Effects of land-use master plans in the metropolitan fringe of Japan

The complexity of the landscape in Japanese metropolitan suburbs is the result of high competition among land-demanding economic activities. Although both urban and rural planning legislation has played certain roles in the ordering of land-use, lack of coordination among different zoning systems is still a key issue in the proper development and conservation of limited land. This study investigated the effects of land-use master plans on actual control of land use through maximal utilization of detailed grid data with advanced GIS functions. We analyzed land-use changes in the Osaka metropolitan area for three periods: 1979–1985; 1985–1991; 1991–1996, and compared these changes with the zoning status in each period. This study demonstrates that disordered developments resulted in an increase of vacant areas in urban fringes, which also accelerated the fragmentation of forests and farmlands, causing a disordered spatial pattern from which it will be difficult to recover with the present land-use master plans.     

Refining landscape change models through outlier analysis in the Muskegon watershed of Michigan

Balancing natural resource protection and urban development is of concern to researchers, planners and citizens who are aware of the environmental, social and economic impacts of urban land use. Land-use change models can assist in finding this balance. An objective of this research was to build a better model of land-use change by integrating quantitative and qualitative techniques. A modelling approach is presented that combines statistical logistic regression with field-based outlier analysis. To this end, a collaborative effort between researchers, who are adept at building models, and local experts, who better understand the dynamics of landscape change in their communities, was undertaken. The findings indicate that this modelling approach is successful in improving overall model performance, as measured by pseudo r-squared value, and identifying additional drivers of land-use change, namely zoning, soil suitability and distance to highway interchange. Most importantly, this collaborative modelling process, involving researchers and local planners, has practical utility for land-use decision making.     

Living in the big city: Effects of urban land-use on bird community structure, diversity, and composition

Cities represent an important threat to biodiversity at different scales. Nevertheless, little is known on the processes underlying such effects. In this paper we describe bird diversity, structure, and composition patterns in different urban land-use categories. For this, we surveyed resident bird communities in four representative land-use categories of southwestern Mexico City. Our results show that bird communities vary greatly along the different studied urban land-uses, which represent an urbanization development gradient. Bird communities were highly dominated by few generalist species in areas with commercial components, while showed to have higher evenness values in green areas. Bird species richness decreased and bird abundances increased with urbanization intensity. Also, our results indicate that bird species richness and abundance values are sensible to site-specific habitat characteristics. Although we did not find a clear pattern of taxonomic homogenization related to urbanization, our results show that urbanization development entails the functional homogenization of bird communities. Thus, based on our results, we suggest three urban planning and management activities: (1) regulate land-use change related to urbanization; (2) increase the number of green areas within the city; (3) establish bird monitoring programs to identify focal areas that need management and assist with ecological data for urban planning.     

城市边缘区生态环境保护研究综述

论文通过文献调查、概念分析和相关历史研究,尝试梳理边缘区环境现象、生态源头问题认知及解题方法,重点解析了生物多样性保护、生态要素保护与土地利用规划导向等边缘区重点研究领域,对现行程序管理与评估手段中的薄弱环节予以详细阐释。研究围绕三方面展开：（1）城市边缘区生态环境品质关系到城镇生态、空间形态以及城镇化管理,规划需协调建设与非建设用地并提升保护区的复合生态服务功能;（2）自然生境与农林非建设用地为主要保护区域,跨部门构建内连城区、外接乡村腹地的绿色生态空间网络,是重要的规划手段;（3）降低边缘区规划建设影响关乎保护的长效性,需要实体空间保护规划与政策法规及管理软件支撑协同作业。     

Towards Facilitative and Pro-poor Land-Use Management in South African Urban Areas: Learning from International Experience

Few would argue with the proposition that land-use management is one of the most powerful tools in the context of planning, both in South Africa and internationally, with the potential to transform the urban landscape. Yet despite its potential, it has been neglected both in terms of academic enquiry and legislative reform. This has resulted in land-use management functioning as an undesirable and unwieldy tool that perpetuates the modernist ideals of land-use separation and sprawling suburbia, and most worryingly, the perpetuation of an urban form that is essentially anti-poor. This paper initiates a search for the appropriate criteria for a land-use management system in South Africa’s urban areas. We argue for a land-use management system that moves away from the traditional exclusive emphasis on zoning towards a more flexible system based on a tiered set of plans. This system must take into account and respond to the dynamics of the urban land market, both its formal and informal dimensions, and directly address the poor and their needs as the central focus of land-use management.     

Effects of land-use master plans in the metropolitan fringe of Japan

The complexity of the landscape in Japanese metropolitan suburbs is the result of high competition among land-demanding economic activities. Although both urban and rural planning legislation has played certain roles in the ordering of land-use, lack of coordination among different zoning systems is still a key issue in the proper development and conservation of limited land. This study investigated the effects of land-use master plans on actual control of land use through maximal utilization of detailed grid data with advanced GIS functions. We analyzed land-use changes in the Osaka metropolitan area for three periods: 1979–1985; 1985–1991; 1991–1996, and compared these changes with the zoning status in each period. This study demonstrates that disordered developments resulted in an increase of vacant areas in urban fringes, which also accelerated the fragmentation of forests and farmlands, causing a disordered spatial pattern from which it will be difficult to recover with the present land-use master plans.     

Land-use and land-cover change and its environmental implications in a tropical highland watershed,Ethiopia

This study analysed long-term land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) in a highland watershed covering an area of about 154?km² in the Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia. Two sets of panchromatic aerial photographs (1957 and 1982) and a Landsat TM image (2001) were the main input data from which three land-use and land-cover maps were produced by employing geographical information systems/remote sensing techniques. These data were complemented by some socio-economic data that were generated by using household survey, key-informant interview and group discussion methods. The results show that in regard to land-use and land-cover, the major change has been the reduction of areas under natural vegetation cover and expansion of open grassland, cultivated areas and settlements. Over the four and a half decades considered, areas of forest and dense tree cover and shrub grassland decreased by 64 and 6%, respectively. Forest and dense tree cover experienced the greatest change; from accounting for ～9% of the total area of the watershed in 1957 to only ～3% in 2001. In general, much of the de-vegetation occurred between 1982 and 2001. Cropland and rural settlement showed a small but consistent increase between 1957 and 2001. Riparian vegetation decreased during the first period, but increased almost to the same level during the second period by gaining land from the other land-use and land-cover types. The observed LUCCs were driven by a combination of proximate and underlying causes. These include increasing demographic pressure and associated demands on environmental resources, widespread rural poverty and inadequate management of common property resources owing to poorly defined ownership arrangements. There is a need for short-term and long-term strategies to ensure sustainable land management and agricultural development in the watershed.     

Green belt in a compact city: A zone for conservation or transition?

The paper examines the evolution, implementation and performance of the green belt in the compact and land-hungry city of Hong Kong. The green belt in Hong Kong comprises over 25% of all the land areas under the statutory land-use zoning plans. Its planning policy declares that there is a presumption against development in this land-use zone. Based upon historical study, cross-sectional examination of 109 statutory zoning plans and quantitative analysis of 1230 planning application cases, this study has evaluated whether the green belt was indeed treated as a non-building area for the purpose of landscape and countryside conservation. The conclusion is that the actual planning intention of the green belt has been ambivalent and flexible and it is a transition zone rather than a zone for conservation in Hong Kong.     

Land-use planning and distribution of threatened wildlife in a city of Japan

The relationships between the distribution patterns of threatened wildlife species and current land-use planning were investigated in a city of Japan to design a sustainable and land-use plan. Spatial distributions of 165 species of threatened wildlife (99 plants and 66 animals) were obtained by surveying most of the Chiba City, located in northeastern part of the Tokyo Bay area. Distribution maps were created within 334 rectangular cells, each measuring 1.1 km×0.9 km, oriented in the cardinal directions. Four land-use zones, i.e., urbanization promotion, parkland, agricultural and urbanization control, and agricultural promotion zones were identified.The distribution of these threatened species was analyzed in terms of green cover and zoning categories. Few threatened wildlife species were found in the urbanization promotion or parkland zone. Most were concentrated in the surrounding arable areas with green covers of more than 50%. Areas other than those set aside for intensive agricultural development in the agricultural promotion development zone contained the greatest number of species. These areas belonged to the agricultural and urbanization control zone, where the traditional agricultural landscape still remains in and around narrow valleys called “yatsu”.The results suggest that the regional biodiversity depends heavily on areas in which the traditional landscape remains relatively intact. Based on these results, a series of recommendations, including conservation and restoration of habitats, establishments of wildlife networks and corridors, and citizen involvement in conservation, were presented to the city studied. The data and recommendations will hopefully help the city, as well as many other areas faced with similar issues, devise future land-use plans that combine sustainable development with conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of high quality living environments.