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Land-Use and Spatial Resilience Changes in Cultural Landscapes

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 9294

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, Complutense University Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: ecology; conservation biology; landscape; monitoring; habitat
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Teaching Unit of Ecology (UDECO), Department of Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution (BEE), Faculty of Biological Sciences, University Complutense of Madrid, C/ José Antonio Novais 12, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: ecology; landscape ecology; biodiversity; ecological restoration; socioecological systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, the exponential growth of the world's population has been accompanied by accelerated processes of expansion of urban and agricultural frontiers on a global scale. These two processes are acting as drivers of land-use change, affecting all types of ecosystems. In a significant number of cases, the ecosystems affected are those that have not yet been altered by human activities or that have suffered a low degree of modification (natural or semi-natural ecosystems), both in their functioning and in their spatial structure.

The spatial structure of an ecosystem or landscape and the interrelationships of its internal components, together with its context (surrounding environment), its connectivity and its dynamics, will define its overall capacity to withstand disturbances and its subsequent recovery or adaptive response. In other words, it is a question of its spatial resilience, and the understanding and quantification of this resilience are very useful for spatial planning and management, especially of complex socio-ecological systems. Changes in land use on a global scale are giving rise to new socio-ecological or cultural landscapes whose spatial resilience has so far been little studied.

In this framework, we encourage authors whose studies are related to changes in land use, in any type of cultural landscape along a wide rural–urban gradient, and their effects on structure and functionality that affect their spatial resilience to different disturbances (anthropic or natural) to contribute to this Special Issue with research or review papers.

Dr. Marta Ortega Quero
Prof. Dr. Alejandro Rescia
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • transformations of traditional rural landscapes (agricultural, livestock, forestry)
  • spatial resilience and biological control in agricultural landscapes
  • biodiversity conservation in cultural landscapes
  • ecological connectivity and spatial resilience in urban and rural landscapes
  • socio-ecological sustainability and spatial resilience to climate change in urban and semi-urban areas
  • land-use changes and spatial fire resilience
  • spatial resilience to flooding in a climate change framework

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3881 KiB  
Article
Quantifying National-Scale Changes in Agricultural Land Exposure to Fluvial Flooding
by Heather Craig, Ryan Paulik, Utkur Djanibekov, Patrick Walsh, Alec Wild and Benjamin Popovich
Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12495; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212495 - 12 Nov 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3285
Abstract
This study quantifies the exposure of agricultural land in Aotearoa-New Zealand’s (A-NZ) flood hazard zones (FHZs). We developed a spatio-temporal flood exposure framework to quantify the extent of the area and yearly earnings before income and tax (EBIT) for arable, forestry, horticulture, sheep [...] Read more.
This study quantifies the exposure of agricultural land in Aotearoa-New Zealand’s (A-NZ) flood hazard zones (FHZs). We developed a spatio-temporal flood exposure framework to quantify the extent of the area and yearly earnings before income and tax (EBIT) for arable, forestry, horticulture, sheep and beef, and dairy land in FHZs between 1990 and 2016. In 1990, ~1.57 million hectares of agricultural land were exposed, decreasing slightly to ~1.50 million hectares by 2016. However, there was a change in the lower-value types of agricultural land uses being exposed, such as for sheep and beef farming and forestry, toward dairy farming (from ~364,000 hectares in FHZs in 2008 to ~471,000 hectares in 2016). Dairy farming is more intensively staffed with larger amounts of fixed assets, making them less resilient to flood impacts. Despite this, conversion to dairy farming even within the identified FHZs has been driven by the increasing profitability of the enterprise. As a result of both the production value change and land area increases, the dairy EBIT values within FHZs rose rapidly from NZD 382 million to NZD 1.25 billion between 2008 and 2012, creating significantly more economic exposure for A-NZ. This trend is particularly evident in the Southland, Canterbury, and Waikato regions. Similarly, in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Hawke’s Bay regions, there was an increase in high-value horticultural land—predominantly viticulture—in FHZs (a increase of NZD 321 million in annual EBIT for exposed horticulture across the three regions). Identifying sub-national trends in agricultural flood exposure allows for a detailed analysis of the likely impacts in high-risk areas, which can inform emergency management plans and mitigative actions that diminish the economic impacts from flood events. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land-Use and Spatial Resilience Changes in Cultural Landscapes)
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22 pages, 3634 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Land Use and Land Cover Change and Its Drivers in Battambang Province, Cambodia from 1998 to 2018
by Taingaun Sourn, Sophak Pok, Phanith Chou, Nareth Nut, Dyna Theng, Phanna Rath, Manuel R. Reyes and P.V. Vara Prasad
Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11170; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011170 - 10 Oct 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5187
Abstract
The main objective of this research was to evaluate land use and land cover (LULC) change in Battambang province of Cambodia over the last two decades. The LULC maps for 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018 were produced from Landsat satellite imagery using [...] Read more.
The main objective of this research was to evaluate land use and land cover (LULC) change in Battambang province of Cambodia over the last two decades. The LULC maps for 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018 were produced from Landsat satellite imagery using the supervised classification technique with the maximum likelihood algorithm. Each map consisted of seven LULC classes: built-up area, water feature, grassland, shrubland, agricultural land, barren land and forest cover. The overall accuracies of the LULC maps were 93%, 82%, 94%, 93% and 83% for 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018, respectively. The LULC change results showed a significant increase in agricultural land, and a large decrease in forest cover. Most of the changes in both LULC types occurred during 2003–2008. Overall, agricultural land, shrubland, water features, built-up areas and barren land increased by 287,600 hectares, 58,600 hectares, 8300 hectares, 4600 hectares and 1300 hectares, respectively, while forest cover and grassland decreased by 284,500 hectares and 76,000 hectares respectively. The rate of LULC changes in the upland areas were higher than those in the lowland areas of the province. The main drivers of LULC change identified over the period of study were policy, legal framework and projects to improve economy, population growth, infrastructure development, economic growth, rising land prices, and climate and environmental change. Landmine clearance projects and land concessions resulted in a transition from forest cover and shrubland to agricultural land. Population and economic growth not only resulted in an increase of built-up area, but also led to increasing demand for agricultural land and rising land prices, which triggered the changes of other LULC types. This research provides a long-term and detailed analysis of LULC change together with its drivers, which is useful for decision-makers to make and implement better policies for sustainable land management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land-Use and Spatial Resilience Changes in Cultural Landscapes)
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