Changing agricultural land use: evaluating the benefits and trade-offs

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.J. Wallace ◽  
R. Behrendt ◽  
M.L. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Trade Offs

Crop transitions can drive economic and ecological shifts in an established farming landscape: a case study from California

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariani Wartenberg ◽  
Diana Moanga ◽  
Matthew Potts ◽  
Van Butsic
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Agricultural Landscape ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Farming Landscapes

<p>Meeting growing challenges to maintain food production and rural livelihoods while minimizing land degradation will require significant changes in the way existing farming landscapes are managed. A systemic understanding of the agroecological impacts of land-use change in established farming landscapes, and the identification of significant trade-offs or synergies, are crucial to inform farm management and land-use governance solutions. Here, we focus on land-use change impacts in an already established farming landscape. We investigate spatial and temporal dynamics of agricultural land-use change from 2002 to 2018, in Kern County, California. Our study region is one of the major agricultural production hotspots in the United States, and has undergone a recent agricultural land-use transition from annual to perennial cropping systems. In this study we analyzed parcel-level data documenting changes in the land-use footprint for individual crops, ranging from annual crops like wheat and cotton to perennial tree crops like almonds and pistachios. We assess how land-use change impacted ecosystem pressures and service indicators selected for their relevance in an agricultural context, including water-use, soil erosion, profit and carbon sequestration. Our results indicate no salient trade-offs or synergies among individual crops, and illustrate the possibility of limited economic-ecological trade-offs associated with a shift from annual to perennial crops in a well-established agricultural landscape. We further discuss the relevance of our findings in the context of land-ownership consolidation and changing export dynamics in the study area.</p>

scholarly journals Towards productive landscapes: Trade-offs in tree-cover and income across a matrix of smallholder agricultural land-use systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 152-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Ajijur Rahman ◽  
Terry Sunderland ◽  
Mrigesh Kshatriya ◽  
James M Roshetko ◽  
Tim Pagella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Land Use Systems ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Productive Landscapes

scholarly journals Integrating Ecosystem Services into Land-Use Modeling to Assess the Effects of Future Land-Use Strategies in Northern Ghana

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 379
Author(s):  
Hongmi Koo ◽  
Janina Kleemann ◽  
Christine Fürst
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Trade Offs

In West Africa, where the majority of the population relies on natural resources and rain-fed agriculture, regionally adapted agricultural land-use planning is increasingly important to cope with growing demand for land-use products and intensifying climate variability. As an approach to identify effective future land-use strategies, this study applied spatially explicit modeling that addresses the spatial connectivity between the provision of ecosystem services and agricultural land-use systems. Considering that the status of ecosystem services varies with the perception of stakeholders, local knowledge, and characteristics of a case study area, two adjoining districts in northern Ghana were integrated into an assessment process of land-use strategies. Based on agricultural land-management options that were identified together with the local stakeholders, 75 future land-use strategies as combinations of multiple agricultural practices were elaborated. Potential impacts of the developed land-use strategies on ecosystem services and land-use patterns were assessed in a modeling platform that combines Geographic Information System (GIS) and Cellular Automaton (CA) modules. Modeled results were used to identify best land-use strategies that could deliver multiple ecosystem services most effectively. Then, local perception was applied to determine the feasibility of the best land-use strategies in practice. The results presented the different extent of trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services delivered by future land-use strategies and their different feasibility depending on the district. Apart from the fact that findings were context-specific and scale-dependent, this study revealed that the integration of different local characteristics and local perceptions to spatially explicit ecosystem service assessment is beneficial for determining locally tailored recommendations for future agricultural land-use planning.

scholarly journals Agroforestry Systems of the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley: Land Use for Biocultural Diversity Conservation

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Mariana Vallejo ◽  
M. Isabel Ramírez ◽  
Alejandro Reyes-González ◽  
Jairo López-Sánchez ◽  
Alejandro Casas
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
Biocultural Diversity ◽  
Semiarid Region ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Human Settlements

The Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley, Mexico, is the semiarid region with the richest biodiversity of North America and was recently recognized as a UNESCO's World Heritage site. Original agricultural practices remain to this day in agroforestry systems (AFS), which are expressions of high biocultural diversity. However, local people and researchers perceive a progressive decline both in natural ecosystems and AFS. To assess changes in location and extent of agricultural land use, we carried out a visual interpretation of very-high resolution imagery and field work, through which we identified AFS and conventional agricultural systems (CAS) from 1995 to 2003 and 2012. We analyzed five communities, representative of three main ecological and agricultural zones of the region. We assessed agricultural land use changes in relation to conspicuous landscape features (relief, rivers, roads, and human settlements). We found that natural ecosystems cover more than 85% of the territory in each community, and AFS represent 51% of all agricultural land. Establishment and permanence of agricultural lands were strongly influenced by gentle slopes and the existence of roads. Contrary to what we expected, we recorded agricultural areas being abandoned, thus favoring the regeneration of natural ecosystems, as well as a 9% increase of AFS over CAS. Agriculture is concentrated near human settlements. Most of the studied territories are meant to preserve natural ecosystems, and traditional AFS practices are being recovered for biocultural conservation.

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