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Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 May 2022) | Viewed by 22197

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Ruediger Schaldach

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Guest Editor

Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Interests: land-use systems; integrated modeling; atmosphere–land interactions; strategies for sustainable resource management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Humanity has transformed large parts of the Earth’s land surface into settlement, agriculture, and managed forests with significant impacts on the structure and functioning of ecosystems. For example, the main drivers of deforestation and the loss of biodiversity are the expansion and intensification of cropland and pasture needed to satisfy the increasing demand for food, biomaterials, and bioenergy due to changing consumption patterns of an ever-growing world population. The looming climate crisis is likely to further increase pressures on the amount and quality of land resources. Hence, the development and implementation of more environmentally compatible land-use strategies that respect planetary boundaries becomes one of the key challenges for science, policy, and society in the coming decades. In this context, it will be necessary to identify and overcome conflicts of interest between differentland uses in addition to disentangling and quantifying causal relationships between the drivers of land-use change and the resulting environmental impacts across spatial scales.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to contribute to a better scientific understanding of these tradeoffs and causal relationships and to discuss strategies for more sustainable forms of land use from an environmental science perspective. It is open to submissions of original research papers and review articles that focus on case studies as well as on innovative analytical methods (e.g., simulation models, remote sensing approaches) and indicators. Analyses on the regional and the global scale are welcome. Topics include but are not limited to the following: (1) Methods for quantifying and monitoring land-use change and degradation of environmental systems. (2) Tradeoffs between agricultural/forest production and protection of natural resources (water, soil). (3) Bioeconomy and sustainable land use. (4) Modeling of transnational impacts of human consumption on land and water use, ecosystems, and biodiversity (telecoupling, footprints). (5) Modeling and remote sensing methods to support the development of new strategies for sustainable land use on different scale levels.

We expect this Special Issue will become an important reference for state-of-the art methods to analyze and evaluate tradeoffs and competition between different land uses and their environmental impacts, but also on the exploration of new pathways towards more sustainable land-use practices across scales.

Prof. Dr. Ruediger Schaldach
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

land-use change
environmental impacts
sustainable land use
modeling and remote sensing
environmental footprints

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 1853 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM): Management and Socioenvironmental Impacts in the Northern Amazon of Ecuador

by Carlos Mestanza-Ramón, Demmy Mora-Silva, Giovanni D’Orio, Enrique Tapia-Segarra, Isabel Dominguez Gaibor, José Fernando Esparza Parra, Carlos Renato Chávez Velásquez and Salvatore Straface

Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6854; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116854 - 3 Jun 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 5664

Abstract

Mining is one of the oldest economic activities of mankind. Within this activity, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is one of the most studied sectors due to its high level of environmental contamination and the social problems it causes. In recent years, ASGM in the northern Amazon of Ecuador has increased significantly, and studies that describe its current situation and impact are scarce. In this sense, the present study aimed to analyze the current status and socioenvironmental impacts caused by ASGM gold mining activities in the Cascales canton in the province of Sucumbíos in northeastern Ecuador. The methodological tools used in the present study were a literature review of scientific and gray literature, field visits to assess perceived impacts and an expert judgment to discuss the results and establish challenges. The main results indicate that illegal and informal activities continue to be carried out in the upper zone of the Cascales and Duvino rivers; 90% of local miners still use mercury in this activity, although it is legally prohibited. Among the main impacts evidenced are the contamination of water bodies, soil and atmosphere due to the use of mercury and disturbance to flora and fauna due to the use of machinery in the exploration process. Finally, the government should focus efforts on strengthening public policies to socialize the importance of good environmental practices in ASGM and the effects of the impacts on human health and environmental issues, all this with the support of social actors, such as ministries, universities, NGOs, ASGM associations and private enterprise. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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16 pages, 2780 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessing Land Use Efficiencies and Land Quality Impacts of Renewable Transportation Energy Systems for Passenger Cars Using the LANCA^® Method

by Ville Uusitalo, Rafael Horn and Stephanie D. Maier

Sustainability 2022, 14(10), 6144; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14106144 - 18 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1734

Abstract

Targets to reduce global warming impacts of the transportation sector may lead to increased land use and negative land quality changes. The aim of this paper is to implement the Land Use Indicator Calculation in Life Cycle Assessment (LANCA^®) model to assess land quality impacts and land use efficiencies (concerning occupation and transformation) of different example renewable transport energy systems for passenger cars. In addition, the land use impacts are normalized according to the Soil Quality Index building on LANCA^® and included in the environmental footprint. The assessment is based on information from GaBi life cycle assessment software databases and on literature. Functional unit of the model is to provide annual drive of 18,600 km for a passenger car in the EU. The analysis includes examples of biomass, electricity, electricity to fuels and fossil-based energy systems. Our findings confirm previous research that biomass-based transport energy systems have risks to lead to significantly higher land occupation and transformation impacts than do fossil oil or electricity-based ones. According to the LANCA^® model, methane from Finnish wood and German corn has the highest impacts on filtration and the physicochemical filtration reduction potential. Sugarcane ethanol and palm oil diesel systems, on the other hand, lead to the highest erosion potential. Electricity-based transportation energy systems appear to be superior to biomass-based ones from the perspectives of land occupation, land transformation, and soil quality impacts for the selected examples. Land quality impacts should be taken into account when developing and expanding renewable transportation energy systems. The paper shows that the LANCA^® method is applicable for the assessment of transport systems in order to provide extended information on environmental sustainability, which should be included more often in future analysis. However, it can be challenging to interpret underlaying assumptions, especially when aggregated information is used from databases. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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19 pages, 4740 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bridging Modeling and Certification to Evaluate Low-ILUC-Risk Practices for Biobased Materials with a User-Friendly Tool

by Enrico Balugani, Beike Sumfleth, Stefan Majer, Diego Marazza and Daniela Thrän

Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 2030; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042030 - 10 Feb 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2032

Abstract

Biobased materials may help to achieve a renewable, circular economy, but their impact could be similar to those of non-renewable materials. In the case of biofuels, the indirect land use change (ILUC) effects determine whether they can provide sustainability benefits compared to fossil fuels. ILUC modeling estimates have large uncertainties, making them difficult to include in a policy aiming at reducing environmental impacts. The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II reduced ILUC estimate uncertainties by shifting the focus from ILUC environmental impacts to ILUC risk. Nevertheless, this does not take into account either certifiable additionality practices to reduce the ILUC risk for the production of biobased materials, or biobased materials other than biofuels. Here we propose a simple, user-friendly tool to bridge the gap between ILUC modeling and policy, by estimating the ILUC risk of biobased material production and to assess by how much different additionality practices can reduce that risk at different levels of the value chain. This was done by explicitly including the additionality practices in an ILUC model, simplifying the model to a spreadsheet tool that relates automatically the input provided by the user, which may be a producer or a policy maker, with a certain ILUC risk. We demonstrate the functioning of the tool on two examples: maize production in Iowa and in Romania. In Iowa, maize production is already very intensive, so the additionality practices proposed have little effect on its ILUC risk category, and the low-ILUC-risk-produced maize would amount to 0.03 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. In Romania there is ample margin for implementation of additionality practices, and thus a large potential to reduce the ILUC risk category of maize production, with low-ILUC-risk-produced maize amounting to 0.19 t ha⁻¹ year ⁻¹. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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24 pages, 2008 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Global Land Use Impacts of Bioeconomy: An Econometric Input–Output Approach

by Johannes Reinhard Többen, Martin Distelkamp, Britta Stöver, Saskia Reuschel, Lara Ahmann and Christian Lutz

Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 1976; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14041976 - 9 Feb 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2188

Abstract

Many countries have set ambiguous targets for the development of a bioeconomy that not only ensures sufficient production of high-quality foods but also contributes to decarbonization, green jobs and reducing import dependency through biofuels and advanced biomaterials. However, feeding a growing and increasingly affluent world population and providing additional biomass for a future bioeconomy all within planetary boundaries constitute an enormous challenge for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Global economic models mapping the complex network of global supply such as multiregional input–output (MRIO) or computable general equilibrium (CGE) models have been the workhorses to monitor the past as well as possible future impacts of the bioeconomy. These approaches, however, have often been criticized for their relatively low amount of detail on agriculture and energy, or for their lack of an empirical base for the specification of agents’ economic behavior. In this paper, we address these issues and present a hybrid macro-econometric model that combines a comprehensive mapping of the world economy with highly detailed submodules of agriculture and the energy sector in physical units based on FAO and IEA data. We showcase the model in a case study on the future global impacts of the EU’s bioeconomy transformation and find small positive economic impacts at the cost of a considerable increase in land use mostly outside of Europe. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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13 pages, 1722 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Germany’s Agricultural Land Footprint and the Impact of Import Pattern Allocation

by Klaus Josef Hennenberg, Swantje Gebhardt, Florian Wimmer, Martin Distelkamp, Christian Lutz, Hannes Böttcher and Rüdiger Schaldach

Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 105; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010105 - 23 Dec 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2993

Abstract

Footprints are powerful indicators for evaluating the impacts of a country’s bioeconomy on environmental goods, both domestic and abroad. We apply a hybrid approach combining a multi-regional input-output model and land use modelling to compute the agricultural land footprint (aLF). Furthermore, we added information on land-use change to the analysis and allocated land conversion to specific commodities. Using Germany as a case study, we show that the aLF abroad is 2.5 to 3 times larger compared to impacts within the country. When allocating land conversion of natural and semi-natural land-cover types in 2005 and 2010 to import increases by Germany, conversion rates were found to be 2.5 times higher than for the global average. Import increases to Germany slowed down in 2015 and 2020, reducing land conversion attributed to the German bioeconomy as well. Our results indicate that looking at a static import pattern is not sufficient to draw a realistic picture of the land footprint of a country. For a more detailed assessment that also considers temporal dynamics and impacts of biomass use and trade, our newly developed set of indicators also captures changes of import patterns over time. The case study shows that our enhanced land footprint provides clear and meaningful information for policymakers and other stakeholders. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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23 pages, 2606 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Biodiversity Monitoring in Long-Distance Food Supply Chains: Tools, Gaps and Needs to Meet Business Requirements and Sustainability Goals

by Meghan Beck-O’Brien and Stefan Bringezu

Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8536; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158536 - 30 Jul 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3603

Abstract

Rampant loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services undermines the resilience of food systems. Robust knowledge on impacts is the first step to taking action, but long-distance food supply chains and indirect effects on and around farms make understanding impacts a challenge. This paper looks at the tools available for businesses in the food industry, especially retailers, to monitor and assess the biodiversity performance of their products. It groups tools according to their general scope to evaluate what is monitored (processes on-site, pressures on landscapes, impacts on species), at what scale (specific products, company performance, country-wide consumption levels), and compared to which baseline (pristine nature, alternative scenarios, governance targets). Altogether we find major gaps in the criteria for biodiversity or the criteria is weak in certification and standards, business accounting and reporting systems, and scientific modelling and analysis (biodiversity footprints). At the same time, massive investments have been made to strengthen existing tools, develop new ones, increase uptake and improve their effectiveness. We argue that business can and must take a leading role toward mitigating biodiversity impacts in partnership with policy makers and customers. Zero-deforestation commitments, for example, will need to be upheld by supporting changed practices in consumption (e.g., choice editing) and combating degradation within agricultural systems will require a shift toward more regenerative forms of farming (e.g., with norms embedded in robust standard systems). Operational targets are integral to monitoring biodiversity performance across all scales. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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Review

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24 pages, 6349 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Bibliometric Analysis on the Effects of Land Use Change on Ecosystem Services: Current Status, Progress, and Future Directions

by Jie Xu and Pengnan Xiao

Sustainability 2022, 14(5), 3079; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14053079 - 7 Mar 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2825

Abstract

Land use changes cause significant alterations in the land surface structure and significantly impact ecosystem services. Research on land use change (LUC) and ecosystem services has become one of the hotspots of interdisciplinary research in ecology and geography. Based on 1860 publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection^TM (WoS), the top authors, top organizations, top journals, and subject categories were discussed in detail. For the number of published articles, Sustainability ranks first with 86 publications, providing significant contributions in domain. The keywords could be classified into six categories: land use/land cover change, conservation, biodiversity, policies and programmers, environmental change, and agriculture. Citations and reference co-citations were analyzed, and popular literature and co-cited literature in the field were identified. In the discussion, we focus on four important issues, including land use area changes, land use pattern changes, land use spatial pattern changes, and land use changes at different scales. The research framework in the field and the shortcomings of existing research are discussed as well. The main aim of the paper is to assist researchers in identifying potential gaps in the research that should be addressed in future research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Sustainable Land Use: An Environmental Science Perspective)

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