Land use/land cover change dynamics and drivers in a low-grade marginal coffee growing region of Veracruz, Mexico

Abstract

In the state of Veracruz, Mexico, lowland and marginal coffee growing regions have been particularly vulnerable since the 1989 coffee crisis. Government programs have promoted production diversification as a strategy to improve local incomes and conserve environmentally beneficial shade-tree coffee agroforests. We present results on land use/ land cover dynamics in the municipality of Zozocolco de Hidalgo from 1973 to 2006. The municipality is recognized for its indigenous population and poverty, and currently, diversification efforts are being implemented. Our study combines remote sensing and GIS analyses, binary logistic regression and econometric modeling, as well as socioeconomic surveys to evaluate land use/land cover change (LULCC) dynamics and explore potential environmental and socioeconomic drivers. Results show that tree cover and coffee agroforests had largely been conserved during the first decade after the coffee crisis. But, recent trends indicate loss of tree cover in coffee agroforests and their conversion mostly to pasture. Land use/land cover drivers are largely explained by spatially explicit environmental variables such as slope and elevation. Relevant socioeconomic variables such as distance to markets and land use profitability were not significantly related to land use changes in Zozocolco. Surveys revealed that many households had converted coffee agroforests to pasture or agriculture in the past decade and others intended on renting or selling their agroforest plots, mostly for conversion to pasture. Diversification programs may not be sufficient to stem deforestation in lowland and marginal coffee growing regions. Moreover, information about locally varying socioeconomic and cultural contexts needs to be strongly considered in order to formulate effective strategies.

Drivers of Households’ Land-Use Decisions: A Critical Review of Micro-Level Studies in Tropical Regions

“…Better access to markets is found to be positively correlated with the extension of agricultural areas, especially for cash crop cultivation [35,[51][52][53]. Accordingly, a number of studies find a negative relation between distance to market centers and deforestation [54][55][56][57][58][59].…”

“…There is a consensus in the literature that population pressure is an important driver of land-use change [51,77,90,91] and that it also triggers technological change in agriculture technologies [32]. Since population pressure can only be partially reflected at the household level, micro-level studies on land-use change often incorporate census data into their analysis (see for instance, [32,39,44,51,58,91,92].…”

“…Since population pressure can only be partially reflected at the household level, micro-level studies on land-use change often incorporate census data into their analysis (see for instance, [32,39,44,51,58,91,92]. More precisely, population growth-often accelerated by migration-can either result in extensive (if uncultivated lands are available) or intensive land use (if uncultivated lands are not available).…”

Analysis of streamflow response to land use and land cover changes using satellite data and hydrological modelling: case study of Dinder and Rahad tributaries of the Blue Nile (Ethiopia–Sudan)

“…A supervised maximum likelihood classification (MLC) technique was independently employed to the individual images. MLC is the most common supervised classification method used with remote sensing image data (Ellis et al, 2010;Pradhan and Suleiman, 2009). The derivation of MLC is generally acceptable for remote sensing applications and is used widely (Richards et al, 2006).…”

Genesis of an indigenous social-ecological landscape in eastern Panama

“…In Central America, where 45% of the population is rural, deforestation rates are the highest in the world (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2010). Land-use decisions in rural Latin America are informed by biogeophysical land characteristics (Nelson et al 2001, Arroyo-Mora et al 2005, Ellis et al 2010, household demographics and socioeconomics (Walker et al 2000, Perz 2001, Abizaid and Coomes 2004, Carr 2005, Chowdhury and Turner 2006, Mena et al 2006, Potvin et al 2006, Gray et al 2008, Ellis et al 2010, Sydenstricker-Neto 2012, ethnicity (Carr 2005, Chowdhury andTurner 2006), legal land title (Nelson et al 2001, Carr 2005, public policies (Arroyo-Mora et al 2005, Potvin et al 2006, and market influences (Simmons 1997, Gray et al 2008see Pacheco et al 2011). The labeling of swidden agriculture as the principal cause of tropical deforestation has thus been questioned (Geist and Lambin 2002, Seidenberg et al 2003, Ickowitz 2006, Makana and Thomas 2006, Sirén 2007, Mertz et al 2008).…”