Sustainable_Use_of_Land

Planning for sustainable use of land Introduction "people are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature" (Rio declaration) An integrated approach to planning the use and management of land resources entails the involvement of all stakeholders in the process of decision making on the future of the land, and the identification and evaluation of all biophysical and socio-economic attributes of land units. This requires the identification and establishment of a use or non-use of each land unit that is technically appropriate, economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally non-degrading. A purely sectoral approach to the planning of land resources should be avoided, as this may lead to their irreversible degradation. Concern about the environment has been highlighted by the recent rapid growth of the world's human population, the increasing socio-economic interdependence of countries and regions, the growing awareness of the value of natural ecosystems, and the perception that current land use practices may influence the global climatic system. An integrated rather than sectoral approach is a means to prevent or resolve conflicts related to land and water use, as it optimizes the planning process and creates an enabling environment for mediation between, and decision making by, all stakeholders at early stages. The medium, or most likely, projection of population growth implies a near doubling of world population to about 10 thousand million by the year 2050 (UNFPA, 1992). Most experts agree that through full and judicious application of modern agricultural technology, the world's land resources can, in theory, provide sufficient food, fibre, animal feed, biofuel and timber for such a doubling. In practice, there will be acute land shortages in many countries, especially many developing ones. A recent FAO study (Alexandratos, 1995) estimates that 92% of the 1800 million ha of land in developing countries (excluding China) with rainfed crop potential, but not yet used for this purpose, is in Sub-Saharan Africa (44%) and in Latin America and the Caribbean (48%). Two-thirds of these 1800 million ha are concentrated in a small number of countries, e.g. 27% in Brazil, 9% in Zaire and 30% in 12 other countries. A good part of this land "reserve" is, however, under forest (at least 45%), or in protected areas, and should therefore not be considered as a readily-available reserve for agricultural production. A significant part (72% in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America) suffers from soil and terrain constraints. Overall some 50% of the 1800 million ha of land "reserve" is classified in the categories "humid" (i.e. too wet for most crops and rather unhealthy for human settlement) or as "marginally suitable for crop production". The possibilities for expansion of land for crop production are therefore limited. Consequently, much of the perceived increased need for food, etc. will have to come from intensification of production with high-yielding crop varieties in high-potential areas. These are lands with good soil and terrain conditions, with favourable temperature and rainfall conditions or a supply of irrigation water, and with easy access to mineral or organic fertilizers. FAO estimates (Yudelman, 1994) that, though arable land may expand by 90 million ha by the year 2010, the harvested area could increase by 124 million ha because cropping intensities would rise, with irrigated land in developing countries expanding by 23.5 million ha from the present 186 million ha. More detailed studies are under way on the irrigation potential in developing countries, and Africa in particular. These focus on areas combining suitable soil and terrain conditions that are under command, and with surface and groundwater freshwater resources that can be harnessed without excessive costs or damage to environmental values. At the same time FAO is cooperating with a number of UN Agencies and the Stockholm Environmental institute in assessing the global freshwater resources, with the aim of identifying where water crises may be imminent. As the result of intensification of land use in areas that are naturally well-endowed, or can be made so by economically-viable human interventions such as irrigation and drainage development, there will in the near future be a significant decrease in the land per rural household. Per caput availability of arable land in developing countries is projected by FAO to nearly halve between the late 1980s and 2010, from 0.65 to about 0.4 ha. This figure is likely to become even smaller toward 2050. In contrast to this sketched situation in developing countries, the per caput amount of arable land may increase in developed countries with their stagnant population growth. This could lead to the more marginal arable lands being taken out of production as "set-side" lands for nature "development", cultural landscape conservation or recreational purposes (Van de Klundert, et al., 1994). The situation in countries-in-transition is more difficult to project because of the current process of transfer of state-owned arable land to private ownership. The FAO predictions are limited in time scale to 2010, when any global climatic change is expected to be still of negligible influence. This may be different by the year 2050 or beyond. The consensus among climate change modellers is that in developing countries the effects on food security may be negative rather than positive (Norse and Sombroek, 1995). The above discussion has concentrated on the amount of land available for the production of food and fibre. Land has, however, many functions (see also ESCAP, 1994): • It is the basis for many life support systems, through the production of biomass that provides food, fodder, fibre, fuel. timber and other biotic materials for human use, either directly or through animal husbandry including aquaculture and inland and coastal fishery (the production function). • Land is the basis of terrestrial biodiversity by providing the biological habitats and gene reserves for plants, animals and micro-organisms, above and below ground (the biotic environmental function). • Land and its use are a source and sink of greenhouse gases and form a co-determinant of the global energy balance - reflection, absorption and transformation of radiative energy of the sun, and of the global hydrological cycle (the climate regulative function). • Land regulates the storage and flow of surface and groundwater resources, and influences their quality (the hydrologic function) • Land is a storehouse of raw materials and minerals for human use (the storage function). • Land has a receptive, filtering, buffering and transforming function of hazardous compounds (the waste and pollution control function). • Land provides the physical basis for human settlements, industrial plants and social activities such as sports and recreation (the living space function). • Land is a medium to store and protect the evidence of the cultural history of mankind, and a source of information on past climatic conditions and past land uses (the archive or heritage function). • Land provides space for the transport of people, inputs and produce, and for the movement of plants and animals between discrete areas of natural ecosystems (the connective space function). The suitability of the land for these functions varies greatly over the world. Landscape units, as natural resources units, have a dynamism of their own, but human influences affect this dynamism to a great extent, in space and time. The qualities of the land for one or more functions may be improved (for instance, through erosion control measures), but more often than not the land has been or is being degraded by human action. Human-induced land degradation has taken place all through history, such as during the Mediterranean and Middle East civilizations, around or before O AD, and during the time of European expansion in the Americas, Australia, Asia and Africa. During this century, however, land degradation, including desertification, has increased enormously in extent and severity, by direct action of a strongly growing world population and its increased livelihood expectations and demands (ISRIC, 1990). The rate of land degradation may continue unabated or even increase under conditions of any human-induced global climatic changes, but this cannot be automatically assumed. Land degradation can be controlled, redressed or even reversed if the land is used wisely, if all the functions of the land are taken into account, and if short-term vested interests of privileged groups are replaced by long-term enlightened interests of all segments of humankind, globally, nationally and locally. Land degradation has been exacerbated where there has been an absence of any land use planning, or of its orderly execution, or the existence of financial or legal incentives that have led to the wrong land use decisions, or one-sided central planning leading to over-utilization of the land resources - for instance for immediate production at all costs. As a consequence the result has often been misery for large segments of the local population and destruction of valuable ecosystems. Such narrow approaches should be replaced by a technique for the planning and management of land resources that is integrated and holistic and where land users are central. This will ensure the long-term quality of the land for human use, the prevention or resolution of social conflicts related to land use, and the conservation of ecosystems of high biodiversity value. Definition of land-"Land is a delineable area of the earth's terrestrial surface, encompassing all attributes of the biosphere immediately above or below this surface including those of the near-surface climate the soil and terrain forms, the surface hydrology (including shallow lakes, rivers, marshes, and swamps), the near-surface sedimentary layers and associated groundwater reserve, the plant and animal populations, the human settlement pattern and physical results of past and present human activity (terracing, water storage or drainage structures, roads, buildings, etc.)." Planning and management As stated before, land resources planning is the process of evaluation of options and subsequent decision-making which precedes implementation of a decision or plan. Land resources management, in its narrow sense is the actual practice of using the land by the local human population, which should be sustainable (FAO/Netherlands, 1991; see Box 1). The detailed operational aspects of such sustainable management are dealt within other chapters of Agenda 21: Chapters 7, 12, 13, 14, 18, etc. In a broader sense - as obviously meant in Chapter 10 - land resources management is the implementation of land use planning, as agreed between and with the direct participation of stakeholders. It is achieved through political decisions; legal, administrative and institutional execution; demarcation on the ground; inspection and control of adherence to the decisions; solving of land tenure issues; settling of water rights; issuing of concessions for plant and animal extraction (timber, fuel wood, charcoal and peat, non-wood products, hunting); promotion of the role of women and other disadvantaged groups in agriculture and rural development in the area, and the safeguarding of traditional rights of early indigenous peoples. URBAN needs | RURAL needs | | Prevention of mass-influx of rural poor | Availability of labour for agricultural activities (cropping, forestry, fisheries) | Potentially synergistic: socio-economic support mechanisms for stable and equitable income of rural population | Affordable food, especially for the poorer segments of the urban population | Substantial and stable market for agricultural produce, at above-cost prices | Antagonistic: food aid from outside the country Synergistic: promotion of credit and markets for locally produced food | Good access/communications with the hinterland (transport of raw materials; tourism) | Good access/communication with the urban centres (transport of agricultural inputs and outputs) | Synergistic | Energy from water reservoirs | Rural water resources for irrigation, agricultural produce processing | Antagonistic: flooding of agricultural or forest land by reservoirs Synergistic: water storage for both energy and irrigation | Steady and good quality water supply for human and industrial use | As above, and disposal of agricultural drainage water (salinity; some excess fertilizer input, pesticides, etc.) | Antagonistic: limitation of water quantity for upstream rural use; degradation of water quality for downstream urban use Synergistic: afforestation; more efficient agricultural inputs use | Household fuel (charcoal) and wood-based shelter materials (timber) | Vegetative protection of upper catchments and river banks to prevent degradation of agri- cultural land | Antagonistic, unless effective land market control Synergistic: afforestation and protection of vulnerable ecosystems | Disposal of solid and liquid waste and storm water | Protection of valuable natural ecosystems; replenishment of plant nutrients stock | Antagonistic: degradation of down stream agro-ecosystems Synergistic: reuse of treated waste on pert-urban agricultural lands | Expansion of settlement and industrial area and (peri) urban infrastructure (harbours, airports) and associated free land markets | Protection of prime agricultural- land and safe agricultural land tenure in pert-urban areas | Antagonistic, unless effective land market control | Box 3. Antagonism and synergism between urban and rural land resources use. | Sustainability indicators All land use planning should result in local land uses that are sustainable. The systematic assessment of sustainability of current or planned land uses is in its infancy. Many groups of researchers are trying to define sustainability indicators and to devise methods to monitor them in field conditions. The latter could be done on the basis of a system of periodic observation at representative sites of local, national or even global level, with remote sensing techniques to extrapolate the findings over the whole of the land cover or land use system or type. The latter is the aim of a proposed Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), at present in the planning phase by FAO, ICSU/IGBP, UNEP, UNESCO and WMO. TABLE 1 An initial approach to an international framework for classification of land uses Level I | Level II | Level III | Degree of modification of the ecosystem | Functional land use | Biophysical land use | Uses based on naturalecosystems | Not used | | | ConservationTotal conservation Partial conservation | | | | | | | | | Collection | Plant products | | | Animal products | | | Plant and animal products | Uses based on mixed natural andecosystems livestock | Agrosilvopastoralism | Forest products, cropping, managed and aquaculture on same holding | Uses based on managed ecosystems | Production forestry | Management of natural forests | | | Management of planted forests | | Livestock production | Nomadic grazing | | | Extensive grazing | | | Intensive livestock production | | | Confined livestock production | | Arable cropping | Shifting cultivation | | | Sedentary cultivation, temporary cropping | | | Sedentary cultivation, permanent cropping | | | Wetland cultivation | | | Covered crop production | | Mixed livestock and crop production | | | Fisheries production | Fishing | | | Aquaculture | Settlement and related uses | Recreation | | | Mineral extraction | Mining | | | Quarrying | | Settlement | Residential | | | Commercial | | | Industrial | | | Infrastructure | | Uses restricted by security |   | Sustainability indicators can be of many kinds: physio-biotic or socio-economic. Depending on the type of land use or non-use, and analogous to the listing of land qualities, physio-biotic indicators can be mainly land cover related (constancy of the natural vegetation structure or of its biodiversity), land surface related (absence of wind or water erosion, constancy of runoff), soil quality related (absence of human-induced salinization, acidification, compaction or loss of soil biologic activity) and substratum related (absence of human-induced waterlogging or pollution, constancy of depth and quality of groundwater). Conclusion The goal of a new integrated approach to planning the use and management of land resources is to make optimal and informed choices on the future uses of the land. It will be achieved through interactions and negotiations between planners, stakeholders and decision-makers at national, provincial and local levels. It will be on the basis of efficient, comprehensive data gathering and processing in a appropriate storage and retrieval system, through a network of nodal institutions. The smooth flow of the resulting evaluation of the data will be output in an understandable, user-friendly format. The plan will enable all stakeholders to co-decide on the sustainable, equitable and economic use of the land and follow it through to successful implementation. ********Sustainable use of natural resources is different from sustainable development. As the most important natural resource, sustainable use of land resource is the essential guarantee of sustainable development. The nature of sustainable use of land resource is to retain the quantity and productivity of land resource from generation to generation. The evaluation of sustainable use of land resource is an important method to ensure land-use to get onto the sustainable track. Furthermore, building index system is the key of the evaluation. In view of tendency of the evaluation indexes chosen so widely, the evaluation indexes should include only three kinds in the researches on the evaluation of sustainable use of land resource. The first is the stock and structure index of land resource, viz. Areas quantity structure of land resources. In China, it is especially paid attention to the per person index of land quantity and rate between cultivated land and farmland. The second is the productive index of land, which includes the productivity, potentiality, stability and renewal situation of land. The third is the sustained index of land environment. On the evaluation research of area level, we should lay particular emphasis on statistic indexes. With a case of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China, the evaluation index system of sustainable land-use in county area has been built in this thesis. Using the weighted average method to calculate the means of sustainable land-use in each county, according to the land-using situation, all counties in the autonomous region have been divided into three types. (1) Sustainable Pattern contains 18 counties, which have higher land resource productivity, stronger sustained abilities of land environment. The economic benefits of land-using in these counties are obviously higher. These counties have gotten highly intensive farming, and they are all in the good circumstance. (2) Basically Sustained Pattern contains 48 counties, which productivity of land resource is of middle level. In part of counties and cities, the stock of land resource inclines to lower level, but their land-using potentialities are still greater. Through changing land-using pattern, these counties can rapidly enter in a good circumstance. (3) Critically Sustained Pattern contains 14 counties, which are mostly in the karst mountain areas. They have less stock of land resource, lower productivity and more extensive cultivation. The productivity of land renewing has been hindered, so it urgently need to be renovated. At last, the writers have explored the basic ways of sustainable use of land resource in Guangxi, China — (1) Retain the stock of land resource and strictly manage farmland uses. (2) Strengthen the value accounting of land resource, and control the farmland occupation of non-agricultural construction. (3) Depend on technology advanced, optimize the land-using structure, and promote the productive level. (4) Carry out land management all-round, and improve the ecological environment of land resource. (5) Enhance evaluation researche and land monitoring, and promote the sustainable utilization level of land resource.