Sustainable land use means the use of land in ways that allow for the economic viability of production and preservation of the natural resources upon which it depends. This involves a balance of efficiency, equity and acceptability.
Availability of hydro-climatic and other associated natural resource data is a prerequisite for the development of sustainable land use planning programs. In addition, national and international research should be reoriented to focus on these issues.
Agricultural Expansion and Environmental Protection
Sustainable land management (SLM) aims to manage land resources for the benefit of society, while maintaining and improving its environmental functions. These functions include providing source and sink functions for greenhouse gases, recycling nutrients and ameliorating and filtering water in the hydrologic cycle. In addition, land provides a habitat for biodiversity and ecosystem services, including climate regulation and carbon sequestration. SLM is a complex task that requires balancing agricultural expansion and environmental protection.
Agriculture is essential for human survival, and there is a growing demand for food in the world. However, it must be produced in a way that does not degrade the land. In order to meet this need, agricultural production must be increased through land intensification on existing cultivated land and by planting in marginal areas. Increasing the productivity of the agricultural land while protecting the environment requires agricultural practices and policies that minimize pollution discharges, reduce damage to the environment and biodiversity, and increase efficiency in the use of water and energy.
Land quality indicators (LQIs) are a valuable tool in this effort. These tools allow researchers and decision makers to measure the state of land, identify problems and assess progress towards the goal of sustainable land management. LQIs provide information about the physical, social and economic characteristics of the land, such as soil, landscape and vegetation. They also provide data about human activities, such as land management practices and population growth.
A number of factors contribute to the need for land quality indicators, including nutrient loss from agricultural cropland, water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, soil erosion, deforestation, eutrophication and land degradation. Developing a comprehensive set of land quality indicators can help reduce these problems. In particular, focusing public and private stewardship efforts on regions and specific farms with large nitrogen balances can have a high impact on reducing nitrogen losses from agricultural land.
Increasing agricultural production is essential for meeting the needs of humanity. In many parts of the world, it is necessary to plant more crops on existing lands. This requires minimizing the need for land expansion and maximizing the sustainability of cultivated land. This can be achieved through implementing SLM techniques, which include cropping systems that maximize production while limiting soil erosion and improving water quality.
Economic Benefits
Agricultural expansion, when properly managed, can contribute to sustainable development by increasing food production on existing land areas without degrading natural resources. It can also reduce environmental degradation by reducing soil erosion and deforestation and by conserving natural habitats. It can increase rural community incomes and improve people’s quality of life by providing them with a more secure food supply and improving their access to water supplies.
Sustainable land management requires a new perspective on the use of natural resources. It must combine a knowledge of the pressures that influence them with a deep understanding of their natural balance and the way in which they interact with each other. This will help to ensure that future generations can continue to enjoy the benefits of their natural environment.
In order to achieve this goal, the current research thrust needs to be refocused by recognizing the complex role that land plays in the agriculture sector and following a broad-based holistic approach. In addition, research must be focused on a range of land use issues including the integration of agriculture with other uses, determining the impact of different types of agricultural practices on soil quality and biodiversity and developing innovative technologies for sustainable farming.
Currently, most agricultural expansion is unsustainable because it is done on a short-term basis and does not take into account the long-term effects on land quality. This is particularly true in the case of intensive agriculture, where soil fertility is degraded and other natural resources are depleted.
Developing countries must adopt policies that ensure that their farmers can meet the demand for food while preserving the biological potential of the land, its resilience and environmental maintenance systems. This will require a substantial change in agricultural practice and the establishment of a remuneration system that recognizes the value of agriculture to society, not just as an economic activity but as a stewardship responsibility. These changes will have to be implemented by a broad-based political process involving all stakeholders. The implementation of such a strategy will need to be tailored to the specific conditions and problems of each country in order to maximize its effectiveness.
Environmental Impacts
While a growing world population demands increased food production, the natural ecosystems that support agriculture must remain intact. Sustainable land use (SLM) focuses on the development of agriculture that is environmentally responsible and socially acceptable. It requires a new perspective that integrates knowledge of pressure on the resources, their relations with other elements, human and social objectives and land-use systems.
SLM is an approach to land management that aims at improving the biological productivity potential of land, ensuring the maintenance of environmental balance and providing people with a variety of essential services. This includes soil and water conservation, biodiversity preservation, and the provision of natural resource-based livelihoods. In addition, nonagricultural land uses such as forests and wetlands help meter the flow of rainwater into streams and rivers, thus aiding in flood control. These services are important to the sustainability of both the environment and the economy, as they contribute to the provisioning of food, fiber, fuel, timber, and other industrial products.
Unfortunately, the benefits that these natural ecosystems provide to humanity are not without cost. In order to ensure a balanced ecological system, the use of land must be compensated with the development of other natural assets of equal value. The trade – off is even more pronounced in the case of agricultural land, where, according to estimates, the clearing of land for farming is responsible for some 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than cars and airplanes contribute altogether.
A large number of natural resources are needed to sustain agriculture, and in many countries the demand for land far exceeds supply. In this context, there is a need to reduce the dependence on foreign imports of agricultural commodities, and to promote research into alternative crops. This will enable farmers to expand into nontraditional areas that can produce a similar level of food with fewer environmental impacts, or with less dependence on imported inputs.
As a part of the overall strategy for sustainable land use, it is necessary to develop methods of promoting land-use planning, including land evaluation procedures and land-use strategies. This will require a strong institutional framework, capable of supporting the necessary land-use development activities at both national and international levels. This will include the development of funding mechanisms for sustainable land-use initiatives and efforts to improve networking and information exchange.
Social Impacts
Providing people with the ability to make informed decisions about land use is an essential step towards sustainable development. This includes ensuring that the information they have is reliable and current. Without such information, the design and implementation of projects will remain guesswork and the utilization of other natural resources haphazard and wasteful.
The goal of sustainable land management is to balance the needs and demands of society with the environmental limits of the land. This goal must be reflected in the decision making process to ensure that agricultural production and its associated benefits do not come at the expense of other environmental functions, such as water quality or biodiversity preservation.
There is a need for new land-use paradigms that merge social, economic and environmental dimensions of the landscape, to ensure that human activities take into account the overall ecological system in which they are embedded. This requires that nations work together in the definition of principles and frameworks to guide them in this direction.
The need for land stewardship is being emphasized by society as farmers are increasingly expected to provide more than food on the table. While this may bring some economic benefits, it also places increased demands on farmers to protect and conserve the environment in which they live. Unfortunately, farmers cannot shoulder all the costs of environmental maintenance alone and are not able to produce enough food to meet society’s increasing needs.
The solution is to balance the agricultural, environmental and economic dimensions of land use by implementing the principles of sustainable development, and applying them to specific regional challenges. This approach will allow for the conservation of biodiversity, the protection of the water resource, as well as achieving intra and inter generational equity. To achieve these goals it is necessary to collect, share and disseminate reliable information and to utilize modern land assessment and evaluation technologies. Moreover, it is important to define requirements for environmental maintenance and develop a discount rate that encourages the most sustainable land use. A regional strategy can give a general idea of what is required, but each country will need to tailor its own sustainable land use planning to its specific problems and comparative advantages.