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Land use

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Cumulative CO2 emissions from land-use change (as of 2021). Emissions from land-use change can be positive or negative depending on whether these changes emit (positive, brown on the map) or sequester (negative) carbon (green on the map).

Land use is an umbrella term to describe what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there.[1] The following categories are used for land use: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands.[2]: 2914  The way humans use land, and how land use is changing, has many impacts on the environment.[3][4] Effects of land use choices and changes by humans include for example urban sprawl, soil erosion, soil degradation, land degradation and desertification.[5]

Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals.[6][7]

Definition and categories

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A graphic description of land use in the Australian Capital Territory as of 2017. Colours represent different uses.
The development of global land use over the centuries and millennia: more and more of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture.

The IPCC defines the term land use as the "total of arrangements, activities and inputs applied to a parcel of land".[2]: 2914  The same report groups land use into the following categories: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands.[2]: 2914 

Another definition is that of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization: "Land use concerns the products and/or benefits obtained from use of the land as well as the land management actions (activities) carried out by humans to produce those products and benefits."[1]

As of the early 1990s, about 13% of the Earth was considered arable land, with 26% in pasture, 32% forests and woodland, and 1.5% urban areas.[1]

As of 2015, the total arable land is 10.7% of the land surface, with 1.3% being permanent cropland.[8][9]

For example, the US Department of Agriculture has identified six major types of land use in the United States. Acreage statistics for each type of land use in the contiguous 48 states in 2017 were as follows:[10]

US land use (2017)[10]
Use acreage (M) km2 (M) % of total
Pasture/range 654 2.647 35
Forest 538.6 2.18 28
Cropland 391.5 1.584 21
Special use 168.8 0.683 9
Miscellaneous 68.9 0.279 4
Urban 69.4 0.281 4
Total 1,891 7.653 100

Special use areas in the table above include national parks (29 M acres) and state parks (15 M), wildlife areas (64.4 M), highways (21 M), railroads (3M), military bases (25 M), airports (3M) and a few others. Miscellaneous includes cemeteries, golf courses, marshes, deserts, and other areas of "low economic value". The total land area of the United States is 9.1 M km2 but the total used here refers only to the contiguous 48 states, without Alaska etc.

Land use change

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See also: Land change science
Global distribution of land used for agriculture

Land use change is "the change from one land-use category to another".[2]: 2914  Land-use change, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide, a dominant greenhouse gas.[11]

Deforestation is an example of large-scale land use change. The deforestation of temperate regions since 1750 has had a major effect on land cover.[12]

Land use by humans has a long history, first emerging more than 10,000 years ago.[13][14] Human changes to land surfaces have been documented for centuries as having significant impacts on both earth systems and human well-being. The reshaping of landscapes to serve human needs, such as the deforestation for farmland, can have long-term effects on earth systems and exacerbate the causes of climate change.[15] Although the burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of present-day climate change, prior to the Industrial Revolution, deforestation and irrigation were the largest sources of human-driven greenhouse gas emissions.[15] Even today, 35% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide contributions can be attributed to land use or land cover changes.[15] Currently, almost 50% of Earth’s non-ice land surface has been transformed by human activities, with approximately 40% of that land used for agriculture, surpassing natural systems as the principal source of nitrogen emissions.[15]

Land change modeling can be used to predict and assess future shifts in land use.

Examples

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Deforestation

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Main article: Deforestation
Rainforest deforestation for land use conversion

Deforestation, in the context of land change science, is the systematic and permanent conversion of previously forested land for other uses.[16] It has historically been a primary facilitator of land use and land cover change, is a particular focus of land change science.[17] Forests are a vital part of the global ecosystem and are essential to carbon capture, ecological processes, and biodiversity.[17] However, since the invention of agriculture, global forest cover has diminished by 35%.[17] Further, tropical forests in particular support at least two-thirds of the world's biodiversity, and sustained changes in land cover in these regions are believed to be contributing to a mass extinction.[18] Given the severe ecological consequences resulting from human-driven forest land use conversion, as well as the continuing downward trend in forest cover, to effectively model and evaluate patterns of land use change, scientists must also study the social and economic drivers of deforestation itself.

Land use and land cover change resulting from deforestation is primarily the effect of large-scale socio-economic processes. Importantly, there is rarely one direct or underlying cause for deforestation.[19] Rather, deforestation is the result of intertwining systemic forces working simultaneously or sequentially to change land cover.[19] For instance, mass deforestation is often viewed as the product of industrial agriculture, yet a considerable portion old-growth forest deforestation is the result of small-scale migrant farming.[20] As forest cover is removed, forest resources become exhausted and increasing populations lead to scarcity, which prompts people to move again to previously undisturbed forest, restarting the process of deforestation.[20] This process is referred to as rural-to-rural migration.[20] There are several reasons behind this continued migration: poverty-driven lack of available farmland and high costs may lead to an increase in farming intensity on existing farmland.[20] This leads to the overexploitation of farmland, and down the line results in desertification, another land cover change, which renders soil unusable and unprofitable, requiring farmers to seek out untouched and unpopulated old-growth forests.[20]

In addition to rural migration and subsistence farming, economic development can also play a substantial role in deforestation.[19] For example, road and railway expansions designed to increase quality of life have resulted in significant deforestation in the Amazon and Central America.[19] Moreover, the underlying drivers of economic development are often linked to global economic engagement, instead of to poverty, ranging from increased exports to a foreign debt.[19] Deforestation occurs for many interconnected reasons, and thus it is important for land change scientists to track it in order to identify patterns that can shed light on why and when it happens. Phenomena such as economic insecurity and rural migration are not necessarily quantitative, but they nevertheless provide valuable information to land change science models that attempt to predict future land cover change and its consequences.

Aral Sea

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Remote sensing images show changes to the extent of the Aral Sea from 1989 (left) to 2014 (right).

The rapid decline of the Aral Sea is an example how local-scale land use and land change can have compounded impacts on regional climate systems, particularly when human activities heavily disrupt natural climatic cycles, how land change science can be used to map and study such changes.[21] In 1960, the Aral Sea, located in Central Asia, was the world's fourth largest lake.[22] However, a water diversion project, undertaken by the Soviet Union to irrigate arid plains in what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, resulted in the Aral Sea losing 85% of its land cover and 90% of its volume.[22] The loss of the Aral Sea has had a significant effect on human-environment interactions in the region, including the decimation of the sea's fishing industry and the salinization of agricultural lands by the wind-spread of dried sea salt beds.[21][22]

Additionally, scientists have been able to use technology such as NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to track changes to the Aral Sea and its surrounding climate over time.[23] This use of modeling and satellite imagery to track human-caused land cover change is characteristic of the scope of land change science.

Regulation

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Commonly, political jurisdictions will undertake land-use planning and regulate the use of land in an attempt to avoid land-use conflicts. Land use plans are implemented through land division and use ordinances and regulations, such as zoning regulations.

The urban growth boundary is one form of land-use regulation. For example, Portland, Oregon is required to have an urban growth boundary which contains at least 20,000 acres (81 km2) of vacant land. Additionally, Oregon restricts the development of farmland. The regulations are controversial, but an economic analysis concluded that farmland appreciated similarly to the other land.[24]

United States

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See also: Zoning § United States
Habitat fragmentation caused by numerous roads near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

In colonial America, few regulations were originally put into place regarding the usage of land. As society shifted from rural to urban, public land regulation became important, especially to city governments trying to control industry, commerce, and housing within their boundaries. The first zoning ordinance was passed in New York City in 1916,[25][26] and, by the 1930s, most states had adopted zoning laws. In the 1970s, concerns about the environment and historic preservation led to further regulation.

Today, federal, state, and local governments regulate growth and development through statutory law. The majority of controls on land, however, stem from the actions of private developers and individuals. Judicial decisions and enforcement of private land-use arrangements can reinforce public regulation, and achieve forms and levels of control that regulatory zoning cannot. There is growing concern that land use regulation is a direct cause of housing segregation in the United States today.[27]

Two major federal laws passed in the 1960s limit the use of land significantly. These are the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (today embodied in 16 U.S.C. 461 et seq.) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.).

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c FAO Land and Water Division retrieved 14 September 2010
  2. ^ a b c d IPCC, 2022: Annex II: Glossary [Möller, V., R. van Diemen, J.B.R. Matthews, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, J.S. Fuglestvedt, A. Reisinger (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 2897–2930, doi:10.1017/9781009325844.029.
  3. ^ Meyfroidt, P.; Roy Chowdhury, R.; de Bremond, A.; Ellis, E. C.; Erb, K. -H.; Filatova, T.; Garrett, R. D.; Grove, J. M.; Heinimann, A.; Kuemmerle, T.; Kull, C. A. (2018-11-01). "Middle-range theories of land system change" (PDF). Global Environmental Change. 53: 52–67. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.08.006. ISSN 0959-3780. S2CID 158366220.
  4. ^ Ellis, Erle C. (2021-10-18). "Land Use and Ecological Change: A 12,000-Year History". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 46 (1): 1–33. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-010822. ISSN 1543-5938. S2CID 244592514.
  5. ^ UN Land Degradation and Land Use/Cover Data Sources ret. 26 June 2007
  6. ^ Ameztegui, Aitor; Coll, Lluis; Brotons, Lluis; Ninot, J.M. (2016). "Land-use legacies rather than climate change are driving the recent upward shift of the mountain tree line in the Pyrenees" (PDF). Global Ecology and Biogeography. 25 (3): 263–273. doi:10.1111/geb.12407. hdl:10459.1/65151. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 9, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  7. ^ "Chapter 1 - Meaning of Land" (PDF). Global Land Outlook (Report). United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. 2017. p. 21. ISBN 978-92-95110-48-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 20, 2022. Retrieved September 18, 2022.
  8. ^ "World Bank arable land". World Bank. Archived from the original on October 2, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  9. ^ "World Bank permanent cropland". World Bank. Archived from the original on July 13, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  10. ^ a b Merrill, Dave; Leatherby, Lauren (July 31, 2018). "Here's How America Uses Its Land". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2018-08-05.
  11. ^ "UN Report on Climate Change" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2007. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  12. ^ "Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing" (PDF). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 15, 2007.
  13. ^ Ellis, Erle; Goldewijk, Kees Klein; Gaillard, Marie-José; Kaplan, Jed O.; Thornton, Alexa; Powell, Jeremy; Garcia, Santiago Munevar; Beaudoin, Ella; Zerboni, Andrea (2019-08-30). "Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use". Science. 365 (6456): 897–902. Bibcode:2019Sci...365..897S. doi:10.1126/science.aax1192. hdl:10150/634688. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 31467217. S2CID 201674203.
  14. ^ Ellis, Erle C.; Gauthier, Nicolas; Goldewijk, Kees Klein; Bird, Rebecca Bliege; Boivin, Nicole; Díaz, Sandra; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Gill, Jacquelyn L.; Kaplan, Jed O.; Kingston, Naomi; Locke, Harvey (2021-04-27). "People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (17): e2023483118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11823483E. doi:10.1073/pnas.2023483118. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 8092386. PMID 33875599.
  15. ^ a b c d Turner, B. L.; Lambin, Eric F.; Reenberg, Anette (2007). "The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (52): 20666–20671. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704119104. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2409212. PMID 18093934.
  16. ^ Derouin, Sarah (2019). "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects". livescience.com. Archived from the original on 2020-12-20. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  17. ^ a b c Mayer, Audrey L.; Buma, Brian; Davis, Amélie; Gagné, Sara A.; Loudermilk, E. Louise; Scheller, Robert M.; Schmiegelow, Fiona K.A.; Wiersma, Yolanda F.; Franklin, Janet (2016-04-27). "How Landscape Ecology Informs Global Land-Change Science and Policy". BioScience. 66 (6): 458–469. doi:10.1093/biosci/biw035. hdl:11122/8174. ISSN 0006-3568.
  18. ^ Giam, Xingli (2017-06-06). "Global biodiversity loss from tropical deforestation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (23): 5775–5777. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114.5775G. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706264114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5468656. PMID 28550105.
  19. ^ a b c d e "Tropical Deforestation". earthobservatory.nasa.gov. 2007-03-30. Archived from the original on 2021-03-31. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
  20. ^ a b c d e López-Carr, David; Burgdorfer, Jason (2013-01-01). "Deforestation Drivers: Population, Migration, and Tropical Land Use". Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. 55 (1): 3–11. Bibcode:2013ESPSD..55a...3L. doi:10.1080/00139157.2013.748385. ISSN 0013-9157. PMC 3857132. PMID 24347675.
  21. ^ a b Turner, B. L.; Lambin, Eric F.; Reenberg, Anette (2007-12-26). "The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (52): 20666–20671. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704119104. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2409212. PMID 18093934.
  22. ^ a b c Middleton, Nick (2019). The Global Casino: An Introduction to Environmental Issues. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 179–182. ISBN 978-1-315-15840-2.
  23. ^ "World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea". earthobservatory.nasa.gov. 2014-09-24. Archived from the original on 2021-03-20. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  24. ^ Jaeker WG, Plantinga AJ (2007). How have Land-use regulations Affected Property Values in Oregon? Archived 2012-07-22 at the Wayback Machine OSU Extension.
  25. ^ Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co.
  26. ^ Nolon, John R. (July–August 1992). "Local Land Use Control in New York: An Aging Citadel Under Siege". New York State Bar Journal: 38.
  27. ^ Trounstine, Jessica (May 2020). "The Geography of Inequality: How Land Use Regulation Produces Segregation". American Political Science Review. 114 (2): 443. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000844. S2CID 213239635.
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