Territorial planning of Juquiá municipality (State of São Paulo, Brazil), using an integrated analysis of the land cover and slope.

2008

Contested Lands: Land Disputes in Semi-Arid Parts of Northern Tanzania : Case Studies of the Loliondo and Sale Divisions

This study Contested Lands: Land disputes in semi-arid parts of northern Tanzania. Case Studies of the Loliondo and Sale Division in the Ngorongoro District concentrates on describing the specific land disputes which took place in the 1990s in the Loliondo and Sale Divisions of the Ngorongoro District in northern Tanzania. The study shows the territorial and historical transformation of territories and property and their relation to the land disputes of the 1990s'. It was assumed that land disputes have been firstly linked to changing spatiality due to the zoning policies of the State territoriality and, secondly, they can be related to the State control of property where the ownership of land property has been redefined through statutory laws. In the analysis of the land disputes issues such as use of territoriality, boundary construction and property claims, in geographical space, are highlighted. Generally, from the 1980s onwards, increases in human population within both Divisions have put pressure on land/resources. This has led to the increased control of land/resource, to the construction of boundaries and finally to formalized land rights on village lands of the Loliondo Division. The land disputes have thus been linked to the use of legal power and to the re-creation of the boundary (informal or formal) either by the Maasai or the Sonjo on the Loliondo and Sale village lands. In Loliondo Division land disputes have been resource-based and related to multiple allocations of land or game resource concessions. Land disputes became clearly political and legal struggles with an ecological reference.Land disputes were stimulated when the common land/resource rights on village lands of the Maasai pastoralists became regulated and insecure. The analysis of past land disputes showed that space-place tensions on village lands can be presented as a platform on which spatial and property issues with complex power relations have been debated. The reduction of future land disputes will succeed only when/if local property rights to land and resources are acknowledged, especially in rural lands of the Tanzanian State.

Informal housing in the XXI century. Characteristics of the informal land and housing supply in Bogota during the first decade of the XXI century

This article characterizes the conditions of the informal land and housing supply during the first decade of the xxi century in Bogota, regarding magnitude and location of the informal urban growth (new occupations in the periphery and informal densification of consolidated areas), housing  conditions in recent occupations and the characteristics of the land market. The situation of the  last decade has been reconstructed based in aerial photography analysis, census data quantification  and data analysis from planning and control public entities. Results suggest that due to the relative  land scarcity in Bogotá, among other aspects, the informal market dynamics have experimented changes compared to previous decades, because the growth in consolidated urban areas becomes  more important than the informal urbanization of the peripheries, but at the same time informality  transcends the municipal perimeter to the neighboring municipalities.

Mechanisms for the land/sea warming contrast exhibited by simulations of climate change

The land/sea warming contrast is a phenomenon of both equilibrium and transient simulations of climate change: large areas of the land surface at most latitudes undergo temperature changes whose amplitude is more than those of the surrounding oceans. Using idealised GCM experiments with perturbed SSTs, we show that the land/sea contrast in equilibrium simulations is associated with local feedbacks and the hydrological cycle over land, rather than with externally imposed radiative forcing. This mechanism also explains a large component of the land/sea contrast in transient simulations as well. We propose a conceptual model with three elements: (1) there is a spatially variable level in the lower troposphere at which temperature change is the same over land and sea; (2) the dependence of lapse rate on moisture and temperature causes different changes in lapse rate upon warming over land and sea, and hence a surface land/sea temperature contrast; (3) moisture convergence over land predominantly takes place at levels significantly colder than the surface; wherever moisture supply over land is limited, the increase of evaporation over land upon warming is limited, reducing the relative humidity in the boundary layer over land, and hence also enhancing the land/sea contrast. The non-linearity of the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship of saturation specific humidity to temperature is critical in (2) and (3). We examine the sensitivity of the land/sea contrast to model representations of different physical processes using a large ensemble of climate model integrations with perturbed parameters, and find that it is most sensitive to representation of large-scale cloud and stomatal closure. We discuss our results in the context of high-resolution and Earth-system modelling of climate change.

Whose land was it anyway? The Crichel Down Rules and the sale of public land

The guiding principle of compulsory purchase of interests in land in England and Wales is that of fairness, best stated in the words of Lord Justice Scott in Horn v Sunderland Corporation when he said that the owner has “the right to be put, so far as money can do it, in the same position as if his land had not been taken from him”. In many instances, land acquired by compulsion subsequently becomes surplus to the requirements of the acquiring authority. This may be because the intended development scheme was scrapped, or substantially modified, or that after the passage of time the use of the land for which the purchase took place is no longer required. More controversially it may be that for ‘operational reasons’ the acquiring authority knowingly purchased more land than was required for the scheme. Under these circumstances, the Crichel Down Rules (‘the Rules’) require government departments and other statutory bodies to offer back to the former owners or their successors, any land previously so acquired by, or under the threat of, compulsory purchase.

The role of CO2 and dynamic vegetation on the impact of temperate land use change in the HadCM3 coupled climate model

Human induced land-use change (LUC) alters the biogeophysical characteristics of the land surface influencing the surface energy balance. The level of atmospheric CO2 is expected to increase in the coming century and beyond, modifying temperature and precipitation patterns and altering the distribution and physiology of natural vegetation. It is important to constrain how CO2-induced climate and vegetation change may influence the regional extent to which LUC alters climate. This sensitivity study uses the HadCM3 coupled climate model under a range of equilibrium forcings to show that the impact of LUC declines under increasing atmospheric CO2, specifically in temperate and boreal regions. A surface energy balance analysis is used to diagnose how these changes occur. In Northern Hemisphere winter this pattern is attributed in part to the decline in winter snow cover and in the summer due to a reduction in latent cooling with higher levels of CO2. The CO2-induced change in natural vegetation distribution is also shown to play a significant role. Simulations run at elevated CO2 yet present day vegetation show a significantly increased sensitivity to LUC, driven in part by an increase in latent cooling. This study shows that modelling the impact of LUC needs to accurately simulate CO2 driven changes in precipitation and snowfall, and incorporate accurate, dynamic vegetation distribution.

Towards a spatial understanding of trade-offs in sustainable development: A meso-scale analysis of the nexus between land use, poverty, and environment in the Lao PDR

In land systems, equitably managing trade-offs between planetary boundaries and human development needs represents a grand challenge in sustainability oriented initiatives. Informing such initiatives requires knowledge about the nexus between land use, poverty, and environment. This paper presents results from Lao PDR, where we combined nationwide spatial data on land use types and the environmental state of landscapes with village-level poverty indicators. Our analysis reveals two general but contrasting trends. First, landscapes with paddy or permanent agriculture allow a greater number of people to live in less poverty but come at the price of a decrease in natural vegetation cover. Second, people practising extensive swidden agriculture and living in intact environments are often better off than people in degraded paddy or permanent agriculture. As poverty rates within different landscape types vary more than between landscape types, we cannot stipulate a land use–poverty–environment nexus. However, the distinct spatial patterns or configurations of these rates point to other important factors at play. Drawing on ethnicity as a proximate factor for endogenous development potentials and accessibility as a proximate factor for external influences, we further explore these linkages. Ethnicity is strongly related to poverty in all land use types almost independently of accessibility, implying that social distance outweighs geographic or physical distance. In turn, accessibility, almost a precondition for poverty alleviation, is mainly beneficial to ethnic majority groups and people living in paddy or permanent agriculture. These groups are able to translate improved accessibility into poverty alleviation. Our results show that the concurrence of external influences with local—highly contextual—development potentials is key to shaping outcomes of the land use–poverty–environment nexus. By addressing such leverage points, these findings help guide more effective development interventions. At the same time, they point to the need in land change science to better integrate the understanding of place-based land indicators with process-based drivers of land use change.

The Economic Value of Residential Land in Historical Areas: An Application of the Residual Method to the Secondary Market

Land value bears significant weight in house prices in historical town centers. An essential aim for regulating the mortgage market, particularly in the financial and property crisis that countries such as Spain are undergoing, is to have at hand objective procedures for its valuation, whatever the conditions (location, construction, planning). Of all the factors contributing to house price make-up, the land is the only one whose value does not depend on acquisition cost, but rather on the location-time binomial. That is to say, the specific circumstances at that point and at the exact moment of valuation. For this reason, the most commonly applied procedure for land valuation in town centers is the use of the residual method: once the selling price of new housing in a district is known, the other necessary costs and expenses of development are deducted, including those of building and the developer’s profit. The value left is that of the land. To apply these procedures it is vital to have figures such as building costs, technical fees, tax costs, etc. But, above all, it is essential to obtain the selling price of the new housing. This is not always feasible, on account of the lack of newbuild development in this location. This shortage of information occurs in historical town cities, where urban renewal is slight due to the heritage-protection policies, and where, nevertheless there is substantial activity in the secondary market. In these circumstances, as an alternative for land valuation in consolidated urban areas, we have the adaptation of the residual method to the particular characteristics of the secondary market. To these ends, there is the proposal for the appreciation of the dwelling which follows, in a backwards direction, the application of traditional depreciation methods proposed by the various valuation manuals and guidelines. The reliability of the results obtained is analyzed by contrasting it with published figures for newly-built properties, according to different rules applied in administrative appraisals in Spain and the incidence of an eventual correction due to conservation state.

Miriamin, a defensive diterpene from the eggs of a land slug (Arion sp.)

The eggs of the land slug Arion sp. contain a diterpene, miriamin, characterized as a polyoxygenated geranylgeraniol derivative. In bioassays with a coccinellid beetle, Harmonia axyridis, miriamin was shown to be potently antifeedant, indicating that the compound plays a protective role in nature. It is suggested that mucilaginous soil-inhabiting organisms, given their intense exposure to pathogens and predators, may be a rich source of chemical defensive agents.

The Valuation of Agricultural Land and the Influence of Government Payments. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 10, December 2011

This study gives an overview of the theoretical foundations, empirical procedures and derived results of the literature identifying determinants of land prices. Special attention is given to the effects of different government support policies on land prices. Since almost all empirical studies on the determination of land prices refer either to the net present value method or the hedonic pricing approach as a theoretical basis, a short review of these models is provided. While the two approaches have different theoretical bases, their empirical implementation converges. Empirical studies use a broad range of variables to explain land values and we systematise those into six categories. In order to investigate the influence of different measures of government support on land prices, a meta-regression analysis is carried out. Our results reveal a significantly higher rate of capitalisation for decoupled direct payments and a significantly lower rate of capitalisation for agri-environmental payments, as compared to the rest of government support. Furthermore, the results show that taking theoretically consistent land rents (returns to land) and including non-agricultural variables like urban pressure in the regression implies lower elasticities of capitalisation. In addition, we find a significant influence of the land type, the data type and estimation techniques on the capitalisation rate.

Land nationalisation, its necessity and its aims : being a comparison of the system of landlord and tenant with that of occupying ownership in their influence on the well-being of the people /

"First ed. ... 1892; second ed. ... 1896; third ed. ... 1902; fourth ed. ... 1906."

A Modeling Approach to Determine the Impacts of Land Use and Climate Change Scenarios on the Water Flux of the Upper Mara River

With the flow of the Mara River becoming increasingly erratic especially in the upper reaches, attention has been directed to land use change as the major cause of this problem. The semi-distributed hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool 5 (SWAT) and Landsat imagery were utilized in the upper Mara River Basin in order to 1) map existing field scale land use practices in order to determine their impact 2) determine the impacts of land use change on water flux; and 3) determine the impacts of rainfall (0%, ±10% and ±20%) and air temperature variations (0% and +5%) based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections on the water flux of the 10 upper Mara River. This study found that the different scenarios impacted on the water balance components differently. Land use changes resulted in a slightly more erratic discharge while rainfall and air temperature changes had a more predictable impact on the discharge and water balance components. These findings demonstrate that the model results 15 show the flow was more sensitive to the rainfall changes than land use changes. It was also shown that land use changes can reduce dry season flow which is the most important problem in the basin. The model shows also deforestation in the Mau Forest increased the peak flows which can also lead to high sediment loading in the Mara River. The effect of the land use and climate change scenarios on the sediment and 20 water quality of the river needs a thorough understanding of the sediment transport processes in addition to observed sediment and water quality data for validation of modeling results.

Second Caveats and the Land Title Act 1994

This article analyses the key features of s129 of the Land Title Act 1994 with reference to pre-existing Queensland law, and relevant case law on comparable provisions in Australia and New Zealand. Its aim is to provide a practical guide on the circumstances in which the provision will apply, and the considerations likely to be weighted by the Court in determining whether to grant leave to lodge a second caveat.

Managing reforestation to sequester carbon, increase biodiversity potential and minimize loss of agricultural land

Reforestation will have important consequences for the global challenges of mitigating climate change, arresting habitat decline and ensuring food security. We examined field-scale trade-offs between carbon sequestration of tree plantings and biodiversity potential and loss of agricultural land. Extensive surveys of reforestation across temperate and tropical Australia (N = 1491 plantings) were used to determine how planting width and species mix affect carbon sequestration during early development (< 15 year). Carbon accumulation per area increased significantly with decreasing planting width and with increasing proportion of eucalypts (the predominant over-storey genus). Highest biodiversity potential was achieved through block plantings (width > 40 m) with about 25% of planted individuals being eucalypts. Carbon and biodiversity goals were balanced in mixed-species plantings by establishing narrow belts (width < 20 m) with a high proportion (>75%) of eucalypts, and in monocultures of mallee eucalypt plantings by using the widest belts (ca. 6–20 m). Impacts on agriculture were minimized by planting narrow belts (ca. 4 m) of mallee eucalypt monocultures, which had the highest carbon sequestering efficiency. A plausible scenario where only 5% of highly-cleared areas (<30% native vegetation cover remaining) of temperate Australia are reforested showed substantial mitigation potential. Total carbon sequestration after 15 years was up to 25 Mt CO2-e year−1 when carbon and biodiversity goals were balanced and 13 Mt CO2-e year−1 if block plantings of highest biodiversity potential were established. Even when reforestation was restricted to marginal agricultural land (<$2000 ha−1 land value, 28% of the land under agriculture in Australia), total mitigation potential after 15 years was 17–26 Mt CO2-e year−1 using narrow belts of mallee plantings. This work provides guidance on land use to governments and planners. We show that the multiple benefits of young tree plantings can be balanced by manipulating planting width and species choice at establishment. In highly-cleared areas, such plantings can sequester substantial biomass carbon while improving biodiversity and causing negligible loss of agricultural land.

Ultrastructural features of the epidermis of the planarian Artioposthia triangulata (Dendy)

The epidermis of the land planarian Arthioposthia triangulata was examined by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. This investigation revealed that the flatworm was covered entirely with cilia and was especially densely populated on the ventral surface. In all regions the epidermis consisted of a one-layered columnar epithelium resting on a prominent basement membrane, but lacking a terminal web. Various secretions were found in the epidermis together with epidermal rhabdoids. Below the basement membrane other secretory material was visible and this included the cytoplasmic lamellated granules and adenal rhabdites. The basement membrane consisted of fibrils with a beaded appearance and these were arranged parallel to the epidermal layer but did not display cross-banding. The secretory cells above and below the basement membrane were compared and their products characterized on the basis of shape, size and location. Their possible function is discussed.