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Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities

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A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 August 2022) | Viewed by 30797

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Dr. Víctor Hugo González-Jaramillo

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Guest Editor

Geología Minas e Ingeniería Civil, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, San Cayetano Alto, Calle París, 110150 Loja, Ecuador
Interests: geographical information systems; remote sensing; regional development
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Dr. Antonio Novelli

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Planetek Italia, Via Massaua 12, 70132 Bari, Italy
Interests: mapping; planning; remote sensing; big data
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, developing countries have experienced a widespread population increase. On one hand, this has resulted in a disorganized urban expansion, problems with fast land-use change and the related threats to natural resources. On the other hand, the increase of the population and the progressive urban expansion have caused the conversion of agricultural areas into urban spaces.

In general, this land-use change between urban and rural produces serious problems, especially related to lack of food supply and increased demand for infrastructure and basic services. These problems are more prominent in poor and developing countries, but they also represent a challenge for developed ones, where wellbeing is also affected.

These issues related to non-urban and urban interactions need to be analyzed in different ways, and they should be considered an opportunity to find practical and sustainable solutions, where academic research must be linked with governments and their regulatory statements to achieve the goal of sustainable development. In this Special Issue, we welcome studies related to land-use change and non-urban and urban relationships at all spatiotemporal scales. This includes:

Land-use planning schemes to progressive urban expansion;
Regulatory strategies;
Planning for a sustainable future;
Geospatial-based decision support systems (DSS);
Spatiotemporal dynamics, socioeconomic implication, water supply problems and deforestation land degradation (e.g., increase of imperviousness surfaces) produced by urban expansion and their resource requirements. Studies including the exploitation of low/high-level remote sensing imageries are also welcomed.

Dr. Víctor Hugo González-Jaramillo
Dr. Antonio Novelli
Guest Editors

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Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Related Special Issue

Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities II in Land (9 articles)

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 53094 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Scenario Simulation of Land-Use Change and Delineation of Urban Growth Boundaries in County Area: A Case Study of Xinxing County, Guangdong Province

by Zhipeng Lai, Chengjing Chen, Jianguo Chen, Zhuo Wu, Fang Wang and Shaoying Li

Land 2022, 11(9), 1598; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11091598 - 17 Sep 2022

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 2721

Abstract

Delineating urban growth boundaries (UGBs) by combining the land-use/land-cover (LULC) change simulation method has become common in recent studies. However, few of the existing studies have integrated multi-source big data to analyze the driving factors of LULC dynamics in the simulation. Moreover, most of previous studies mainly focused on the UGBs delineation in macroscale areas rather than small-scale areas, such as the county area. In this study, taking Xinxing County of Guangdong Province as the study area, we coupled a system dynamics (SD) model and a patch-generating land-use simulation (PLUS) model to propose a framework for the LULC change simulation and UGBs delineation in the county area. Multi-source big data such as points of interest (POIs), night-time light (NTL) data and Tencent user density (TUD) were integrated to analyze the driving forces of LULC change. The validation results indicate that the coupled model received high accuracy both in the land-use demand projection and LULC distribution simulation. The combination of multi-source big data can effectively describe the influence of human socio-economic factors on the expansion of urban land and industrial land. The UGBs delineation results have similar spatial patterns with the LULC change simulation results, which indicates that the proposed UGBs delineation method can effectively transform the LULC simulation results into available UGBs for the county area. It has been proven that the proposed framework in this study is effective for the LULC change simulation and UGBs delineation in the county area, which can provide insight on territorial spatial planning in the county area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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16 pages, 1115 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Territorial Prospective to Sustainability: Strategies for Future Successful of Water Resource Management on Andean Basins

by Christian Mera-Parra, Priscilla Massa-Sánchez, Fernando Oñate-Valdivieso and Pablo Ochoa-Cueva

Land 2022, 11(7), 1100; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11071100 - 18 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2612

Abstract

In Latin America, water resource management in some areas is difficult when all parts of a system are not considered (including its dynamism). Therefore, it becomes necessary to prepare instruments that facilitate management using a comprehensive approach. This study aimed to develop a methodology that allows one to conduct a prospective analysis of water management over delimited territories. The Zamora Huayco basin was chosen as the study area. This work included a survey of physical-natural, socioeconomic, and political-institutional variables, as well as a system structural analysis. Also, the generation of future scenarios and the strategic and tactical orientation for the integrated management of water resources. The results show that, of the 23 variables used, 19 were classified as key system variables. Most of the variables had strong impacts on each other, but at the same time these were highly receptive to changes. The behavior of change, proposed for the different uses and land cover in the basin for 2029, was considered as the objective scenario, highlighting the gain in forest areas and shrub vegetation. The strategic plans proposed in this methodology consider the structuring and collecting information in a single repository, creating communication channels between stakeholders and decision-makers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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18 pages, 5984 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Land Take Processes and Challenges for Urban Agriculture: A Spatial Analysis for Novi Sad, Serbia

by Jelena Živanović Miljković, Vesna Popović and Aleksandra Gajić

Land 2022, 11(6), 769; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11060769 - 24 May 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3125

Abstract

Food security is becoming an increasingly important issue worldwide, and in this respect, urban agriculture has a substantial role. Nonetheless, pressure for agricultural land conversion and fragmentation is highest in peri-urban areas. In order to respond to these challenges, urban farmers use different adaptation strategies and business models, including product differentiation based on geographical indications (GIs). The paper considers land take (LT) issues in Futog, the settlement of the City of Novi Sad, registered as the GI of Futog cabbage, as an illustrative example which reflects the attitude of land use policy and planning in Serbia towards the specific conditions and requirements that growers of GIs have to meet. The purpose of this study is to identify the role of urban land use planning within LT processes and the implications this has on urban agriculture, accordingly. The supporting framework used for quantifying LT in the period 2000–2018 was CORINE Land Cover (CLC), specifically Urban Atlas (UA) datasets for two time series between 2012 and 2018. Since a significant part of agricultural land registered as a GI in Futog was planned for conversion into construction land, the authors conclude that current forms of land use planning in Serbia are not adequate to ensure the protection of either urban agriculture or GIs. Given that there is a clear correlation between GI products and their place of origin, this study recognized the necessary inclusion of all protected agricultural areas, as well as areas with GIs, into legislation binding for land use planning in Serbia, with limitations in terms of new LT. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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20 pages, 2650 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Strategic Directions: Evaluation of Village Development Strategies in the Case of Applicants for the Hungarian Village Renewal Award

by Szabolcs Bérczi, Zita Szabó and Ágnes Sallay

Land 2022, 11(5), 681; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11050681 - 3 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1979

Abstract

Village roles have changed significantly in Central Europe over the last century and a half. In our article, we mainly deal with the conditions in Hungary. Based on the relevant literature, we follow the changing role, problems and presence of Hungarian villages. Our research focuses on evaluating village development strategies; thus, an essential part of the article is the presentation of the European and Hungarian village renewal movement, as the 50 settlements examined are also part of the settlements launched at the Hungarian Village Renewal Award competition. In this research, the 50 settlements were divided into three groups according to their role in the settlement network. The settlement group analysed their development priorities by summarizing the Hungarian Village Renewal Award applications. As a result, it was found that the development directions of the villages belonging to the individual settlement groups can be well separated from each other. The choice of the settlement development strategy is greatly influenced by the distance from the central settlements and the settlement network situation. We compared our results with the analysis of the strategies of some foreign villages (located in the former socialist bloc) and then examined the Hungarian village surveys of the last century and a half, focusing on land use changes and their role in development. As a result of the analysis, it became clear that the importance of land use in the life of villages in the initial period decreased spectacularly over time and was replaced by employment and the role of the settlement network. The main result of our research is that we have proven that the strategic priorities of village development can be grouped based on the position of the villages in the settlement network, and the priorities are mainly determined by the size of the central settlement and the distance from it. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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21 pages, 10580 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Downscaling Switzerland Land Use/Land Cover Data Using Nearest Neighbors and an Expert System

by Gregory Giuliani, Denisa Rodila, Nathan Külling, Ramona Maggini and Anthony Lehmann

Land 2022, 11(5), 615; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11050615 - 21 Apr 2022

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4154

Abstract

High spatial and thematic resolution of Land Use/Cover (LU/LC) maps are central for accurate watershed analyses, improved species, and habitat distribution modeling as well as ecosystem services assessment, robust assessments of LU/LC changes, and calculation of indices. Downscaled LU/LC maps for Switzerland were obtained for three time periods by blending two inputs: the Swiss topographic base map at a 1:25,000 scale and the national LU/LC statistics obtained from aerial photointerpretation on a 100 m regular lattice of points. The spatial resolution of the resulting LU/LC map was improved by a factor of 16 to reach a resolution of 25 m, while the thematic resolution was increased from 29 (in the base map) to 62 land use categories. The method combines a simple inverse distance spatial weighting of 36 nearest neighbors’ information and an expert system of correspondence between input base map categories and possible output LU/LC types. The developed algorithm, written in Python, reads and writes gridded layers of more than 64 million pixels. Given the size of the analyzed area, a High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster was used to parallelize the data and the analysis and to obtain results more efficiently. The method presented in this study is a generalizable approach that can be used to downscale different types of geographic information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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16 pages, 3180 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on Construction Land Use Benefit and the Coupling Coordination Relationship Based on a Three-Dimensional Frame Model—A Case Study in the Lanzhou-Xining Urban Agglomeration

by Weiping Zhang, Peiji Shi and Huali Tong

Land 2022, 11(4), 460; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11040460 - 24 Mar 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2352

Abstract

Coordinating the social, economic, and eco-environmental benefits of construction land use has become the key to the high-quality development of Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomerations (LXUA). Therefore, based on the coupling coordination connotation and interaction mechanism of construction land use benefit (CLUB), we measured the CLUB level and the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between its principal elements in LXUA from 2005 to 2018. Results showed that: (1) The construction land development intensity (CLDI) in the LXUA is generally low, and spatially presents a dual-core structure with Lanzhou and Xining urban areas as the core. (2) The comprehensive construction land use benefit has increased over time, but the overall level is not high. The spatial differentiation is obvious, and the core cities (Lanzhou and Xining) are significantly higher than other cities. (3) The regional differences in the subsystem benefit of construction land use are obvious. The social benefit and economic benefit showed a “convex” shape distribution pattern of “high in the middle and low in the east and west wings”, and regional differences of economic benefit vary greatly. The eco-environmental benefit was relatively high, showed a “concave” shape evolution in the east–west direction. (4) In addition, the CCD of the CLUB were still at a medium–low level. The higher the administrative level of the city, the better the economic foundation, and the higher or better the CCD of the social, economic, and eco-environmental benefits. (5) The CCD is inseparable from the influence of the three benefits of construction land use. Therefore, different regions should form their own targeted development paths to promote the coordinated and orderly development of LXUA. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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17 pages, 6076 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Soil Impermeability and Its Impact on the Hydrology of An Urban Basin

by Fernando Oñate-Valdivieso, Arianna Oñate-Paladines and Milton Collaguazo

Land 2022, 11(2), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020250 - 8 Feb 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1596

Abstract

The presence of impervious surfaces in catchments interferes with the natural process of infiltration, which has a marked influence on the hydrological cycle, affecting the base flow in rivers and increasing the surface runoff and the magnitude of flood flows. Like many Latin American cities, Loja (located in southern Ecuador) has experienced significant rates of urban growth in recent years, increasing the impervious surfaces in the catchment where it belongs. The aim of this study is to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of imperviousness in the study area for the period 1989–2020, using the Normalized Difference Impervious Surface Index (NDISI) and the supervised classification of Landsat images. The effect on flood flows was studied for each timestep using HEC-HMS hydrological model. Additionally, a future scenario of impervious surfaces was generated considering the observed spatiotemporal variability, possible explanatory variables, and logistic regression models. Between 1989 and 2020, there was an increase of 144.12% in impervious surfaces, which corresponds to the population growth of 282.56% that occurred in the same period. The period between 2001 and 2013 was the one that presented the most significant increase (1.06 km²/year). A direct relationship between the increase in impervious surfaces and the increase in flood flows was observed, reaching a significant variation towards the horizon year that could affect the population, for which measures to manage the surface runoff is necessary. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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18 pages, 36901 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatial Pattern of Functional Urban Land Conversion and Expansion under Rapid Urbanization: A Case Study of Changchun, China

by Guolei Zhou, Jing Zhang, Chenggu Li and Yanjun Liu

Land 2022, 11(1), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11010119 - 12 Jan 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2512

Abstract

As populations continue to be concentrated in cities, the world will become entirely urbanized, and urban space is undergoing a drastic evolution. Understanding the spatial pattern of conversion and expansion of functional urban land, in the context of rapid urbanization, helps us to grasp the trajectories of urban spatial evolution in greater depth from a theoretical and practical level. Using the ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 software platform, methods, such as overlay analysis, transition matrix, and kernel density estimation, were used in order to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of different types of functional urban land conversion and expansion in the central city of Changchun. The results show that different types of functional urban land were often expanded and replaced, and the urban spatial structure was constantly evolving. The conversion and expansion of functional urban land show similar characteristics to concentric zone and sector modes and show dynamic changes in different concentric circles and directions at different periods. Our method can accurately identify the different types of functional urban land, and also explore the evolutionary trajectory of urban spatial structure. This study will help to coordinate the development of different functional urban spaces and to optimize the urban spatial structure in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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11 pages, 1270 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Improving Best Management Practice Decisions in Mixed Land Use and/or Municipal Watersheds: Should Approaches Be Standardized?

by Jason A. Hubbart

Land 2021, 10(12), 1402; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10121402 - 18 Dec 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2706

Abstract

Best management practices (BMP) are defined in the United States Clean Water Act (CWA) as practices or measures that have been demonstrated to be successful in protecting a given water resource from nonpoint source pollution. Unfortunately, the greatest majority of BMPs remain unvalidated in terms of demonstrations of success. Further, there is not a broadly accepted or standardized process of BMP implementation and monitoring methods. Conceivably, if standardized BMP validations were a possibility, practices would be much more transferrable, comparable, and prescriptive. The purpose of this brief communication is to present a generalized yet integrated and customizable BMP decision-making process to encourage decision makers to more deliberately work towards the establishment of standardized approaches to BMP monitoring and validation in mixed-use and/or municipal watersheds. Decision-making processes and challenges to BMP implementation and monitoring are presented that should be considered to advance the practice(s) of BMP implementation. Acceptance of standard approaches may result in more organized and transferrable BMP implementation policies and increased confidence in the responsible use of taxpayer dollars through broad acceptance of methods that yield predictable and replicable results. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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18 pages, 5894 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Establishment of the Baseline for the IWRM in the Ecuadorian Andean Basins: Land Use Change, Water Recharge, Meteorological Forecast and Hydrological Modeling

by Christian Mera-Parra, Fernando Oñate-Valdivieso, Priscilla Massa-Sánchez and Pablo Ochoa-Cueva

Land 2021, 10(5), 513; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050513 - 12 May 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3708

Abstract

This study was conducted in the Zamora Huayco (ZH) river basin, located in the inter-Andean region of southern Ecuador. The objective was to describe, through land use/land cover change (LUCC), the natural physical processes under current conditions and to project them to 2029. Moreover, temperature and precipitation forecasts were estimated to detail possible effects of climate change. Using remote sensing techniques, satellite images were processed to prepare a projection to 2029. Water recharge was estimated considering the effects of slope, groundcover, and soil texture. Flash floods were estimated using lumped models, concatenating the information to HEC RAS. Water availability was estimated with a semi-distributed hydrological model (SWAT). Precipitation and temperature data were forecasted using autoregressive and exponential smoothing models. Under the forecast, forest and shrub covers show a growth of 6.6%, water recharge projects an increase of 7.16%. Flood flows suffer a reduction of up to 16.54%, and the flow regime with a 90% of probability of exceedance is 1.85% (7.72 l/s) higher for 2029 than for the 2019 scenario, so an improvement in flow regulation is evident. Forecasts show an increase in average temperature of 0.11 °C and 15.63% in extreme rainfall by 2029. Therefore, intervention strategies in Andean basins should be supported by prospective studies that use these key variables of the system for an integrated management of water resources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities)

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