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Land use

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Cumulative CO2 emissions from land-use change (as of 2021). Emissions from land-use change can be positive or negative depending on whether these changes emit (positive, brown on the map) or sequester (negative) carbon (green on the map).

Land use is an umbrella term to describe what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there.[1] The following categories are used for land use: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands.[2]: 2914  The way humans use land, and how land use is changing, has many impacts on the environment.[3][4]

Definition and categories

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A graphic description of land use in the Australian Capital Territory as of 2017. Colours represent different uses.
The development of global land use over the centuries and millennia: more and more of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture.

The IPCC defines the term land use as the "total of arrangements, activities and inputs applied to a parcel of land".[2]: 2914  The same report groups land use into the following categories: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands.[2]: 2914 

Another definition is that of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization: "Land use concerns the products and/or benefits obtained from use of the land as well as the land management actions (activities) carried out by humans to produce those products and benefits."[1]

As of the early 1990s, about 13% of the Earth was considered arable land, with 26% in pasture, 32% forests and woodland, and 1.5% urban areas.[1]

As of 2015, the total arable land is 10.7% of the land surface, with 1.3% being permanent cropland.[5][6]

For example, the US Department of Agriculture has identified six major types of land use in the United States. Acreage statistics for each type of land use in the contiguous 48 states in 2017 were as follows:[7]

US land use (2017)[7]
Use acreage (M) km2 (M) % of total
Pasture/range 654 2.647 35
Forest 538.6 2.18 28
Cropland 391.5 1.584 21
Special use 168.8 0.683 9
Miscellaneous 68.9 0.279 4
Urban 69.4 0.281 4
Total 1,891 7.653 100

Special use areas in the table above include national parks (29 M acres) and state parks (15 M), wildlife areas (64.4 M), highways (21 M), railroads (3M), military bases (25 M), airports (3M) and a few others. Miscellaneous includes cemeteries, golf courses, marshes, deserts, and other areas of "low economic value". The total land area of the United States is 9.1 M km2 but the total used here refers only to the contiguous 48 states, without Alaska etc.

Impacts on the environment

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Global distribution of land used for agriculture

Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals.[8][9]

Land use by humans has a long history, first emerging more than 10,000 years ago.[10][11]

Effects of land use choices and changes by humans include urban sprawl, soil erosion, soil degradation, land degradation and desertification.[12]

Land use change

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Land use change is "the change from one land-use category to another".[2]: 2914  Land-use change, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide, a dominant greenhouse gas.[13]

Deforestation is an example of large-scale land use change. The deforestation of temperate regions since 1750 has had a major effect on land cover.[14]

Land change modeling can be used to predict and assess future shifts in land use.

This section is an excerpt from Land change science.[edit]
Land change science refers to the interdisciplinary study of changes in climate, land use, and land cover.[15] Land change science specifically seeks to evaluate patterns, processes, and consequences in changes in land use and cover over time. The purpose of land change science is to contribute to existing knowledge of climate change and to the development of sustainable resource management and land use policy. The field is informed by a number of related disciplines, such as remote sensing, landscape ecology, and political ecology, and uses a broad range of methods to evaluate the patterns and processes that underlie land cover change. Land change science addresses land use as a coupled human-environment system to understand the impacts of interconnected environmental and social issues, including deforestation and urbanization.

Regulation

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Commonly, political jurisdictions will undertake land-use planning and regulate the use of land in an attempt to avoid land-use conflicts. Land use plans are implemented through land division and use ordinances and regulations, such as zoning regulations.

The urban growth boundary is one form of land-use regulation. For example, Portland, Oregon is required to have an urban growth boundary which contains at least 20,000 acres (81 km2) of vacant land. Additionally, Oregon restricts the development of farmland. The regulations are controversial, but an economic analysis concluded that farmland appreciated similarly to the other land.[16]

United States

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See also: Zoning § United States
Habitat fragmentation caused by numerous roads near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

In colonial America, few regulations were originally put into place regarding the usage of land. As society shifted from rural to urban, public land regulation became important, especially to city governments trying to control industry, commerce, and housing within their boundaries. The first zoning ordinance was passed in New York City in 1916,[17][18] and, by the 1930s, most states had adopted zoning laws. In the 1970s, concerns about the environment and historic preservation led to further regulation.

Today, federal, state, and local governments regulate growth and development through statutory law. The majority of controls on land, however, stem from the actions of private developers and individuals. Judicial decisions and enforcement of private land-use arrangements can reinforce public regulation, and achieve forms and levels of control that regulatory zoning cannot. There is growing concern that land use regulation is a direct cause of housing segregation in the United States today.[19]

Two major federal laws passed in the 1960s limit the use of land significantly. These are the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (today embodied in 16 U.S.C. 461 et seq.) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.).

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c FAO Land and Water Division retrieved 14 September 2010
  2. ^ a b c d IPCC, 2022: Annex II: Glossary [Möller, V., R. van Diemen, J.B.R. Matthews, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, J.S. Fuglestvedt, A. Reisinger (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 2897–2930, doi:10.1017/9781009325844.029.
  3. ^ Meyfroidt, P.; Roy Chowdhury, R.; de Bremond, A.; Ellis, E. C.; Erb, K. -H.; Filatova, T.; Garrett, R. D.; Grove, J. M.; Heinimann, A.; Kuemmerle, T.; Kull, C. A. (2018-11-01). "Middle-range theories of land system change" (PDF). Global Environmental Change. 53: 52–67. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.08.006. ISSN 0959-3780. S2CID 158366220.
  4. ^ Ellis, Erle C. (2021-10-18). "Land Use and Ecological Change: A 12,000-Year History". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 46 (1): 1–33. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-010822. ISSN 1543-5938. S2CID 244592514.
  5. ^ "World Bank arable land". World Bank. Archived from the original on October 2, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  6. ^ "World Bank permanent cropland". World Bank. Archived from the original on July 13, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  7. ^ a b Merrill, Dave; Leatherby, Lauren (July 31, 2018). "Here's How America Uses Its Land". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2018-08-05.
  8. ^ Ameztegui, Aitor; Coll, Lluis; Brotons, Lluis; Ninot, J.M. (2016). "Land-use legacies rather than climate change are driving the recent upward shift of the mountain tree line in the Pyrenees" (PDF). Global Ecology and Biogeography. 25 (3): 263–273. doi:10.1111/geb.12407. hdl:10459.1/65151. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 9, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  9. ^ "Chapter 1 - Meaning of Land" (PDF). Global Land Outlook (Report). United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. 2017. p. 21. ISBN 978-92-95110-48-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 20, 2022. Retrieved September 18, 2022.
  10. ^ Ellis, Erle; Goldewijk, Kees Klein; Gaillard, Marie-José; Kaplan, Jed O.; Thornton, Alexa; Powell, Jeremy; Garcia, Santiago Munevar; Beaudoin, Ella; Zerboni, Andrea (2019-08-30). "Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use". Science. 365 (6456): 897–902. Bibcode:2019Sci...365..897S. doi:10.1126/science.aax1192. hdl:10150/634688. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 31467217. S2CID 201674203.
  11. ^ Ellis, Erle C.; Gauthier, Nicolas; Goldewijk, Kees Klein; Bird, Rebecca Bliege; Boivin, Nicole; Díaz, Sandra; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Gill, Jacquelyn L.; Kaplan, Jed O.; Kingston, Naomi; Locke, Harvey (2021-04-27). "People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (17): e2023483118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11823483E. doi:10.1073/pnas.2023483118. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 8092386. PMID 33875599.
  12. ^ UN Land Degradation and Land Use/Cover Data Sources ret. 26 June 2007
  13. ^ "UN Report on Climate Change" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2007. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  14. ^ "Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing" (PDF). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 15, 2007.
  15. ^ "Land Change Science Program - Science". www.usgs.gov. Archived from the original on 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  16. ^ Jaeker WG, Plantinga AJ (2007). How have Land-use regulations Affected Property Values in Oregon? Archived 2012-07-22 at the Wayback Machine OSU Extension.
  17. ^ Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co.
  18. ^ Nolon, John R. (July–August 1992). "Local Land Use Control in New York: An Aging Citadel Under Siege". New York State Bar Journal: 38.
  19. ^ Trounstine, Jessica (May 2020). "The Geography of Inequality: How Land Use Regulation Produces Segregation". American Political Science Review. 114 (2): 443. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000844. S2CID 213239635.
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