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- Meyfroid, P., et al.
(författare)
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Middle-range theories of land system change
- 2018
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Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 53, s. 52-67
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Changes in land systems generate many sustainability challenges. Identifying more sustainable land-use alternatives requires solid theoretical foundations on the causes of land-use/cover changes. Land system science is a maturing field that has produced a wealth of methodological innovations and empirical observations on land cover and land-use change, from patterns and processes to causes. We take stock of this knowledge by reviewing and synthesizing the theories that explain the causal mechanisms of land-use change, including systemic linkages between distant land-use changes, with a focus on agriculture and forestry processes. We first review theories explaining changes in land-use extent, such as agricultural expansion, deforestation, frontier development, and land abandonment, and changes in land-use intensity, such as agricultural intensification and disintensification. We then synthesize theories of higher-level land system change processes, focusing on: (i) land-use spillovers, including land sparing and rebound effects with intensification, leakage, indirect land-use change, and land-use displacement, and (ii) land-use transitions, defined as structural non-linear changes in land systems, including forest transitions. Theories focusing on the causes of land system changes span theoretically and epistemologically disparate knowledge domains and build from deductive, abductive, and inductive approaches. A grand, integrated theory of land system change remains elusive. Yet, we show that middle-range theories - defined here as contextual generalizations that describe chains of causal mechanisms explaining a well-bounded range of phenomena, as well as the conditions that trigger, enable, or prevent these causal chains -, provide a path towards generalized knowledge of land systems. This knowledge can support progress towards sustainable social-ecological systems.
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| 2. |
- Magliocca, Nicholas R., et al.
(författare)
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From meta-studies to modeling: Using synthesis knowledge to build broadly applicable process-based land change models
- 2015
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Ingår i: Environmental Modelling & Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 1364-8152. ; 72, s. 10-20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores how meta-studies can support the development of process-based land change models (LCMs) that can be applied across locations and scales. We describe a multi-step framework for model development and provide descriptions and examples of how meta-studies can be used in each step. We conclude that meta-studies best support the conceptualization and experimentation phases of the model development cycle, but cannot typically provide full model parameterizations. Moreover, meta-studies are particularly useful for developing agent-based LCMs that can be applied across a wide range of contexts, locations, and/or scales, because meta-studies provide both quantitative and qualitative data needed to derive agent behaviors more readily than from case study or aggregate data sources alone. Recent land change synthesis studies provide sufficient topical breadth and depth to support the development of broadly applicable process-based LCMs, as well as the potential to accelerate the production of generalized knowledge through model-driven synthesis. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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