A Land System representation for global assessments and land-use modeling

Current global scale land-change models used for integrated assessments and climate modeling are based on classifications of land cover. However, land-use management intensity and livestock keeping are also important aspects of land use, and are an integrated part of land systems. This article aims to classify, map, and to characterize Land Systems (LS) at a global scale and analyze the spatial determinants of these systems. Besides proposing such a classification, the article tests if global assessments can be based on globally uniform allocation rules. Land cover, livestock, and agricultural intensity data are used to map LS using a hierarchical classification method. Logistic regressions are used to analyze variation in spatial determinants of LS. The analysis of the spatial determinants of LS indicates strong associations between LS and a range of socioeconomic and biophysical indicators of human-environment interactions. The set of identified spatial determinants of a LS differs among regions and scales, especially for (mosaic) cropland systems, grassland systems with livestock, and settlements. (Semi-)Natural LS have more similar spatial determinants across regions and scales. Using LS in global models is expected to result in a more accurate representation of land use capturing important aspects of land systems and land architecture: the variation in land cover and the link between land-use intensity and landscape composition. Because the set of most important spatial determinants of LS varies among regions and scales, land-change models that include the human drivers of land change are best parameterized at sub-global level, where similar biophysical, socioeconomic and cultural conditions prevail in the specific regions. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Co-evolution of density and topology in a simple model of city formation

We study the influence that population density and the road network have on each others' growth and evolution. We use a simple model of formation and evolution of city roads which reproduces the most important empirical features of street networks in cities. Within this framework, we explicitely introduce the topology of the road network and analyze how it evolves and interact with the evolution of population density. We show that accessibility issues -pushing individuals to get closer to high centrality nodes- lead to high density regions and the appearance of densely populated centers. In particular, this model reproduces the empirical fact that the density profile decreases exponentially from a core district. In this simplified model, the size of the core district depends on the relative importance of transportation and rent costs.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Counterpoint: The Musical Analogy, Periodicity, and Rural Urban Dynamics

Every thesis calls for its antithesis, and every revolution prompts a counterrevolution—this takes place within the same generation as well as across intergenerational oscillations (Gassett 1958, Sennett 1974). Enlightenment thinkers were critical of the Humanist tradition of analogical thinking—their own encyclopedic enthusiasm was intent upon creating a lexicon of the world, an ambition that has been assiduously realized in contemporary Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and empirical attitudes toward industrial agriculture and managerial urbanization. However, languages are comprised of two parts—a lexicon and grammar—and analogical thinking, focused as it is on seeing relationships between parts, is particularly well suited to provide conceptual frameworks for contextual design. To harness the power of polemics, we can anticipate that at least two conceptual paradigms, polarities to one another, are needed at any given moment—and that these are best conceived of as, to paraphrase Sébastien Marot, “opposite, but not exclusive of one another” (Marot 2003). Further, as any given analogy will inevitably prompt justifiable reactions against it, I propose that we work between those two oldest and most enduring architectural analogies: the biological analogy (on growth and form) and the musical analogy (on composition and form). Of these, the biological analogy is clearly in ascendancy—see, for example, Philip Steadman’s seminal The Evolution of Designs: The Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts (Steadman 1979, 2008) or Lynn Margulis’ The Basic Unit of Life (Margulis 2010). Hence, this sustained reflection on the musical analogy, made with a view to its instrumentality for composing rural urban dynamics in relation to existing landscapes

The spatial structure of lithic landscapes : the late holocene record of east-central Argentina as a case study

Fil: Barrientos, Gustavo. División Antropología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Catella, Luciana. División Arqueología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Oliva, Fernando. Centro Estudios Arqueológicos Regionales. Facultad de Humanidades y Artes. Universidad Nacional de Rosario; Argentin