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"Land productivity"
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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
Analysis of Changes and Potential Characteristics of Cultivated Land Productivity Based on MODIS EVI: A Case Study of Jiangsu Province, China
Cultivated land productivity is a basic guarantee of food security. This study extracted the multiple cropping index (MCI) and most active days (MAD, i.e., days when the EVI exceeded a threshold) based on crop growth EVI curves to analyse the changes and potential characteristics of cultivated land productivity in Jiangsu Province during 2001–2017. The results are as follows: (1) The MCI of 83.8% of cultivated land remained unchanged in Jiangsu, the cultivated land with changed MCI (16.2%) was mainly concentrated in the southern and eastern coastal areas of Jiangsu, and the main cropping systems were single and double seasons. (2) The changes in cultivated land productivity were significant and had an obvious spatial distribution. The areas where the productivity of single cropping system changed occupied 67.8% of the total cultivated land of single cropping system, and the decreased areas (46.5%) were concentrated in southern Jiangsu. (3) For double cropping systems, the percentages of the changed productivity areas accounting for cultivated land were 82.7% and 73.3%. The decreased areas were distributed in central Jiangsu. In addition, the productivity of the first crop showed an overall (72%) increasing trend and increased areas (40.8%) of the second crop were found in northern Jiangsu. (4) During 2001–2017, cultivated land productivity greatly improved in Jiangsu. In the areas where productivity increased, the proportions of cultivated land with productivity potential space greater than 20% in single and double cropping systems were greater than 60% and 90%, respectively. In the areas where productivity decreased, greater than 25% and 75% of cultivated land had potential space in greater than 80% of the single and double cropping systems, respectively. This result shows that productivity still has much room for development in Jiangsu. This study provides new insight for studying cultivated land productivity and provides references for guiding agricultural production.
Journal Article
Urban Land Use Efficiency under Resource-Based Economic Transformation—A Case Study of Shanxi Province
Shanxi, one of China’s provinces, has been approved by the State Council as the only state-level comprehensive reform zone for resource-based economic transformation in 2010. Consequently, the implementation of National Resource-based Cities Sustainable Development Planning (2013–2020) and The State Council on Central and Western Regions Undertaking of Industrial Transformation Guide were also introduced. As a result, many agricultural lands were urbanized. The question is whether the transformed land was used efficiently. Existing research is limited regarding the impact of the government-backed transformation of the resource-based economy, industrial restructuring, and urbanization on land use efficiency. This research investigates urban land use efficiency under the government-backed resource-based economy transformation using the Bootstrap-DEA and Bootstrap-Malmquist methods. The land use efficiency and land productivity indexes were produced. Based on the empirical study of 11 prefectural cities, the results suggest that the level of economic development and industrial upgrading are the main determinants of land use efficiency. The total land productivity index declined after the economic reform was initiated. The findings imply that the government must enhance monitoring and auditing during policy implementation and evaluate the policy effects after for further improvement. With the scarcity of land resources and urban expansion in many cities worldwide, this research also provides an approach to determining the main determinants of land use efficiency that could guide our understanding of the impact of the future built environment.
Journal Article
The land productivity dynamics trend as a tool for land degradation assessment in a dryland ecosystem
The aim of this study was to produce a land productivity dynamic map of a degraded catchment located in dryland ecosystem via a land degradation assessment using three indicators, namely land use, land productivity, and soil organic carbon density. The study was conducted in the Mogan Catchment, Turkey, between 2000 and 2010. The study embraced the current trend for assessing ecosystem services over wide areas. For this purpose, satellite images were used to determine changes in land use and vegetation density. In addition, a total of 834 soil samples were collected from the surface soil in 2000 and 2010 to assess the soil organic carbon density. In more than 37% of the catchment area of approx. 37,100 ha, land productivity had declined, while about 43% of the catchment showed early signs of decline. Analysis of long-term changes and the conversion of levels of vegetative or standing biomass into land productivity dynamics (LPD) is only the first step. Current land management practices are contributing to serious, widespread land degradation, with only a very small area of the catchment showing a stable or increasing LPD for the period from 2000 to 2010. The implementation of land management policies and practices in order to achieve sustainable land management are urgently required.
Journal Article
Potential impact of land use change on land productivity dynamics with focus on land degradation in a sub-humid terrestrial ecosystem
The aim of this study was to generate a land productivity dynamics (LPD) map of a degraded catchment located in sub-humid terrestrial ecosystem via a land degradation assessment using three indicators, namely land use and land cover, land productivity, and soil organic carbon density. The study was carried out in two adjacent microcatchments located in Gediz River Basin and conducted between 2001 and 2015. For this purpose, Landsat satellite images were used to determine changing of land use and land cover and vegetation density. In addition, 319 soil samples were collected from surface and subsurface soil depths to detect soil organic carbon density of the study area in May 2015. According to the study results, in more than 23% of the catchments’ area of approx. 3896 ha, land productivity is observed to decline while about 24% shows early signs of decline level. Some of these areas used under agricultural cropping, overgrazed pasture, and artificial areas showed evidence of soil erosion problem. Only very small area of the catchment shows stable and increasing land productivity dynamics trend during the 14-year period.
Journal Article
Responses of soil microbial community activities and soil physicochemical properties to coal fly ash soil amendment
Background
Hundreds of millions of tons coal fly ash are produced annually to support economic development and industrial production. However, directly applying coal fly ash to agricultural production can decrease the land productivity and pose a threat to the ecosystem due to the poor physicochemical properties and seriously heavy metal pollution.
Methods
In this study, a field experiment to investigate the effects of coal fly ash as a soil amendment was conducted in Hebei province, China. The coal fly ash (CFA) soil field was mixed with the carrier soil (CS, without containing coal fly ash) at different rates (0–40% mass content) in the 0–20 cm layer of top soil and then mixed with a rotovator. The soil was then amended with 0.45–1.80 kg·m
− 2
of G1 soil amendment for planting corn.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the response mechanism of soil microbial community activities, and soil physicochemical properties to soil amendment and carrier soil in coal fly ash soil.
Key results
The study found that the G1 amendment, which consisted of humic acid, polyacrylamide, zeolite powder, and FeSO
4
·7H
2
O, improved the soil chemical properties and physical structure by increasing soil bulk density and macroaggregates. The highest corn yield was observed in B5 (20% CS and 1.3500 kg·m
− 2
G1). Meanwhile, the abundance of microorganisms that facilitate the circulation of soil nutrients such as
Acidobacteria
(77.05%),
Sphingomonas
(25.60%),
Nitrospira
(20.78%),
Streptomyces
(11.32%), and
Gaiella
(10.20%) was increased.
Conclusions
Overall, our results indicate that the use of coal fly ash soil as a amendment can enhance soil sustainability by improving soil microbial functions. These findings provide a reference for the development and application of coal fly ash soil amendments.
Journal Article
Water and Land Footprints and Economic Productivity as Factors in Local Crop Choice: The Case of Silk in Malawi
In deciding what crops to grow, farmers will look at, among other things, the economically most productive use of the water and land resources that they have access to. However, optimizing water and land use at the farm level may result in total water and land footprints at the catchment level that are in conflict with sustainable resource use. This study explores how data on water and land footprints, and on economic water and land productivity can inform micro-level decision making of crop choice, in the macro-level context of sustainable resource use. For a proposed sericulture project in Malawi, we calculated water and land footprints of silk along its production chain, and economic water and land productivities. We compared these to current cropping practices, and addressed the implications of water consumption at the catchment scale. We found that farmers may prefer irrigated silk production over currently grown rain-fed staple crops, because its economic water and land productivity is higher than that for currently grown crops. However, because the water footprint of irrigated silk is higher, sericulture will increase the pressure on local water resources. Since water consumption in the catchment generally does not exceed the maximum sustainable footprint, sericulture is a viable alternative crop for farmers in the case study area, as long as silk production remains small-scale (~3% of the area at most) and does not depress local food markets.
Journal Article
Assessment of Cultivated Land Productivity and Its Spatial Differentiation in Dongting Lake Region: A Case Study of Yuanjiang City, Hunan Province
Cultivated land is an important carrier of grain production, and scientific assessing of cultivated land productivity is of great significance to ensure food security. This paper assessed the overall productivity of cultivated land in Yuanjiang city from the perspectives of quantitative structure, spatial distribution and correlation with national land use. We applied statistical and GIS (geographic information system) spatial analysis methods to 16 secondary indicators of productivity. The results showed that the productivity index of cultivated land ranged from 1642.79 to 4140.09, concentrated in classes 2–6, among the most productive of 15 classes in total. The cultivated productivity indexes of most towns showed quantitative structural patterns of “inverted pyramid” and “dumbbell” types. Cultivated lands with high productivity showed a spatial distribution that decreased from the north to the south and increased from the center to the periphery. The spatial distribution of the higher-level classes in the cultivated land productivity index and the national cultivated land use index was similar. The correlation coefficient between the indexes for cultivated land productivity and the annual standard crop yield was 0.8817, implying that the index reflected local grain production capacity very well. In general, the research offered a reference and technical support for the sustainable use of cultivated land resources and enhanced regional cultivated land production capacity.
Journal Article
Modelling the Spatial Expansion of Green Manure Considering Land Productivity and Implementing Strategies
In modern sustainable agriculture, green manuring is increasingly emphasized for a reasonable land use management. However, the expansion of green manure is affected by a range of factors, such as soil geophysical properties and human intervention. This paper proposes an approach of spatial modelling to understand the mechanisms that influence green manure expansion and map the future distribution of green manure intercropped in the orchards in the Pinggu District, Beijing, China. We firstly classified the orchards into five grades according to a land productivity evaluation, and then considered two strategies for implementing green manure. Two scenarios were designed to represent the strategies: prioritizing low-productivity orchards to promote green manure intercropping (scenario 1) and prioritizing high-productivity orchards to promote green manure intercropping (scenario 2). The spatial expansion of green manure for 2020 was simulated at a resolution of a 100 × 100 m grid in the CLUE-S (the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at the Small Region Extent) model. The two strategies led to quite different spatial patterns of green manure, although they were applied to the same areas. As a result, the spatial pattern of green manuring of scenario 1 was more concentrated than that of scenario 2. To summarize, the modelled outcomes identified the driving factors that affect green manure expansion at a grid scale, whereas the implementing strategies directly determined the spatial arrangements of green manuring at a regional scale. Therefore, we argue that the assessment of the driving factors and the prediction of the future distribution of green manuring are crucial for informing an extensive use of green manure.
Journal Article
The Size Distribution of Farms and International Productivity Differences
We study the determinants of differences in farm size across countries and their impact on agricultural and aggregate productivity using a quantitative sectoral model featuring a distribution of farms. Measured aggregate factors (capital, land, economy-wide productivity) account for one-quarter of the observed differences in farm size and productivity. Policies and institutions that misallocate resources across farms have the potential to account for the remaining differences. Exploiting within-country variation in crop-specific price distortions and their correlation with farm size, we construct a cross-country measure of farm-size distortions which together with aggregate factors accounts for one-half of the cross-country differences in size and productivity.
Journal Article