Modelling the spatial distribution of agricultural land use at the regional scale

Rounsevell, Mark; Annetts, Janet E.; Audsley, E.; Mayr, Thomas; Reginster, Isabelle

doi:10.1016/s0167-8809(02)00217-7

Cited by 207 publications

(123 citation statements)

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“…Notwithstanding farms are considered the basic unit of analysis in agriculture, modeling agricultural and natural systems usually requires integrating farm-scale actions with regional-scale approaches (Henseler et al, 2009;Rounsevell et al, 2003). Gómez-Limón and Riesgo (2004) indicates that when decisions are based on the same decision-making criteria (e.g.…”

Section: The Economic Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated assessment of policy interventions for promoting sustainable irrigation in semi-arid environments: A hydro-economic modeling approach

Ferrer

Varela‐Ortega

Purkey

2013

Journal of Environmental Management

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Keywords:Water management Sustainable irrigation Hydro-economic modeling Policy analysis Semi-arid regions Sustaining irrigated agriculture to meet food production needs while maintaining aquatic ecosystems is at the heart of many policy debates in various parts of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid áreas. Researchers and practitioners are increasingly calling for integrated approaches, and policy-makers are progressively supporting the inclusión of ecological and social aspects in water management programs. This paper contributes to this policy debate by providing an integrated economic-hydrologic modeling framework that captures the socio-economic and environmental effects of various policy initiatives and climate variability. This modeling integration includes a risk-based economic optimization model and a hydrologic water management simulation model that have been specified for the Middle Guadiana basin, a vulnerable drought-prone agro-ecological área with highly regulated river systems in southwest Spain. Namely, two key water policy interventions were investigated: the implementation of mínimum environmental ñows (supported by the European Water Framework Directive, EU WFD), and a reduction in the legal amount of water delivered for irrigation (planned measure included in the new Guadiana River Basin Management Plan, GRBMP, still under discussion). Results indícate that current patterns of excessive water use for irrigation in the basin may put environmental ñow demands at risk, jeopardizing the WFD's goal of restoring the 'good ecological status' of water bodies by 2015. Conñicts between environmental and agricultural water uses will be stressed during prolonged dry episodes, and particularly in summer low-ñow periods, when there is an important increase of crop irrigation water requirements. Securing mínimum stream ñows would entail a substantial reduction in irrigation water use for rice cultivation, which might affect the profitability and economic viability of small rice-growing farms located upstream in the river. The new GRBMP could contribute to balance competing water demands in the basin and to increase economic water productivity, but might not be sufficient to ensure the provisión of environmental ñows as required by the WFD. A thoroughly revisión of the basin's water use concession system for irrigation seems to be needed in order to bring the GRBMP in Une with the WFD objectives. Furthermore, the study illustrates that social, economic, institutional, and technological factors, in addition to bio-physical conditions, are important issues to be considered for designing and developing water management strategies. The research initiative presented in this paper demonstrates that hydro-economic models can explicitly intégrate all these issues, constituting a valuable tool that could assist policy makers for implementing sustainable irrigation policies.

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Section: The Economic Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated assessment of policy interventions for promoting sustainable irrigation in semi-arid environments: A hydro-economic modeling approach

Ferrer

Varela‐Ortega

Purkey

2013

Journal of Environmental Management

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“…Although some researchers thought that finalizing dominant economic options should consider ecosystem sustainability and social issues (Pfaff and Sanchez, 2004) some others believe that the economic development of many communities is based on proper land use planning with economic respects (Pasour, 1983). The use of different optimization methods have been developed whereby most immersive and reasonable management actions associated with them so that spatial distribution of agricultural land in order to maximize profits modeled (Rounsevell et al, 2003). Both linear and nonlinear programming to optimize and achieve higher profits of land also used (Benli and Kodal, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing land use pattern to reduce soil erosion

Sokouti

Nikkami

2017

Eurasian Journal of Soil Science (Ejss)

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Article Info Received : 14.05.2016 Accepted : 26.08.2016 Soil erosion hazard is one of the main problems can affect ecological balance in watersheds. This study aimed to determine the optimal use of land to reduce erosion and increase the resident's income of Qushchi watershed in West Azerbaijan province, Iran. Income and expenses for the current land uses were calculated with field studies. Damages resulting from the soil erosion were estimated by soil depth equal to the specified land uses. For three different options including the current status of land uses without and with land management, and the standard status of land uses, multiobjective linear programming model was established by LINGO software. Then the optimization problem of the land use was solved by simplex method. Finally, the best option of land use was determined by comparing erosion rate and its cost in each scenario. Then the circumstances and the recommended conditions were compared. The results indicated that the current surface area of current land uses is not suitable to reduce erosion and increase income of residents and should change in the optimum conditions. At the optimum level, there should change horticulture area of 408 to 507 (ha), irrigated land area of 169 to 136 (ha) and dry farming of 636 to 570 (ha), while conversion of rangeland area not indispensable. In addition, the results showed that in case of the optimization of land use, soil erosion and the profitability of the whole area will decrease 0.75% and increase 3.68%, respectively. In case of land management practices, soil erosion will decrease 42.27% and the profitability increase 21.39% while in the standard conditions, soil erosion will decrease 60.95% and profitability will increase 24.20%. The results of the sensitivity analysis showed that the changes in the horticulture and range land areas have the greatest impact on the increasing profitability and reducing soil erosion of Qushchi watershed. So, it is recommended using Education and Extension to promote the importance of land management to understand how proper use of the land.

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“…We expect, however, that categorical land-use change, such as the conversion from arable farming to livestock farming or from farming to nature conservation, will arise also from land exchange from one agent type to another. This is because a categorical change often requires considerable investment in knowledge and equipment for most land owners (Rounsevell et al 2003), while it may also lead to undesired social effects such as an alienation from one's network of peers (Karali et al 2013a, b), which have been shown to strongly influence the willingness to change (Lokhorst et al 2010(Lokhorst et al , 2011. This is supported by data from the Dutch Agricultural Economics Institute, which demonstrate that-over a time span of 10 years-farms that undergo a categorical land-use change (e.g., from dairy farming to arable farming) cover about 4 % of the total agricultural area, while parcels that undergo such a change (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land-use change arising from rural land exchange: an agent-based simulation model

et al. 2014

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Introduction Land exchange can be a major factor driving land-use change in regions with high pressure on land, but is generally not incorporated in land-use change models. Here we present an agent-based model to simulate land-use change arising from land exchange between multiple agent types representing farmers, nature organizations, and estate owners. Methods The RULEX model (Rural Land EXchange) was calibrated and applied to a 300 km 2 case study area in the east of the Netherlands. Decision rules about which actor will sell and buy land, as well as which specific land to buy or sell are based on historical observations, interviews, and choice experiments.Results A reconstruction of land-use change for the period 2001-2009 demonstrates that RULEX reproduces most observed land-use trends and patterns. Given that RULEX simulates only one mechanism of land-use change, i.e. land exchange, it is conservative in simulating change. Conclusions With this model, we demonstrate the potential of incorporating land market processes in an agent-based, land-use change model. This supports understanding of land-use change that is brought about by ownership change, which is an important process in areas where pressure on land is high. The soundness of the process representation was corroborated by stakeholders within the study area. Land exchange models can be used to assess the impact of changes in climate, markets, and policy on land use change, and help to increase effectiveness of alternative land purchasing strategies by stakeholders or spatial planning policy.

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Modelling the spatial distribution of agricultural land use at the regional scale

Cited by 207 publications

References 8 publications

Integrated assessment of policy interventions for promoting sustainable irrigation in semi-arid environments: A hydro-economic modeling approach

Integrated assessment of policy interventions for promoting sustainable irrigation in semi-arid environments: A hydro-economic modeling approach

Optimizing land use pattern to reduce soil erosion

Land-use change arising from rural land exchange: an agent-based simulation model

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