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AbstractProblem, research strategy, and findingsTakeaway for practiceThough demand for living near urban amenities has grown over the past two decades, retail vacancies continue to plague many urban areas. Are cities overzoning for retail? Can this overzoning explain the proliferation of urban retail vacancies in the past two decades? We first leveraged longitudinal data on retail leases to depict patterns of retail market activity in a sample of seven moderate to large U.S. cities. Second, we used property-level data on land use regulation to investigate whether institutional context, specifically zoning, has played a role in patterns of urban retail vacancy in the past two decades. We drilled down in New York City (NY) and Los Angeles (CA) to compare trends in retail leases with changes in regulated retail land use between 2006 and 2022. We show that in this period retail rents remained flat or declined and that the average retail space did not grow and may have shrunk. Our New York and Los Angeles microdata document that, during roughly this same period, the amount of land zoned for retail increased and that the building square footage zoned for retail grew even more rapidly. Indeed, during the same decades when retail leasing slowed and rents declined, the total amount of land and square footage regulated for retail use increased. Thus, our research indicates that, in addition to market forces, land use decisions have driven the current oversupply of retail space. This also suggests an important role for planning in solving the problem of vacancies.If macroeconomic factors drive the obsolescence of certain commercial uses, local zoning and comprehensive planning should respond accordingly. As cities emerge from the pandemic and adjust to new work–live patterns, planning for the volume and spatial distribution of retail will remain an important task for urban planners and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how ancillary geographic data – in particular, information on land or assessor parcels – might be used to improve estimates for small area populations and population characteristics. It seeks to determine whether parcel land use codes can be used to reliably replicate population and housing distributions within small (subcounty) areas and whether other parcel attributes – in addition to land use – exhibit any explanatory power in replicating population and housing characteristics within these same places. The basis for this paper was Professor Barbara Buttenfield's service on the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, in which her working group explored the utility of administrative source data as an alternative or complement to federal survey data. This analysis highlights some of the benefits and complications of the incorporation of parcel data into geodemographic estimation, and the findings demonstrate that such a use is problematic but encouraging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sediment fingerprinting is increasingly being used to provide information that can help guide management decisions at the watershed scale. The objectives of this study were to investigate the implications of different sediment fingerprinting sampling designs on characterizing sediment dynamics in the Beheshtabad Watershed in Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari Province, western Iran. First, nitrogen, organic carbon, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sodium, zinc, manganese, iron, and lime fingerprints were used to discriminate among four potential sediment sources including agricultural topsoil, rangeland, as well as rainfed and urban lands. Then, the suspended sediment was collected from drainage areas at five sites. Nested and local-location fingerprinting sampling designs were employed to evaluate the influence of geomorphic connectivity and land use on apportionment results by using the same source and sediment data set. By averaging all locations using the nested method, agricultural land with an average of 69% had the highest contribution to sedimentation followed by rainfed land with an average of 19.9%, rangeland with an average of 6.8%, and urban lands with an average of 5.99%. Compared to the mean of the total method samples, the local method showed greater soil loss from agricultural lands and lower soil loss from rangeland and rainfed lands. Generally, surface soil in sediments came from agricultural land use. According to the results, total nitrogen, phosphorus, organic carbon, and calcium were the optimum tracers that correctly distinguished source samples. Overall, each of the two fingerprinting sampling designs provided the same information. Thus, the fingerprinting method can determine the sources of sediments. Given the importance of the fingerprinting method, future studies can focus on determining the appropriate combination of tracers and the effect of sediment sampling time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study comprehensively analyses spatiotemporal land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics within a 10-km buffer zone surrounding Volcanoes National Park (VNP), Rwanda, from 2000 to 2019, integrating biophysical and socio-economic drivers. It aims to quantify LULC change extent, rate, and type around VNP and inside the park; identify socio-economic, demographic, and policy drivers of LULC change; and evaluate the impact of LULC changes on VNP's biodiversity via habitat fragmentation, connectivity, and species diversity. Employing remote sensing, spatial modelling, and field data, we reveal profound transformations within the park's periphery. Forests and woodlots have significantly declined, replaced by agriculture, grasslands, and built-up areas, particularly in the 5.1–10 km belt (92.29% forest loss). While reforestation efforts exist, they are outpaced by deforestation, creating a stark deforestation-to-reforestation ratio of 12:1 in the 5.1 10 km belt and 6:1 in the 0–5 km belt. This alarming trend threatens VNP's biodiversity as resource dependent communities continue to extract firewood, construction materials, and beanpoles from the park. To mitigate these impacts, we propose integrated strategies encompassing strengthened law enforcement, sustainable land management practices, community-based conservation initiatives, and alternative livelihood development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many university cities, Champaign, Illinois, has recently experienced a surge in student housing in its Campustown neighborhood, with 25 developments and over 2500 new housing units built from 2008 to 2019. Four of the new buildings exceed 10 stories, far denser and more imposing than the Campustown of only two decades ago. The local conventional wisdom holds that this growth resulted from loosened zoning restrictions, an explanation we reject. Instead, our interviews and document analysis reveal a more complex interplay of infrastructure investment, university enrolment policies, developer decision-making, and investment capital. Our analysis shows how government, developer, and university stakeholders interacted with one another in what Norton Long called the local ecology of games, updating Campustown into a student dormitory for a larger and more elite student body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the consolidation of industrial mining in Latin America, documenting the strategies that mining companies have used to deepen and widen extractive frontiers in Ecuador and Peru. Based on original fieldwork in the Andean highlands, we find that companies deployed payments, land purchases, and small gifts – or regalitos– to destabilize important norms governing reciprocity, community, and the commons, leading to significant conflict among community members. Our analysis contributes to a contemporary political economy that examines the ways in which mining companies use land purchases and gift giving to manipulate processes of community conflict, decision making and social consent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate the performance of a hydrological model by using satellite image classification (SIM) to extract land use (LU) information. Four methods, namely naive Bayes (NB), classification and regression trees (CART), support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF), are assessed for SIM using satellite images. CART demonstrated the highest overall accuracy (OA) of 0.996, followed by RF (OA = 0.994), SVM (OA = 0.797), and NB (OA = 0.543). The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was employed in this study to construct and refine the hydrological model for simulating the streamflow in the basin. For this purpose, the ground-based layer was replaced by LU generated from the classification algorithms. Integrating the four classification approaches yielded a significant improvement in Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of the SWAT model, increasing it from 0.37 to approximately 0.76. These findings highlight the effectiveness of using satellite image classification in enhancing the efficiency of hydrological models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas maintain the ecosystem and conserve wildlife, but they face threats from habitat destruction. This paper assesses the drivers of habitat destruction and their implications on wildlife conservation in Tanzania. Data were collected from 607 respondents using a questionnaire and Landsat 8 Operational Land images from 2013 to 2023 to detect land use changes in the Makao Wildlife Management area. A multiple regression model analysed the relationship between habitat destruction (dependent variables) and human population increase, crop cultivation, livestock grazing, inadequate economic incentives, and wildlife population (independent variables). Between 2013 and 2023, agricultural and settlement areas increased by 39% and 686%, while Makao WMA and water bodies decreased by 11% and 39%. Human population (p .0095), crop cultivation (p .0024), and livestock grazing (p .0033) significantly contributed to habitat destruction. Community engagement is essential to promote sustainable conservation and mitigation of impacts to ensure Wildlife Management Areas remain healthy and viable for wildlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classification of very high-resolution satellite imagery remains a focal point in remote sensing, attracting increased attention across diverse scientific disciplines. Various classification methods, including pixel- and object-based techniques, have been proposed, and their performances and limitations have been discussed in the literature. This paper presents a hybrid method that combines the strengths of pixel- and object-based methods in image classification to minimize errors associated with the segmentation process, particularly under-segmentation errors in object-based image analysis. The core concept behind the method lies in categorizing segmented image objects as either homogeneous or heterogeneous based on their class probability. In this process, the estimated possibilities from the object-based classification model are considered, and segments are designated as homogeneous or heterogeneous using a user-defined threshold. The object-based classification model determines the class labels for homogeneous image objects, while the heterogeneous ones, containing pixels representing different land cover classes, are classified using the pixel-based model. The performance of hybrid classification models, created by varying thresholds, is analysed using high-resolution WorldView-3 and WorldView-2 imagery and compared with pixel- and object-based classification results. For the implementation of image classification methods, Canonical Correlation Forest (CCF), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Categorical Boosting (CatBoost) were employed. The findings indicated that employing the suggested hybrid strategy with a threshold value selected within a specific range (e.g. between 60% and 80%) and employing a robust classification algorithm that provides class probabilities (e.g. CCF) results in a statistically significant improvement in overall accuracy compared to pixel and object-based methods, with gains of 5% and 4%, respectively. Visual analysis of the produced thematic maps revealed that the proposed method minimizes the salt-and-pepper effect associated with pixel-based classification while mitigating segmentation problems arising from object-based classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates soil phosphorus (P) partitioning and transformations through chemical fractionation and modeling across various land uses to elucidate their impact on P dynamics and the potential for eutrophication. Geo-referenced soils (0–30 cm at various depth intervals) were collected from diverse land uses, including corn, soybean, wheat stubble, modified relay intercropping, corn-soybean with rye under conventional tillage and no-till systems, and sheep pastures, alongside an adjacent forest (control). Processed soils were sequentially extracted to quantify soluble reactive (SRP), exchangeable (EP), Ca and Mg bound (CaMgP), Fe and Al bound (FeAlP), particulate organic (POP), residual (RP), and total P pools. Results showed significant effects of land use and soil depth on extracted P pools. Notably, corn-soybean with rye exhibited a higher SRP accumulation (2.8 mg/kg) compared to the forest. The labile (SRP + EP), moderately labile (FeAlP + CaMgP + POP), and non-labile P (RP) pools accounted for 1 to 2, 23 to 29, and 65 to 76% of total P, respectively. The structural equation model elucidated soil P transformation, indicating the contribution of labile, moderately labile, and non-labile P pools to SRP accumulation in various land uses. Our findings underscore the critical link between land use, soil P dynamics, and eutrophication risk, offering valuable insights for developing agricultural management practices aimed at mitigating edge-of-field P loss and protecting water quality against eutrophication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractProblem, research strategy, and findingsTakeaway for practiceWe predicted the amount, share, and value of land dedicated to roadways within and across 316 U.S. primary metropolitan statistical areas. Despite the amount and value of land dedicated to roadways, our study provides the first such estimate across a broad range of metropolitan areas. Our basic approach was to estimate roadway widths using a 10% sample of widths provided by the Highway Performance Monitoring System and apply our estimates to the rest of the roadway system. Multiplying estimated widths by segment length and netting out double counting at intersections provided estimates of land area. We also matched roadway segments and areas to existing land value estimates and satellite-based measures of urbanized land. We found that a little less than a quarter of urbanized land—roughly the size of West Virginia—was dedicated to roadway. This land was worth around $4.1 trillion in 2016 and had an annualized value that was higher than the total variable costs of the trucking sector and the total annual federal, state, and local expenditures on roadways. Conducting a back-of-the-envelope cost–benefit analysis, we found that the country likely has too much land dedicated to urban roads.Federal, state, and local agencies dedicate substantial time, money, and resources to providing roadways. Even with relatively generous assumptions and no external costs from driving, however, we estimated that the average cost of expanding roadways exceeded the benefits by a factor of nearly three when accounting for land value. Policymakers should question policies focused on roadway expansion and consider options to reduce the amount of space dedicated to roadway in favor of more housing, offices, and other land uses. In addition to our findings, we provide a novel data set that academics and policymakers can use to draw their own conclusions about the state of America’s urban roadways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work simulates the long-term land use and transportation impacts of upzoning in the region of Seattle, Washington at the parcel level, using UrbanSim and an agent-based travel demand model (SoundCast). Scenario results are compared to illuminate differences in a Business-as-Usual (BAU) future versus two upzoning scenarios that upzone all single-family-use residential parcels in the region or just those in the City of Seattle to 3 dwelling units per parcel. Under BAU, affordability falls 20% and rents rise 6% between 2014 and 2050, as the regional population grows to 5.7 million. With regional upzoning, 68,400 more dwellings are added, with rents 10% lower compared to the BAU future. The housing affordability index falls from 75.3 to 67.31, a significant improvement over the BAU scenario's sharper fall to 60.6. If only the City of Seattle upzones, only 3,400 additional units are predicted, but rents are 5.2% lower than the BAU case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil erosion and sediment yield in basins are influenced by a combination of land use/land cover changes and climatic factors. The existing empirical sediment yield index (SYI) model does not consider the spatiotemporal non-stationarity of the parameters and its application is limited in data-deficient basins. To address these issues, a novel framework was proposed to extend the application of the empirical SYI model, and to identify the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the driving factors using the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model, and it was demonstrated in the Dongjiang River basin, South China. The constructed multi-factor GTWR model explains 87% of the variation in SYI. Spatially, population density and urban land are the main driving factors of SYI, and there are significant spatial differences in their effects. Temporally, urban land is the most significant driving factor for SYI, and its effect increased over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper delves into the normative Productive City concept as outlined in the New Leipzig Charter, focusing on urban manufacturing's heterogeneity. We define urban manufacturing as manufacturing sectors located in proximity to housing. Urban manufacturing is analyzed based on sectoral (company data classified by NACE codes into 13 types of material industry) and spatial data, considering the distance to priority roads, supply areas, and land-use categories. The methodology is applied to Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, and Herne in the Ruhr area, utilizing 2018 data to identify material industry locations. We highlight differences between central and accessible, and more dispersed sectors in three groups. Group I, including other consumer goods, food products, clothing goods, and repair services, is predominantly located in central and mixed-use locations, suggesting these types could be preserved or developed by urban planners under the Productive City framework. However, there is a clear need for commercial and industrial spaces for emitting industries (Group II) to fully realize this concept. Construction industries (Group III) are often found in residential areas due to off-site activities. Challenges arise in historical industrial cities especially in integrated areas where existing zoning regulations and grandfathering rights restrict changes in manufacturing types or expansions near residential zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the dominant global development agendas for rural Africa in the past two decades has cast large-scale agro-industrial investments as a solution to achieve more efficient land use, higher crop yields, enhanced food security, and poverty reduction, among others. However, mounting evidence shows that this agenda has not fulfilled its promises: most land deals for agricultural production have not materialised as planned and their socio-economic development objectives often remain unreached. Despite the often severe impacts of non-operational projects, knowledge about why they fail to take place and operate remains fragmentary. Based on an extensive literature review of contemporary land deals in seven sub-Saharan countries, this paper sheds light on two 'productive gaps'. First, the article delves into the 'productive gap' of land deals themselves, identifying key drivers of non-operational land deals. The reviewed literature points to local opposition and financial difficulties as significant factors impacting agricultural operations. Local opposition, in turn, stems largely from flawed land acquisition processes and unfulfilled investors' promises. Second, this article offers a critical appraisal of the biases and oversights in the knowledge the land grab scholarship has 'produced'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to research that examines how state actors support the financialisation of land via the development process and how planning systems have facilitated the accumulation of privately-owned land-based wealth. The empirical focus is the specialist residential land promoter sector in England. This is a particularly appropriate case study because of how this sector of the land market has become integrated with the planning system via crisis-driven planning reform that has facilitated the commodification of planning risk and the financialisation of land. The paper examines the business models and strategies of land promoters to show how they have been shaped both by the politics of planning reform as well as the financial objectives of their funders. The research is in dialogue with international literature on the relationship between planning and the land market, how this relationship is shaped by risk and uncertainty, and the role of state regulation in reshaping the physical environment in accordance with financial logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this essay is to do a "diffractive reading" of texts by Karl Marx and Michel Serres. A diffractive reading, as this term is used by thinkers like Karen Barad, aims at the appearance of something new from the confrontation of two texts that at first sight seem to have very little to do with each other. I do a close reading of the start of "The Chapter on Capital (Continuation)" (from Notebook 5 in the Grundrisse), where Marx speaks about nature, the land, and about how the common was lived by German tribes (he rejects the way the Romans speak of the Ager Publicus because of its already existing link to property). The German tribes on the contrary practice their community through a Vereinigung and not through a Verein which means that what binds them is temporary, caused by a need, and not institutionalized indefinitely. More important even, he speaks of the land as part of the commune, as part of us temporarily, and caused by a need. This "inorganic self," which is how he defines the land that feeds us, and thus belongs to us, is what gives rise to our being and is thus an inextricable part of who we are. Then, I turn to Serres, who, in his book The Five Senses also analyzes what gives form to us. Starting from the etymological analysis of the Homo sapiens, in which Homo refers to humus, the rich topsoil of the earth and sapiens to sapient, to "having a taste for something," Serres too speaks of the earth that feeds us. Their earthly analysis of what forces us to think then brings me to take another look at how we think about intelligence today, and how the alienation that both Marx and Serres are speaking of, seems to have installed itself in how we are imagining technology and food. I talk of how the American military designs meals for the American soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, knowing that "the sense of home" should be included in their ready-to-eat meals. I talk of the Museum for Forgotten Skills, an art project set up by Casco Art Institute, in Utrecht (the Netherlands), in which a new population was introduced to their land, to the idea of becoming part of the community again, taking part in its rituals, in understanding the land, the language and the history accompanying it. My conclusion, in line with Serres (and Marx) is not very uplifting though. Alienation, which in the end is all about how we have alienated ourselves from the land, from the earth, prevents us from living together, from becoming a community, and in the end, from living a life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous expansion of regional trade, interregional teleconnections have an increasingly pronounced impact on the changes in carbon storage caused by land use in China. Current research in this area remains remarkably limited, however. This study employs land-use data, carbon density data, and a multiregional input–output model to precisely quantify the embodied flow and spatial patterns of land-use carbon storage in China. We found that the carbon storage embodied in interprovincial trade in China accounts for 34.9 percent of total carbon storage, with cropland (44.9 percent) and woodland (43.6 percent) representing the highest proportions within their land-use categories. Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, and Tibet were found to be the most externally driven in terms of land-use-related carbon storage, with outflows exceeding 2,000 Tg C. Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, on the other hand, were shown to consume up to 90 percent of land-use-related carbon storage inflows, showcasing the strongest external dependence. Additionally, Hunan (1,300.5 Tg C), Hubei (863.4 Tg C), Henan (1,534.6 Tg C), and Shanxi (2,223.6 Tg C) are the provinces where changes in land-use carbon storage are most significant, exerting the greatest influence on changes in China's total carbon storage. China's international export of land-use-related embodied carbon storage decreased by 3,964.7 Tg C during the study period, with woodland (1,516.8 Tg C) and grassland (1,505.7 Tg C) being the primary declining land types. Interestingly, as land utilization efficiency continues to rise, over half of the provinces have seen an increase in export trade value, while their corresponding embodied carbon storage has declined. The findings not only unveil the complex dynamics and spatial distribution at work in China's embodied land-use-related carbon storage but also provide practical insights and directions for achieving carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The different environmental conditions resulting from the mesohabitats and land uses around streams can interfere in the structure and composition of the oligochaete fauna, widely used as indicators of aquatic ecosystems. The objective of the present study was to evaluate and compare the oligochaete fauna found in mesohabitats of pools and riffles in streams with different land uses in their proximity (forested, urban and pasture). A sampling of fauna and environmental parameters was carried out in nine streams belonging to the Ribeirão Marmelos sub-basin, Minas Gerais. A significant difference in the oligochaete fauna was found in the different mesohabitats and land uses. Conductivity, width, and depth were important variables in the separation between pools and riffles. Aulophorus furcatus was the species associated with urban environments, Pristina jenkinae to riffles and Opistocysta funiculus, Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri, and juvenile Tubificinae were linked to pools. The results found may contribute to understanding the relationship between the structure and composition of the oligochaete fauna, the mesohabitats and land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous increase of rapid urbanization and population growth, sustainable urban land-use planning is becoming a more complex and challenging task for urban planners and decision-makers. Multi-objective land-use allocation can be regarded as a complex spatial optimization problem that aims to achieve the possible trade-offs among multiple and conflicting objectives. This paper proposes an improved Non-dominated Sorting Biogeography-Based Optimization (NSBBO) algorithm for solving the multi-objective land-use allocation problem, in which maximum accessibility, maximum compactness, and maximum spatial integration were formulated as spatial objectives; and space syntax analysis was used to analyze the potential movement patterns in the new urban planning area of the city of Kigali, Rwanda. Efficient Non-dominated Sorting (ENS) algorithm and crossover operator were integrated into classical NSBBO to improve the quality of non-dominated solutions, and local search ability, and to accelerate the convergence speed of the algorithm. The results showed that the proposed NSBBO exhibited good optimal solutions with a high hypervolume index compared to the classical NSBBO. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm could generate optimal land use scenarios according to the preferred objectives, thus having the potential to support the decision-making of urban planners and stockholders in revising and updating the existing detailed master plan of land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite great interest in land use mix and the set of benefits that it supposedly provides, there still is a gap in the understanding of how land uses interact to promote urban vitality. This article examines land use from a temporal perspective, analysing both the frequency of visits throughout the day and the average duration of visits. The results show that even land uses in the same conventional functional category have different daily visitation patterns. Furthermore, the temporal combination and complementarity of some land uses seemed to directly influence the intensity and distribution of urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disruption of social and food systems during the COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique set of opportunities and challenges for urban agriculture. Based on 79 in-depth interviews with the managers of community gardens, school gardens, and urban farms in the DC metropolitan area, this study explores the divergent responses of each type of urban agriculture to the social, economic, and personal disruptions that the pandemic wrought using the post-disaster "social recovery" theory. Findings show significant differences in the immediate impacts across types of urban agriculture, with community gardens being the least impacted and urban farms implementing the most variant adaptation strategies. The data also show notable differences within each type of urban agriculture, especially among urban farms. We attribute variant trajectories of their adaptations to pre-disaster conditions, including autonomy over cultivation space, access to resources, and connections with other facets of city life. We conclude by underscoring the importance of recognizing the heterogeneity of urban agriculture in assessing its transformational capacity and potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractUrban land use is central to urban planning. With the emergence of urban big data and advances in deep learning methods, several studies have leveraged graph convolutional networks (GCNs) with local functional characteristics from points of interest data and spatial features from flow data to infer urban land use. However, these studies cannot distinguish spatial interaction and spatial dependence in terms of conceptualization and modeling mechanisms and overlook the inadequacy of GCNs in modeling spatial interaction. This study proposes a novel framework—a heterogeneous graph convolutional network (HGCN)—to explicitly account for the spatial demand and supply components embedded in spatial interaction data. Several experiments, including 19 different models and datasets from Shenzhen and London, were conducted to validate the proposed framework and its generalizability within the same and different spatial contexts. The HGCN can distinguish heterogeneous mechanisms in supply- and demand-related modalities of spatial interactions, incorporating both spatial interaction and spatial dependence for urban land-use inference. Empowered by HGCN, we found that spatial interaction features play a distinctively crucial role in urban land-use inference compared to local attributes and spatial dependence features. In addition, our findings highlight the superiority of HGCN-based models in boosting performance and enhancing model transferability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring and providing accurate land use and land cover (LULC) change information is vital for sustainable environmental planning. This study used Landsat imagery from 2002 to 2022 to create updated LULC change maps for the eThekwini Municipality. Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) were used to conduct these LULC classifications, with XGBoost achieving the highest accuracy (80.57%). The generated maps revealed a significant decrease in cropland and an increase in impervious surfaces. As such, this research established a framework for continuous LULC mapping and highlighted Landsat 9’s potential in LULC classifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates of increased housing supply and affordability in the United States have targeted zoning regulations as drivers of housing cost growth, but they lack an understanding of the prevalence and geographical distribution of different types of zoning regulations because few efforts exist to compile zoning data across localities. This study measures the amount of land allocated to different housing types in a random, stratified sample of 90 places of over 10,000 residents across the U.S. Despite our exclusion of smaller communities, we find that variations of single-family zoning are more than three times as common as zoning for three or more units per lot. We also analyze socio-demographic, built environment, and political characteristics of the sampled places in relation to their zoning practices, finding few relationships between place-level characteristics and the shares of land dedicated to different housing types. Our results from a national sample suggest significant variation in zoning practices relative to local demographic characteristics and point to the importance of understanding zoning practices and paths for reform in their local and regional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban land serves as the medium for urban economic and residential activity. The degree of intensive and efficient use of urban land and the coordinated growth of the economy and society are significantly impacted by utilization efficiency. Northwest China's temperature, geography, water, and soil characteristics make less of the region suited for urban development. Thus, it is imperative to investigate Northwest China's urban land use efficiency (ULUE). This study applies the efficiency loss model to highlight the discrepancy between the optimal and actual values of each input-output variable of the ULUE, and uses the Super-SBM model to compute the ULUE of 39 cities. Additionally, the internal driving elements of the ULUE are examined using the Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index. This study discovered that Northwest China had a low ULUE, with a modest upward trend seen between 2004 and 2018. The overall shape of the region was similar to an 'N' curve, with high efficiency values concentrated in the southeast of the region in 2018. When considering the agglomeration impact of urban agglomeration, these results are dependable. Moreover, the efficiency loss model discovered that pollution and wasteful resource usage were the main reasons behind the drop in ULUE in Northwest China. Finally, the GML index and its constituents revealed that the main force behind ULUE's growth in Northwest China is technological developments. This research provides important policy implications for reducing the gap between eastern and western regions, supporting high-quality development in northwest China, and protecting and intensively using urban land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the study is to determine how land users affect the land certification process when compared with other factors. We investigated government officials who carry out land certification procedures through a two-step survey to identify hypothetical factors that influence land certification. A multivariable regression model of hypothetical factors affecting land certification was tested by evaluation criteria. There are 26 factors belonging to 7 groups affecting land use right certificate issuance. Their impact rates ranged from 3.43% to 25.95%. Land users impact the issuance of land certificates with an impact rate of 20.82%. This puts them in the second most influential group after the group of policy and legal factors. For the land certificate to be granted smoothly and on schedule, it is necessary to pay attention to solving issues related to land users, legal policies, and other factors that have a smaller impact rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transforming Wisconsin's dairy production from annual crop-based to perennial grassland-based is critical for human health and well-being, but the ramifications for land use under this scenario have not been explored. I considered whether the amount of milk currently produced (~14.4B kg yr−1) with the confinement model (~2.57 AU ha−1) could be produced with a grassland model (~1.6 AU ha−1) without displacing production of other food and feed crops. Converting all land currently producing grains and forages for dairy (~796k ha) to grazed grassland would result in ~57% less milk production because there would be fewer cows producing less milk per animal. While the current system efficiently feeds dairy cattle when considering only milk yield per animal, it does so at the expense of environmental and social well-being, which are fundamental to the agroecological equation. To match current milk production exclusively on grassland would require ~1.04 M additional hectares, displacing other land uses in ways that would be initially very disruptive with significant transition costs, but eventually would improve ecosystem, community, and individual well-being. Planning for and realizing this vision requires major investments in markets, policies, and technical support of place-making and enterprise transitions to make Wisconsin America's Dairy Grassland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the roles of coastal environments in prehispanic settlement patterns and land use within the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, México using interdisciplinary methods. We first compare population levels in the coastal zone—including areas by the estuaries and sea—to inland habitats such as the floodplain. Second, we discuss resource extraction and trade associated with the coastal zone. Excavations and a 224 km2 full-coverage survey indicate that, except during the initial Early Formative period (1600–1350 BC), coastal zone habitats were not a settlement focus. Land use concentrated on the extraction of resources such as fish, salt, and ornamental shell. These goods were consumed locally and exchanged via long-distance networks for obsidian, pottery, and during the Postclassic period (AD 800–1522), copper items. Archaeofaunal and isotopic data suggest that aquatic resources from estuarine and marine environments constituted a small proportion of the total caloric input, but may have been important sources of protein. Finally, we compare settlement patterns between the lower Verde and other Mesoamerican coastal regions. Lower Verde population in the coastal zone was low, especially relative to areas which practiced mixed subsistence into the Middle/Late Formative periods (ca. 700–150 BC). This is related to the proximity of arable lands to estuaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paraguayan Chaco is increasingly known for the extreme rates of forest loss caused by the rapid expansion of cattle ranching and crop farming over the last few decades. Knowledge of its twentieth-century land-use history, however, remains limited. In this article, I address that gap by discussing land-use dynamics since the 1900s in the Pilcomayo River basin, a part of the Chaco that borders Argentina and Bolivia, and hosts a great diversity of actors and land uses. Using the concept of land-use regimes, I show that the area, once characterized by what can be called an Indigenous mixed-use regime, transitioned to a land-use regime dominated by livestock herding by Argentine Criollo settlers after the Chaco War (1932–35), and then again to one of large cattle ranches managed by absentee owners toward the end of the twentieth century. No land-use regime ever completely dominated the area, however, and I use this fact as a starting point to then discuss how using the concept of land regimes can help direct attention to the coexistence of regimes in space and to their relationships in a way that helps refine our understanding of land-use transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial cellular automata (Geo-CA) models have encountered challenges in computing efficiency and scalability when conducting large-scale land use change simulation applications. Parallel computing has proven to be effective to address these challenges. However, parallelization strategies for existing parallel Geo-CA models are always optimized for specific models and lack applicability to others. Besides, most parallel Geo-CA models focus on parallelizing land use change simulations, ignoring land use transition rule mining. Moreover, there is a lack of effective parallel strategies for demand-constrained land use change simulation on distributed heterogeneous architectures. This study proposes a parallel framework on hybrid parallel computing architectures applicable for raster-based Geo-CA models to enhance their computing efficiency and scalability while maintaining simulation accuracy. The framework provides parallelization strategies for both the land use transition rule mining for multiple land use types and the demand-constrained land use change simulation on distributed heterogeneous architectures. The framework was employed to parallelize two contemporary Geo-CA models, i.e., PLUS and MCCA. Experiments showed that the parallelized models achieved significant improvements in computing efficiency and scalability, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed framework for large-scale land use change simulation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates the spatial changes in Minna's built-up areas. For change detection and urban growth analysis, the topographical map of Minna in 1972, the township map for 1979, and the satellite imageries covering 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2015 were all employed. These maps were georeferenced using ArcGIS 10.3. The study reveals as follows: 1972 (468.3 hectares); 1979 (893.7 hectares); 1986 (4,579.8 hectares); 1996 (5,205.4.5 hectares); 2006 (8,505.1 hectares); and 2015 (19,777.2 hectares). The land consumption rates were estimated as 0.0084, 0.0117, 0.0356, 0.0215, 0.0204, and 0.0273, respectively.We conclude that strategies birthed by systematic planning conclusions must guide cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land trusts are increasingly powerful institutions of U.S. environmental governance that deserve more critical scrutiny. As charitable conservation organizations, they enjoy the many advantages of nonprofit status under the claim that they provide broad public benefits. Critics, however, have recently challenged this claim, portraying land trusts as quintessential institutions of neoliberal privatization and hybrid governance. Through a conjunctural analysis of U.S. land trusts across the long twentieth century, and with specific attention to the first, the Trustees of Public Reservations (founded in 1893), this article argues that the treatment of land trusts as neoliberal institutions is both illuminating and limiting. As many critical analyses indicate, U.S. land trusts today tend to privatize governance and facilitate the use of public funds for projects with significant private benefit. I argue, however, that the conceptualization of land trusts as institutions of neoliberal environmental governance also obscures the fact that, across their long history, they are an expression of the contradictions of decentralized land-use planning under capitalism. Most broadly, I suggest that rigorous conjunctural analysis can help geographers refine their conceptualization of neoliberalism and move beyond its limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the land use optimization of urban agglomerations is of great significance to the rational utilization of land resources and the sustainable development of urban agglomerations. Previous studies have simply regarded the urban agglomeration as a whole area or each city as an isolated individual, without considering the regional coordinated development of urban agglomerations in land use optimization objectives. This study proposed the first attempt to couple Zipf's law and a multiobjective optimization model of land use in an urban agglomeration. Zipf's law was applied to quantify the coordinated development of urban agglomeration and use it as one of the objectives of land use optimization. The genetic algorithm was adopted to establish the optimization model, and different future development scenarios were designed for comparison. The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration was selected as the study area, and the proposed model obtained effective results within an acceptable time. The Zipf's law–based optimization objective provided a more coordinated scale structure for urban growth and led the urban structure to develop toward the optimized state. There was a conflict, however, between the coordination and the other two objectives (compactness and suitability). Different stakeholders need to consider the trade-offs among these optimization objectives in urban planning. Finally, based on the optimization patterns of local areas, we suggest the following: Some large-scale cities (e.g., Beijing and Tianjin) should strictly control their new urban expansion or transfer part of their resources and population; Langfang and Xingtai should accelerate their development or take over part of the noncapital function of Beijing; and Zhangjiakou and Chengde should optimize their urban morphology and suitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several U.S. states with high housing costs have recently adopted laws intended to promote infill development. These new laws expand state agencies' supervisory responsibilities to ensure that local governments comply with state mandates. Effective administration of these laws will require state agencies to accurately estimate the amount of new housing that might be created and to target review to the jurisdictions that are failing to meet the relevant requirements. Here we present quantitative tools both for prioritizing review of local plans and zoning ordinances and for estimating future housing development. We applied the tools to the implementation of California laws requiring local governments to amend their zoning ordinances to allow accessory dwelling units on parcels zoned for detached single-family housing development. We provide computer code, written in the open-source statistical computing language R, that implements these tools. Although we present off-the-shelf tools, our proposed tools should supplement other regulatory techniques rather than serving as a substitute. Requirements for local governments to allow infill development should be accompanied by mandates for data collection. With good data, state agencies can use open-source statistical software to create quantitative measures that can help estimate future housing production and set priorities for reviewing local plans and zoning ordinances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, which presents pollen, charcoal, and 'soot'-particle records from a lacustrine sediment core, the development of the cultural landscape around Lake Dalkarby träsk on the Åland Islands in Finland is scrutinised and discussed within a broad temporal setting in order to clarify the long-term interplay between the environment and human activities in this part of the archipelago. Special emphasis is given to the transition period from the Late Iron Age to medieval times due to the dominating humanistic discourse on the settlement dynamics in this region, as in the Åland archipelago in general, arguing for an approximately 150-years-long hiatus in habitation between these two periods, from AD 1050 to 1200. Our results do not support the hiatus theories but show a long and continuous history of the utilisation of land and forest resources starting from prehistoric times. The forests were first cleared with fire for slash-and-burn cultivation. Thereafter, structural diversity in the landscape started to increase. By 1240, the pollen data portrays a picture of a developed agrarian community with a subsistence economy based on arable farming and animal husbandry in which hemp seems to play a substantial part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A GIS-based approach was used in this study to assess 10 years of land-use change in the lower Shivalik landscape of the Western Himalayas, India. The landscape encompasses two major protected areas which are home to a thriving population of large mammals. The main objective was to identify the changes in the land use pattern, specifically after forming a new tiger reserve in the landscape. Landsat 8 and 4 imagery were used for the time series analysis for the years 2018, 2013, and 2008, respectively. The change was calculated using nine land use classes, with mixed forest showing the highest change value, followed by agriculture, grassland, and scrub. The dense forest area increased immensely after the formation of the new tiger reserve. The results for dense and mixed forest classes also identified less fragmentation in the number of patches during the same time. Even though most of the landscape is within the boundaries of a protected area, the change in land use forms is noticeable. As development activities continue to expand, this region will face increased strain, which will impact the area's natural biodiversity. To protect that, a long-term conservation management effort is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that the risk of human infection by hantavirus, a family of rodent-borne viruses, might be affected by different environmental determinants such as land cover, land use and land use change. This study examined the association between land-cover, land-use, land use change, and human hantavirus infection risk. PubMed and Scopus databases were interrogated using terms relative to land use (change) and human hantavirus disease. Screening and selection of the articles were completed by three independent reviewers. Classes of land use assessed by the different studies were categorized into three macro-categories of exposure ('Agriculture', 'Forest Cover', 'Urban Areas') to qualitatively synthesize the direction of the association between exposure variables and hantavirus infection risk in humans. A total of 25 articles were included, with 14 studies (56%) conducted in China, 4 studies (16%) conducted in South America and 7 studies (28%) conducted in Europe. Most of the studies (88%) evaluated land cover or land use, while 3 studies (12%) evaluated land use change, all in relation to hantavirus infection risk. We observed that land cover and land-use categories could affect hantavirus infection incidence. Overall, agricultural land use was positively associated with increased human hantavirus infection risk, particularly in China and Brazil. In Europe, a positive association between forest cover and hantavirus infection incidence was observed. Studies that assessed the relationship between built-up areas and hantavirus infection risk were more variable, with studies reporting positive, negative or no associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in air quality is thought to be due to rapid land use/land cover (LULC) changes near metropolitan areas that are undergoing rapid urbanisation. Here, we quantify the characteristics and relationship between the aerosol optical depth (AOD) index and LULC changes in Hangzhou, China, since the 21st century using multispectral satellite remote sensing data. The regional study results show that the correlation between the operational AOD observations (MOD04_3K) at 3 km resolution and the in situ AOD measurements available in Hangzhou ranges from 0.48 to 0.80, and their root mean square error (RMSE) < 0.30. During the past two decades, Hangzhou has been in the stage of rapid urbanisation, and the area of construction land has increased significantly, mainly converted from cultivated land and forests. The correlation coefficients between the AOD and the changes of cultivated land, forest land, grassland and construction land in Hangzhou were 0.36, 0.86, 0.61 and 0.63, respectively, indicating a strong correlation except for the cultivated land. Finally, the temporal evolution of the correlation coefficients between the cultivated land and building land are positively correlated with AOD, while from the trend of the correlation curve, grassland, woodland and AOD show negative correlations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate and LULC changes have a great influence on the hydrological processes which include evapotranspiration, infiltration, surface runoff, groundwater flow, and stream discharge regime. This study aims to review the existing literature on the impacts of climate, and LULC changes on the sustainability of irrigation water in West Africa. The future of irrigation in West Africa will be driven by strong external factors, such as rapid population growth, climate change, and LULC change. The annual average temperature is between 25.9 and 34°C. Rising temperatures have affected all sectors, including water resources, increased irrigation demand, and the sustainability of agricultural production. Reduction in precipitation will reduce river flows and increase evaporation due to a drier atmosphere, thereby reducing the amount of water available in reservoirs for irrigation. The current demand for freshwater in West Africa for irrigation purposes is expected to triple by 2050. From 1997 to 2018, forest area decreased by 24.6%, while residential and agricultural land areas increased by 140% and 11.7%, respectively, in West Africa. Effective mitigation and adaptation measures are the policy issue for the observed adverse impacts of future climate and LULC changes on the sustainability of irrigation water availability in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of African cities is characterised by sprawl, significantly impacting social, economic and environmental systems. The change in land use due to urban sprawl often dispossesses farmers in peri-urban communities, resulting in income loss. Focusing on social and ecological changes in peri-urban communities of Ghana, this paper sheds light on land use and land cover change stemming from urban sprawl. It is argued that land governance systems that shape resource access in peri-urban areas have been transformed with farming being the most impacted. Emerging livelihoods like sand winning further compounds a precarious situation. Women and youth are the most affected, with limited options for alternative occupations and uncertain futures. It is thus imperative that policy interventions prioritise sustainable land governance and urban planning, taking into account the needs and vulnerabilities of peri-urban communities, particularly women and youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the difference between shared electric bicycles (e-bikes) and conventional shared bikes operated by Citi Bike in New York City. We examine differences in usage by examining summary statistics and we develop conditional autoregressive models to examine differences in factors associated with trip generation. These factors include bike infrastructure, subway proximity, area demographics, land use, and elevation. We also control for border effects by identifying peripheral stations. The percentage of e-bike trips fluctuates across hours of the day, with a peak around 3 PM but diminishes during peak commuting hours. We find mostly no significant differences in factors associated with the generation of trips between the two modes. Exceptions include a larger effect on e-bike trip generation when the daytime worker population is larger; other differences are due to the racial composition around the station area, some land use categories, and elevation differentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates empirically if land characteristics (especially forests and mountains) are of importance for the local ability to withstand the shock of the Covid-19 on domestic tourism demand during the summer of 2020. A second step of the analysis focuses on the recovery stage in the subsequent summer. Three tourism indicators are considered: arrivals, overnight stays and length of stay. Official data on land use characteristics of 2029 villages in the Federal state of Bavaria (South Germany) are employed for the analysis. Estimations using the Spatial Durbin model combined with the Heckman selection model reveal that there is a significant relationship between the proportion of forest within as well as surrounding the village and the demand for domestic tourism compared with the 2019 baseline. There is also a significant relationship with the altitude of the surrounding areas. The importance of mountains and forests is present in both the initial year of the pandemic and in the recovery year of 2021, although the magnitude is lower in the summer of 2021. Direct and spatial effects can also be found for lakes and rivers on overnight stays and length of stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on exploring and mapping Ankara's urban points of interest and their values on different urban infrastructure types using geolocated data from Flickr. All publicly available data dated between 2005 and 2021 from Flickr were obtained through application programming interface and the infrastructure types were reclassified as green, blue, grey, and yellow, using the land use and land cover data based on Corine 2018. Spatial patterns for cultural service flow of landscape features and/or landscapes on different urban infrastructure types were mapped using Kernel density estimation in QGIS 3.21. The hotspots were assessed in terms of the cultural services they offered based on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) framework, site visits, and observations. The findings showed that the city core mostly provided cultural heritage, identity, and recreational values. Results for the rural and peri-urban areas indicated that natural landscapes and protected areas stood out for their provision of cultural services, particularly for their recreational values. Our research identified user-intensive geographical clusters and hotspots that could benefit from interventions and enhancement for a more sustainable urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the significant agrarian transformations in India's Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is witnessing a rapid transition into commercial farming and, simultaneously, an increasing trend of deagrarianisation. The study uses a mixed-method approach to investigate why farmers adopt commercial farming in this region and how the processes of deagrarianisation, reconfiguration of land use, and deepening commodification have become inevitable for many small and medium-scale farmers as a result of this process. In the analysis, our empirically tested theoretical model confirms that institutional factors in terms of state support work as a significant driver toward commercialisation. We then argue that combined with the stimulus of the state, a vigorous process of neo-extractivism is being promoted, which renders the substantive changes in agrarian transitions by displacing the subsistence sector. The study highlights that this contemporary commercialisation is altering the social and physical landscape and driving broader forms of dispossession and consolidation of farmlands at micro-levels. Furthermore, it raises questions about the fundamental role of the Indian state's neo-extractivist policies in a politically contested region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethiopia, marked by diverse geography and rapid land use/land cover (LULC) changes, grapples with formidable water resource management challenges. Understanding the hydrological response to these changes is paramount for sustainability. This review paper provides an overview of studies that investigated the hydrological impacts of LULC changes in Ethiopian basins. The review discusses methodologies, key findings, implications for sustainable land and water resource management, research gaps, and future directions. Emphasizing results from diverse studies that utilized hydrological and geospatial modelling, LULC significantly affects surface runoff, streamflow patterns, and groundwater recharge. The observed consequences are increased surface runoff, modified streamflow timing, and reduced groundwater recharge. The review underscores the urgency for integrated land and water management strategies to alleviate adverse effects. Future research priorities include basin-specific studies, long-term monitoring, integrated modelling, consideration of socio-economic factors, and incorporating climate change scenarios to enhance understanding and guide sustainable water resource management in Ethiopian basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly discourse and global policies advocate policy integration across sectors, including land use and transportation. However, African cities lack best practices for transport and land use integration. This paper employed a 'plan quality evaluation framework' and key informant interviews to assess the quality of decentralized plans of the Kumasi Metropolis regarding integrating transportation planning considerations. The integration of transport considerations into the goals and policies of the KMA's plans was weak. Although coordination and implementation arrangements were strong, provisions for monitoring and evaluation were inadequate. Institutional fragmentation, poor inter-departmental coordination, and resource constraints were integration hurdles that needed immediate attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple conflicts of spatial planning are currently intensifying in the context of sustainability transformations. This paper aims to better understand the conflicts involved in planning inter-municipal commercial areas (IMCA) in city-regional constellations. Choosing an explicit conflict perspective integrating different strands of literature, a qualitative in-depth case study using cognitive-affective mapping (CAM) is carried out. The case study analyzes a region comprising a large urban center and multiple smaller surrounding communities in Southern Germany, where several attempts to cooperate have failed, ostensibly due to poor urban-rural relations. Our findings reveal that the situation is more complex: IMCA is hindered by vertical and horizontal governance conflicts and sectoral conflicts of interest. While land use conflicts on where to implement IMCA are hindering concrete projects, a deeper conflict potential lies in the question of whether to plan new commercial areas at all. Albeit IMCA are proposed as the solution for reducing land take and realizing economic growth, the planning of IMCA reflects this global tension on the regional and local level without being able to solve it per se. We conclude that an explicit conflict perspective as well as the CAM method can be fruitful for planning research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the long-run effect of war on environmental quality. Using data from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset and the World Development Indicators, we apply a generalized difference-in-differences methodology. We compare the airborne emissions of countries that have experienced war after World War II (WWII) before and after the occurrence of the war event with the emissions of countries that did not experience any war after WWII. We find that, although wars decrease per capita CO2 emissions, they increase CO2 intensity. We also examine the effect of war on forest cover, which is found to be positive across all specifications. Lastly, we document differential effects by war type, country's legal origins, and income level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]