifying drivers of change and predicting future land-use impacts in established farmlands

There is growing consensus that global food systems will need to undergo substantial transformations to ensure continued food security and to halt environmental degradation. Such efforts will have to include more sustainable management of existing farmscapes. Here, we examine drivers of cropland transitions between 13 crop commodities cultivated in Kern County, California. We parameterized multinomial logistic regression models of crop choices, using observed data from 2002 to 2018. We then simulated future crop choices under three scenarios exploring the consequences of climate change, water shortages and policy response, and projected impacts on three agroecosystem pressures (water-use, soil erosion, pesticide-use), and three agroecosystem services (profits, nutrition, and carbon sequestration). Agricultural land-use transitions were especially sensitive to biophysical factors, profits and neighborhood effects. Our results illustrate how climate change may lead to landscape-level crop replacement by 2050, with likely significant socio-ecological consequences

Avoided land use conversions and carbon loss from conservation purchases in California

Conversion of natural lands to residential and agricultural uses can limit carbon (C) storage. Conservation measures, such as purchasing land to prevent development, can preserve stored aboveground C. However, since it is difficult to know what would happen to the land in the absence of conservation interventions, the additional carbon benefit of these programs remains unknown. Therefore, we analyzed 73 coastal parcels (292,184 total acres) acquired by the California State Coastal Conservancy (SCC) and developed counterfactual scenarios to highlight the impact of conservation actions. We found that an additional 55 * 10  Mg aboveground C (1.357% of the total stored carbon) was protected. The methodology we develop here, which incorporates expert opinion and neighboring land conversion trends, effectively evaluates the impact of conservation purchases to prevent land conversion, and could be used to measure changes of various ecosystem services.

Drivers of changes in agricultural intensity in Europe

The global demand for agricultural products will increase in the 21st century, unless major transformations in consumptive behaviour occur. To a large extent, production increases in agriculture will depend on intensifying existing agricultural systems. Yet, our understanding of what determines the spatial patterns of agricultural intensity and changes therein is limited. Here, we analysed agricultural intensity changes in Europe focussing on yields and fertiliser application for six major crop-type groups for the period 1990–2007. We applied random effects panel regressions to analyse the spatial determinants of intensity changes using a suite of biophysical and socio-economic variables. We found that yields increased and mineral nitrogen application decreased by approximately 10%, suggesting a decoupling of changes in output and input intensity in Europe's agricultural systems. Yields and nitrogen application across crop-type groups were particularly high in Western and Central Europe, whereas Eastern Europe was characterised by lower yields and nitrogen application. We also found strong sub-national variation in intensity levels in respect to crop-type groups and indicators. Higher yields were typically related to higher fertilisation, high soil quality, less growing degree days, and high labour productivity. Higher nitrogen application rates, in turn, were related to high soil water and carbon contents, and high labour productivity. Our study provides insights into broad-scale agricultural intensity patterns in Europe that allow for identifying trade-offs between agriculture and the environment, as well as entry points for regionalised, targeted policy making towards a more sustainable management of Europe land systems

Land use planning and wildfire: Development policies influence future probability of housing loss

Abstract Increasing numbers of homes are being destroyed by wildfire in the wildland-urban interface. With projections of climate change and housing growth potentially exacerbating the threat of wildfire to homes and property, effective fire-risk reduction alternatives are needed as part of a comprehensive fire management plan. Land use planning represents a shift in traditional thinking from trying to eliminate wildfires, or even increasing resilience to them, toward avoiding exposure to them through the informed placement of new residential structures. For land use planning to be effective, it needs to be based on solid understanding of where and how to locate and arrange new homes. We simulated three scenarios of future residential development and projected landscape-level wildfire risk to residential structures in a rapidly urbanizing, fireprone region in southern California. We based all future development on an econometric subdivision model, but we varied the emphasis of subdivision decision-making based on three broad and common growth types: infill, expansion, and leapfrog. Simulation results showed that decision-making based on these growth types, when applied locally for subdivision of individual parcels, produced substantial landscape-level differences in pattern, location, and extent of development. These differences in development, in turn, affected the area and proportion of structures at risk from burning in wildfires. Scenarios with lower housing density and larger numbers of small, isolated clusters of development, i.e., resulting from leapfrog development, were generally predicted to have the highest predicted fire risk to the largest proportion of structures in the study area, and infill development was predicted to have the lowest risk. These results suggest that land use planning should be considered an important component to fire risk management and that consistently applied policies based on residential pattern may provide substantial benefits for future risk reduction