Local land-use decision-making in a global context

Abstract

Land-use change has transformed the majority of the terrestrial biosphere, impacting biodiversity, climate change, food production and provision of multiple ecosystem services. To improve our understanding of land-use change processes, the motivations and characteristics of land-use decisionmakers need to be addressed more explicitly. Here, we systematically review the peer-reviewed literature between 1950 and 2018 that documents decision-making underlying land-use change processes. We found 315 publications reporting on 559 case studies worldwide that report on land-use decision-making in sufficient depth. In these cases, we identified 758 land-use decision-makers. We clustered decision-makers based on their objectives, attitudes and abilities into six distinct types: survivalist, subsistence-oriented smallholder, market-oriented smallholder, professional commercialist, professional intensifier and eco-agriculturalist. Survival and livelihood were identified as most common objectives for land-use decision makers, followed by economic objectives. We observe large differences in terms of decision-makers' attitudes towards environmental values, and particularly their financial status, while decision makers have a generally favorable attitude towards change and legislation. The majority of the documented decision-makers in the literature have only few abilities as they are poor and own small plots of land, while the wealthier decision-makers were identified to have more power and control over their decisions. Based on a representativeness analysis, we found that decision-making processes in marginal areas, such as mountainous regions, are overrepresented in existing case study evidence, while remote areas and lowlands are under-represented. These insights can help in the design of better land-use change assessments, as well as to improve policies towards sustainable land use.

Ecological restoration of agricultural land can improve its contribution to economic development

“…However, despite growing awareness of these concepts, their practical application is still limited, and the core problem has not been fully addressed. Economic objectives continue to be of overriding importance for land-use decision-making, regardless of the type of decision-maker involved [ 54 ].…”

How can social–ecological system models simulate the emergence of social–ecological crises?

“…Research that highlights observed similarities among social-ecological contexts such as land system archetypes (Václavík et al, 2013) or decision-making types (Malek et al, 2019), can also aid identification of shared major processes (Rocha et al, 2019) or drivers of change (Harrison et al, 2018). A separate benefit of adopting a 'high-level' process approach is that the resulting models are likely to be widely understandable because the processes accord with those experienced by actors and stakeholders in any given system.…”

“…They are intended to do so by focusing on general processes from which changes emerge (Figure 1), rather than providing a description of variation at a certain time, or specific effects or situations that lead to breakdowns. Research that highlights observed similarities among social–ecological contexts such as land system archetypes (Václavík et al., 2013) or decision‐making types (Malek et al., 2019), can also aid identification of shared major processes (Rocha et al., 2019) or drivers of change (Harrison et al, 2018).…”

Beyond land cover change: towards a new generation of land use models

“…To fill this gap, Malek et al [37] conducted a metaanalysis of case-studies to identify where, and under what conditions, certain modes of land-use decision making are found. The occurrence of archetypes of decision making, ranging from satisficing behavior to utility maximization, was related to contextual conditions, leading to a predictive model that indicates what mode of land use decision making can be expected in a particular context (Figure 1).…”

“…Environmental SustainabilityResults of a meta-analysis of case studies reporting decision-making modes worldwide. Left: Radar charts showing average scores on abilities (financial, land size, land tenure, connectedness, power), objectives (survival, economic, environmental, lifestyle, social prestige) and attitudes (change, legislation, environmental values) for the different decision-modes; Right: Maps depicting likelihood of finding a specific decision mode based on extrapolation with socio-economic and biophysical context variables[37].…”