Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This first chapter explains some of the basic theoretical ideas, concepts and methodologies that underpin the modelling of land-use change. It represents an overview of the types of approaches that have been adopted by researchers hitherto. It also provides a rationale for the structure of the book and a synopsis of the contents that follow.

A case study in Albania is presented based on the EU Phare Land Use Policy II project results where GIS-oriented instruments and innovative methodologies were implemented to support decision making for land-use policy and planning. The developed Land-Use Information System for Albania allows the logical and functional hierarchical arrangement of land uses and data harmonisation with other land-use description systems. It is linked to the object-oriented Land-Use Change Analyses methodology that groups changes into conversions and modifications. The preferred change patterns indicate that land users take rational decisions when changing land use, even in the absence of any regulating plan, as is the case in post-communist Albania.

This research aims to identify the driving forces that changed the Limmat Valley west of Zurich from a traditional agricultural valley in 1930 to a suburban region of the city of Zurich in 2000. The landscape changes are quantified based on the comparison of historical maps from 1930, 1956, 1976 and 2000. All individual changes, relating to new or disappeared landscape elements, were linked to a set of one to fourteen critical driving forces. Such an analytical and systematic study of driving forces, and specifically the clear link between changes of landscape elements and specific sets of driving forces and jurisdictional levels, is essential for the development of innovative land-use change models.

The spatial redistribution of land uses can be measured by conventional remote sensing methods in the form of matrices of land-use redistributions within a given set of regions in a given time period. Two new methods of analysis of such land-use redistribution matrices are proposed: the ‘superposition principle’ and the ‘minimum information’ approach. For an empirical validation of these new methods, a settlement in the vicinity of the Haifa Carmel area is chosen. For different time intervals, the main trends in land-use redistribution are identified together with their minimum information artificial landscapes.

In recent years, new processes for land-use development have appeared that are not entirely in accord with state law in China, especially in areas of rapid urbanisation. This situation results from conflicts between land use and the rapid development of society and economy in these areas. Although urbanisation contradicts the national law of land use in various ways, it reveals the irrationality of the current land institutions, which have to be reformed in order to achieve urban sustainability. After summarizing and analysing some typical processes of land-use development for the rapidly urbanizing areas in the Pearl River Delta metropolis, this chapter presents some conclusions and suggestions for land institution reform in the future.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the processes of change in land cover and land use over the last 44 years, at regional scale, in a traditional, rural south-eastern Spanish catchment. Land use has changed dramatically over recent decades throughout the Mediterranean. Much of this change has been driven by shifts in agricultural and socioeconomic policy. Analysis of aerial photography for the Marina Baixa catchment has revealed a significant decline in traditional agriculture and conversion to forestry or intensive croplands. The consequences of economic globalisation are reflected here in a shift from traditional to intensive agriculture and in human migration from rural to urban areas, as well as in the development of tourism. Land-use changes are correlated with socioeconomic structural forces in order to demonstrate how these changes affect the basic resources of the area and to provide a clearer understanding of possible future trends.

Land-use simulation results are often provided at spatial resolutions that are too coarse to establish links with local or regional studies that, for example, deal with the physical or ecological impacts of land-use change. This chapter aims to use novel spatial statistical techniques to derive representations of land-use patterns at a resolution of 250 metres based on aggregate land-use change simulations. The proposed statistical downscaling method combines multinomial autologistic regression and an iterative procedure using Bayes’ theorem. Based on these methods, a set of probability maps of land-use presence is developed at two time steps. The method’s low data requirements (only land-use datasets are used) make it easily replicable, allowing application over a wide geographic area. The potential of the method to downscale land-use change scenarios is shown for a small area in Belgium using the CORINE land-cover dataset.

A spatial interaction model is constructed to simulate the historic agricultural land-use evolution of Corvo Island, Azores. Basic ingredients for the model are the local attractiveness for the different agricultural land-use types and historic population counts from 1590 to 2001. The spatial interaction model is then used to distribute employment, residents and respective surface areas, taking into account local agricultural attractiveness and distances between the different zones. These are in turn used to generate past land-use patterns.

In densely populated areas, space for development is confined, making spatial planning essential to reconcile the interests of all stakeholders. In the process of policymaking, possible future land-use scenarios are often very valuable as a reference point, but the optimal configuration in terms of costs and effects might provide even more valuable inputs when decisions have to be taken. Tools for exploring optimal land-use configurations are therefore of great interest to policymakers. With these tools, plans can be evaluated and adjusted. Spatial optimisation is a powerful method to explore the potentials of a given area to improve the spatial coherence of land-use functions. In the Netherlands, there are many different planning issues in which multi-objective spatial optimisation can play an important role. This chapter describes two case studies that apply the genetic algorithm approach.

The chapter examines the problem of choice of land use, energy input and technology that ensures economic viability and ecological sustainability in the Himalayan mountains. As the nature of the problem depends upon the local characteristics of the ecosystem, we propose to develop a model at the watershed level. This work develops a quantitative optimisation framework of net revenue maximisation using linear programming for structuring and articulating the problem of choice. The constraint of water availability has been taken into account to show how it drives the choice of technology and land use. The aims are to identify cost effective technologies, optimal land-use patterns and input combinations and to prescribe policies for adopting these technologies for rural situations with similar eco-regional and agro-climatic conditions.