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Sustainable Land Management in Times of Climate Extremes – Adaptations, Institutional Frameworks, Farmer Behaviour, and Community Empowerment

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A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 July 2023) | Viewed by 8346

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Barbora Duží

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Guest Editor

Institute of Geonics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Department of Environmental Geography, Drobného 28, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Interests: societal adaptation to climate change; environmental sociology; land system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Stanislav Martinát

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Social, Economic and Geographic Sciences Group, The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK
Interests: low-carbon transition; diffusion and uptake of renewable energy; socio-spatial consequences of renewable energy; agricultural change; bioenergies; brownfield regeneration; community development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Jakub Trojan

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Logistics and Crisis Management, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Uherské Hradiště, 686 01 Zlín, Czech Republic
Interests: citizen science; urban planning; gis; geography; geoinformatics; human geography; environment; sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Petr Dvořák

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Guest Editor

Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Chittussiho 10, 710 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic
Interests: renewable resources; energy geography; rural geography

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to deepen our understanding of how land managers are coping with the dynamically changing resilience of agriculture to climate extremes. We are particularly interested in receiving papers that analyse the ways in which farmers adapt to the issue of drought. Our endeavor is not only to advance our comprehension of individual techniques, tools, and institutional frameworks of land management but also to assess their transferability to other environmental and socio-cultural contexts. Additionally, we are keen on learning more about the social science side of this issue, such as the role and behavior of land owners and land managers in building agricultural resilience or revealing nuances of institutional frameworks that have the potential to make a difference. Moreover, we seek to better understand how communities can use their undeniable influence to increase the accountability for land management and what positive and negative experiences might be formulated.

We cordially invite papers analysing the links between agriculture, social space, and environmental aspects of sustainable land management. Finally, we would like to hear more about how to involve local stakeholders and citizens in decision-making through public engagement, such as citizen science projects.

Dr. Barbora Duží
Dr. Stanislav Martinát
Dr. Jakub Trojan
Dr. Petr Dvořák
Guest Editors

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. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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

climate extremes
agriculture
resilience
empowerment
land ownership
local stakeholders
community
sustainable land management
citizen science

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 236 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effect of Empowerment on the Adoption of Soil and Water Conservation Technology in the Loess Plateau of China

by Yaqin Ren, Hui Feng and Tianzhi Gao

Land 2023, 12(8), 1502; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12081502 - 28 Jul 2023

Viewed by 727

Abstract

Since there is a serious problem of land degradation and soil erosion in the Loess Plateau region of China, soil and water conservation technology (SWC) is necessary to protect land resources and reduce water loss, so as to promote the development of sustainable agriculture. By using the binary probit model, this study analyzes the effect of organizational, economic and self-empowerment on the adoption of soil and water conservation technology in the Loess Plateau region of China. The results indicated that all these empowerments have significant positive effects on the adoption of SWC, and there are significant gender differences in the impact. Organizational empowerment had a more significant impact on the adoption of SWC by male household heads, while economic empowerment and self-empowerment had a more significant effect on the adoption of SWC by female household heads. Therefore, more organizational and financial support for farmers is needed, and farmers themselves should have more confidence in the adoption of new technologies. Furthermore, given the gender differences in the impact, more gender equality should be ensured in the promotion of agricultural technologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Management in Times of Climate Extremes – Adaptations, Institutional Frameworks, Farmer Behaviour, and Community Empowerment)

22 pages, 1237 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Testing the Effects of Water-Saving Technologies Adapted to Drought: Empirical Evidence from the Huang-Huai-Hai Region in China

by Chunxiao Song, Yue Rong, Ruifeng Liu, Les Oxley and Hengyun Ma

Land 2022, 11(12), 2136; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122136 - 26 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1539

Abstract

The aggravation of extreme weather events has dramatically increased the risk of severe water shortages and seriously threatened agricultural production. The Huang-Huai-Hai region, an important agricultural production region in China, is subject to a severe water shortage and is often hit by drought. As a result, water-saving technologies (WSTs) have been implemented. It remains unclear how effectively these WSTs can reduce crop yield loss, crop yield variation, and the loss of net crop income caused by water scarcity. Therefore, this paper aimed to analyze the role of WSTs in response to drought by establishing a multi-objective expected utility function based on 988 farmers across the Huang-Huai-Hai region. Econometric analysis employing an endogenous switching regression model showed that using WSTs can significantly reduce crop yield loss and net income loss caused by drought. Adopting household-based WSTs or community-based water-saving technology generates even greater positive effects on crop yield and farmers’ net income. Therefore, the government should promote farmers’ adoption of more advanced WSTs by increasing subsidies and strengthening policy support. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Management in Times of Climate Extremes – Adaptations, Institutional Frameworks, Farmer Behaviour, and Community Empowerment)

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30 pages, 3934 KiB

Open AccessArticle

What Prevents the Adoption of Regenerative Agriculture and What Can We Do about It? Lessons and Narratives from a Participatory Modelling Exercise in Australia

by Daniel C. Kenny and Juan Castilla-Rho

Land 2022, 11(9), 1383; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11091383 - 23 Aug 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3735

Abstract

Regenerative agriculture (RegenAg) can help landholders attune their agricultural practices to the natural design of the earth’s cycles and support systems. The adoption of RegenAg, however, hinges not only on a good understanding of biophysical processes but perhaps more importantly on deep-seated values and beliefs which can become an obstacle for triggering widespread transitions towards synergistic relationships with the land. We designed and facilitated a Participatory Modelling exercise with RegenAg stakeholders in Australia—the aim was to provide a blueprint of how challenges and opportunities could be collaboratively explored in alignment with landholders’ personal views and perspectives. Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) were used to unpack and formalise landholder perspectives into a semi-quantitative shared ‘mental model’ of the barriers and enablers for adoption of RegenAg practices and to subsequently identify actions that might close the gap between the two. Five dominant narratives which encode the key drivers and pain points in the system were identified and extracted from the FCM as a way to promote the internalisation of outcomes and lessons from the engagement. The Participatory Modelling exercise revealed some of the key drivers of RegenAg in Australia, highlighting the complex forces at work and the need for coordinated actions at the institutional, social, and individual levels, across long timescales (decades). Such actions are necessary for RegenAg to play a greater role in local and regional economies and to embed balancing relationships within systems currently reliant on conventional agriculture with few internal incentives to change. Our methods and findings are relevant not only for those seeking to promote the adoption of RegenAg in Australia but also for governments and agriculturalists seeking to take a behaviorally attuned stance to engage with landholders on issues of sustainable and resilient agriculture. More broadly, the participatory process reported here demonstrates the use of bespoke virtual elicitation methods that were designed to collaborate with stakeholders under COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Management in Times of Climate Extremes – Adaptations, Institutional Frameworks, Farmer Behaviour, and Community Empowerment)

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Review

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18 pages, 628 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Evidence Synthesis towards a Holistic Landscape Decision Framework: Insight from the Landscape Decisions Programme

by Chidiebere Ofoegbu, Heiko Balzter and Martin Phillips

Land 2023, 12(8), 1543; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12081543 - 4 Aug 2023

Viewed by 1487

Abstract

The development of a decision framework for landscape governance and management has become one of the prioritised policy instruments for actualising policy objectives related to agri-food systems, biodiversity conservation, nature restoration, environmental management, climate change mitigation and adaptation, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and the transition to renewable energy supplies. However, the landscape lens in policy making is challenging because of the diverse landscape archetypes, environmental problems, and diverging policy targets that it must address. This highlights the importance of having a robust, evidence-based landscape decision framework. To address this issue, this study undertook a transdisciplinary synthesis of research outputs from the Landscape Decisions Programme (LDP). This study compiles and synthesises outputs from the LDP projects in the context of the relevant literature to develop an understanding of the relationships among the emerging evidence with respect to decision making for sustainable and multifunctional landscapes. The synthesis identified six themes that define the drivers of landscape decisions, and four themes that define the dominant methodological approaches used to generate evidence for landscape decisions. The emergent themes from the synthesis were distilled into five principles that can be used as a basis for the development of a holistic landscape decision framework. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Management in Times of Climate Extremes – Adaptations, Institutional Frameworks, Farmer Behaviour, and Community Empowerment)

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