In the context of energy security and climate protection, biomass is given high importance. Nevertheless, land-use conflicts resulting from the cultivation of biomass and their economy-wide effects are yet to be fully understood. To shed light on this issue we link three distinctive models; a global, multi-regional general equilibrium model (DART), a regionalised agricultural sector model for G...

Global climate change, especially the phenomena of global warming, is expected to increase the intensity of land-falling hurricanes. Societal adaptation is needed to reduce vulnerability from increasingly intense hurricanes. This study quantifies the adaptation effects of potentially policy driven caps on housing densities and agricultural cover in coastal (and adjacent inland) areas vulnerable...

Aim Land-use history can be an important determinant of ecosystem characteristics, even in landscapes that outwardly appear natural . In New England, like much of the eastern United States, the natural reforestation of agricultural lands over the past 150 years has created a predominantly forested landscape. Understanding the physiographical and historical factors controlling forest structure a...

In response to the need for generic remote sensing tools to support large-scale agricultural monitoring, we present a new approach for regional-scale mapping of agricultural land-use systems (ALUS) based on object-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series analysis. The approach consists of two main steps. First, to obtain relatively homogeneous land units in terms of pheno...

abstract in this study the effects of land use changes from pasturelands to croplands on soil microbiological and biochemical properties were studied in kangaver, dehno and soltanye regions. composite soil samples from 0-20 and 20-40 cm depths of pasture and cultivated lands were taken from kangaver, dehno and soltanye regions, and soil microbial respiration, microbial biomass c and n, and urea...

A key challenge for land change science in general and research on swidden agriculture in particular, is linking land cover information to human-environment interactions over larger spatial areas. In Lao PDR, a country facing rapid and multi-level land change processes, this hinders informed policy- and decision-making. Crucial information on land use types and people involved is still lacking....

Agriculture began in the eastern Mediterranean Levantine Corridor about 11000 years ago toward the end of the Younger Dryas when aridity had diminished wild food resources. During the subsequent Climatic Optimum, agricultural villages spread rapidly but subsequent climatic changes on centennial to millennial scales resulted in striking oscillations in settlement, especially in marginal areas. N...

This paper provides an overview of a number of different methodologies for land use analysis aimed at agricultural policy support, developed during a decade of collaborative research in Costa Rica. The methodologies are classified in five groups, (i) projective, (ii) explorative, (iii) predictive, (iv) generative and (v) prototyping. Whereas the first three involve land use analysis on (sub-)re...

There has been a resurgence of interest in the impacts of agricultural productivity on land use and the environment. At the center of this debate is the assertion that agricultural innovation is land sparing. However, numerous case studies and global empirical studies have found little evidence of higher yields being accompanied by reduced area. We find that these studies overlook two crucial f...