Land is a key input into agricultural production and the agricultural sector remains the main user of rural land in most OECD countries. How land is managed in agriculture, and the conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses, are likely to have implications not only for the provision of food, but also for the supply of public goods such as rural amenities, as well as for the quantity and quality of water.

This book reconciles competing and sometimes contradictory forms of land use, while also promoting sustainable land use options. It highlights land use planning, spatial planning, territorial (or regional) planning, and ecosystem-based or environmental land use planning as tools that strengthen land governance. Further, it demonstrates how to use these types of land-use planning to improve economic opportunities based on sustainable management of land resources, and to develop land use options that strike a balance between conservation and development objectives. Competition for land is increasing as demand for multiple land uses and ecosystem services rises. Food security issues, renewable energy and emerging carbon markets are creating pressures for the conversion of agricultural land to other uses such as reforestation and biofuels. At the same time, there is a growing demand for land in connection with urbanization and recreation, mining, food production, and biodiversity conservation. Managing the increasing competition between these services, and balancing different stakeholders’ interests, requires efficient allocation of land resources.

The OECD Territorial Review of Skåne assesses the capacity of the third largest region in Sweden to compete for investment and talents in an increasingly globalised economy. Skåne has long been one of the three major engines of national growth and ...

Land use has important consequences for the environment, public health, economic productivity, inequality and social segregation. Land use policies are often complex and require co-ordination across all levels of government as well as across policy sectors. Not surprisingly, land use decisions ...

People are constantly changing the land surface through construction, agriculture, energy production, and other activities. Changes both in how land is used by people (land use) and in the vegetation, rock, buildings, and other physical material that cover the Earth's surface (land cover) can be described and future land change can be projected using land-change models (LCMs). LCMs are a key means for understanding how humans are reshaping the Earth's surface in the past and present, for forecasting future landscape conditions, and for developing policies to manage our use of resources and the environment at scales ranging from an individual parcel of land in a city to vast expanses of forests around the world. Advancing Land Change Modeling: Opportunities and Research Requirements describes various LCM approaches, suggests guidance for their appropriate application, and makes recommendations to improve the integration of observation strategies into the models. This report provides a summary and evaluation of several modeling approaches, and their theoretical and empirical underpinnings, relative to complex land-change dynamics and processes, and identifies several opportunities for further advancing the science, data, and cyberinfrastructure involved in the LCM enterprise. Because of the numerous models available, the report focuses on describing the categories of approaches used along with selected examples, rather than providing a review of specific models. Additionally, because all modeling approaches have relative strengths and weaknesses, the report compares these relative to different purposes. Advancing Land Change Modeling's recommendations for assessment of future data and research needs will enable model outputs to better assist the science, policy, and decisionsupport communities.

This timely and thought-provoking book examines the contemporary struggle of communities over land ownership and use rights in rapidly urbanising areas, analysing 12 key case studies from across four continents. Contributions from an international team of researchers, policy analysts and experts explore both neoliberal urban development policies and socially innovative initiatives, providing a state-of-the-art reflection of the field and contributing to an agenda for future research, policy and practice.

OECD's review of rural policy in Quebec makes a series of recommendations to address policy challenges in social development, stabilisation, and the environment.

This book provides a comprehensive yet accessible overview of land systems vulnerability assessment in Asia - fundamental to the understanding of the link between global change, environmental sustainability and human wellbeing. The extent and intensity of human interactions with the environment have increased spectacularly since the Industrial Revolution. Thus, the global change research community and development practitioners increasingly recognize the need to address the adverse consequences of changes taking place in the structure and function of the biosphere and the implications for society. With a focus on Asia, this book provides an overview of the vulnerability of land systems and the subsequent multiple stressors in this region. The book offers a discussion surrounding the potential causal processes that affect land systems vulnerability and our capacity to cope with different perturbations. It also identifies factors that help to integrate vulnerability assessment into policy and decision-making. • Addresses the complex issues arising from human–environment interactions that cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by core disciplinary methods alone. • Key coverage of a variety of topics from the vulnerability of smallholder agriculture and urban systems to the impact of socioeconomic processes at the sub-regional level. • Coverage of the causal processes that affect land systems vulnerability and capacity to cope with different perturbations are documented. • Focus on integrating vulnerability assessment into policies and decision-making • Includes contributions from leading academics in the field.

Establishing the mechanism of realizing the value of ecological product is an important way to realize land use change, agricultural production transformation and reduce environmental pollution. In recent years, consumers' demand for ecological products has been increasing while the supply is seriously insufficient. The realization of ecological product value faces various bottlenecks, including the realization mechanism of ecological product value, land use variation and the temporal dynamics of land use change, and the driving forces behind land dynamics and their socio-ecological feedbacks. Meanwhile, the relationship between the realization of ecological product value, land use transformation and changes in agricultural production mode are still unclear. In the process of realizing the value of ecological products, how to realize agricultural production and land use transformation, and environmental improvement is also a constant concern to be solved desperately.