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Farmland preservation : land for future generations
\"As land is lost to urban sprawl and other non-farm activity, our ability to produce food is diminished and options for future food production are limited. Farmland preservation speaks to the need to preserve the agricultural land base for future generations. The need for protection is driven by uncertainty caused by climate change, population growth, food security, energy availability, and other local and global factors. This uncertainty means that there is an ever-growing responsibility to ensure that the actions of today do not compromise the needs of future generations. This second edition of \"Farmland Preservation\" provides a range of views and case studies from across Canada, the United States, and beyond. Its fourteen essays are intended to help the reader understand the importance of the issue and the potential for applying new approaches to agricultural protection, policy tools, and initiatives.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Analysis of Changes in Land Use Patterns Pursuant to the Conversion of Agricultural Land to Non-Agricultural Use in the Context of the Sustainable Development of the Malopolska Region
This research paper presents the results of analyses that address the direction in which the issue of land use in Malopolska has been heading in recent years. The authors formulated the thesis that changes occurring in the use of agricultural land are advanced and, despite its legal protection, this land is continuously subjected to permanent conversion to non-agricultural use year by year. Verification of the thesis was carried out using taxonomic analyses. As a result, it was proven that as much as 68% of the land converted to non-agricultural use in the study period was earmarked for residential use. Importantly, as much as 19% of these areas are of the best quality classes, i.e., classes I and II, which account for a mere 7% of all agricultural land in Malopolska. Another 79% of the converted agricultural land belonged to the mid class, i.e., class III, which—at the time of writing—represents only 26% in the Malopolska Province. This data demonstrates that the best lands of the Malopolska Province, which belonged to classes I, II and III (i.e., top quality arable soils), were irreversibly degraded by their conversion to non-agricultural use. The paper proposes systemic solutions supporting the decision-making process of administrative bodies aimed at agricultural land protection.
Journal Article
Hydrological Response to Agricultural Land Use Heterogeneity Using Variable Infiltration Capacity Model
Hydrological responses corresponding to the agricultural land use alterations are critical for planning crop management strategies, water resources management, and environmental evaluations. However, accurate estimation and evaluation of these hydrological responses are restricted by the limited availability of detailed crop classification in land use and land cover. An innovative approach using state-of-the-art Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is utilized by setting up the crop-specific vegetation parameterization and analyse the effect of uniform and heterogeneous agricultural land use over the hydrological responses of the basin, in the Kangsabati River Basin (KRB). Thirteen year simulations (1998–2010) based on two different scenarios i.e., single-crop in agricultural land use (SC-ALU) and multi-crop in agricultural land use (MC-ALU) patterns are incorporated in the model and calibrated (1998–2006) and validated (2007–2010) for the streamflow at Reservoir and Mohanpur in the KRB. The results demonstrated that the VIC model improved the estimates of hydrological components, especially surface runoff and evapotranspiration (ET) at daily and monthly timescales corresponding to MC-ALU than SC-ALU (NSC > 0.7). Grid-scale ET estimates are improved after incorporating heterogeneous agricultural land use (NSC > 0.55 and R2 > 0.55) throughout the period of 1998–2010. This study improves our understanding on how the change in agricultural land use in the model settings alters the basin hydrological characteristics, and to provide model-based approaches for best management practices in irrigation scheduling, crop water requirement, and management strategies in the absence of flux towers, eddy covariance, and lysimeters in the basin.
Journal Article
Orchard Expansion May Diminish Groundwater Replenishment While Amplifying Nitrate Pollution in a Cultivated Loess Critical Zone
Agricultural land use and management changes significantly alter water and nitrate (NO3−) transport in the vadose zone (VZ) of the Earth's Critical Zone (CZ), thereby affecting groundwater recharge and quality. Here, we developed a multi‐column modeling approach to estimate recharge and NO3− transport in the cultivated loess CZ of China's Guanzhong Plain (CGP), with a specific focus on the cropland‐to‐orchard transition. The model also quantified uncertainties in water and NO3− fluxes caused by variability in soil hydraulic parameters (SHPs). Evaluation against observations from 12 sites demonstrate good model performance. Relative to measured SHPs, uncertainties in groundwater recharge and NO3− leaching fluxes ranged from 3% to 86% when using SHPs derived from Rosetta and global data sets, with higher uncertainties in orchards than in croplands. Simulations based on measured SHPs identified the central and eastern CGP as hotpots of groundwater NO3− contamination. The shift from corn‐wheat rotation to apple orchards increased NO3− leaching fluxes by 38 times while reducing groundwater recharge by 10%. Under both land‐use scenarios, NO3− travel times through the VZ spanned decades to centuries, and the cropland‐to‐orchard transition extended it by 23 years for NO3− to reach the aquifer. Although this conversion delays NO3− transport to the aquifer, the elevated leaching flux increases the risk of groundwater NO3− pollution, especially in regions with shallow VZs and coarse soil texture. This study highlights the critical need for caution when implementing large‐scale cropland‐to‐orchard conversions in the CGP and provides important insights for groundwater vulnerability assessments in regions with comparable hydrogeological and agricultural conditions.
Journal Article
Suprarural : architectural atlas of rural protocols of the American Midwest and the Argentine Pampas
The Atlas of rural protocols in the American Midwest and the Argentine Pampas is structured along eight systems of organization: transport and infrastructure, land subdivision, agricultural production, water management, storage and maintenance, human habitation, animal management, land management. Each of these systems possesses a number of organizational types, material components, normative relationships, and spectra of performance, which become available through a manual of instructions for a Suprarural architectural environment. The research is based on a realistic-overriding ethics towards design that operates by abstracting and intensifying unexplored territorial phenomena.
Book
Agricultural Water Use Efficiency and Rebound Effect: A Study for China
Agricultural water use accounts for the largest proportion of water withdrawal, so improving agricultural water use efficiency is an important way to alleviate water shortage. However, the expected water saving by the improved agricultural water use efficiency may be offset by the rebound effect, which means the goal of water saving by improving agricultural water use efficiency is not achieved. Based on the definition of the rebound effect of agricultural water use, this paper first uses a fixed model to measure the causal effect of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use to analyze the agricultural water rebound effect, then analyses the heterogeneity and mechanism of the effect of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use with the panel data from 30 provinces or cities in China from 2000 to 2017. The results show that, firstly, the agricultural water use efficiency has a significant negative effect on agricultural water use, but the average agricultural water rebound effect is 88.81%. Secondly, the effect of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use is heterogeneous, in which the improvement of agricultural water use efficiency in humid or major grain-producing areas will have a lower agricultural water rebound effect. Finally, agricultural water use efficiency can affect agricultural water use through planting area and planting structure. An increase in agricultural water use efficiency will expand the planting area to increase water use. However, this will change the planting structure to decrease water use. The implication for agricultural water management is that the irrigation agricultural scale has to be controlled under the condition of available water resource, while improving agricultural water use efficiency.
Journal Article
Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change
Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.
Journal Article