Using economic geography to reinvigorate land-change science

… Analysis (IIASA). Interim report. IR-02- …, 2002

2016

Changes in land use and land cover are among the issues central to the study of global environmental change. In addition to their cumulative long-term global dimensions, such changes can have profound regional environmental implications during the life span of current generations. A better understanding of the dynamics in land and water use is thus critical for an informed debate of sustainability. Land use represents a critical intersection of economic and ecological systems. Landuse changes are most often directly linked with economic decisions. This recognition has led LUC to choose an economic framework as the organizing principle, resulting in a broad set of project activities geared towards providing a biophysical and geographical underpinning to the representation of land-based economic sectors in modeling land and water use decisions. This report addresses foremost researchers outside economics and should be viewed as a modest step towards reducing the deficit in transdisciplinary research, which, until now, has permitted only modest advances in closing the gaps between environment and economic analysis.

The role of land in economic theory is surveyed, both from a conceptual and historical perspective. Land has been incorporated in economic theories in various ways. Originally, land used by agriculture was the main motivation for an economic treatment of land. This was gradually extended with various other land use categories. Neoclassical economic theory gave less attention to land use, generally regarding land as a production factor of relatively little importance. Nevertheless, specialized sub-fields within economics such as regional and urban economics met the demand for explicit spatial analysis including land use considerations. Attention for environmental and resource problems has stimulated new perspectives on, and conceptualizations of, land in economic analysis. This involves the interaction with other disciplines as well as the use of spatially disaggregated methods of analysis. Awareness of the richness of ideas on land in economic theory can contribute to enhanced environmental research. D

Environmental Economic Geography in China, 2020

The changing social-technical paradigms accelerate the pace of development but simultaneously disturb the balance of our planet at an unprecedented speed. The nature-society interactions face various dilemmas between development and conservation more than ever (Zimmerer 2010). The rapid processes of industrialisation, urbanization, and globalization account for an increasing proportion of the determinants of environmental changes such as climate change, environmental pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and depletion of natural resource. Environmental changes, in turn, challenge the sustainable development of human society and requires a wide range of positive feedbacks, including industrial transformation, economic transition, smart growth of cities, and global cooperation. In this regard, all United Nations Member States adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, which proposes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) representing the urgent challenges that confront the human society as a whole. SDGs seek to coordinate the socioeconomic development with eco-environmental conservation, and therefore require double efforts from both physical sciences and social sciences. The call of SDGs reiterates the interdisciplinary nature of environmental-related studies, hence attracting huge attention from scientists, including geographers. Understanding and responding to environmental challenges, particularly the sustainability issues, requires geographical wisdom. Firstly, environmental challenges do not occur in a vacuum but depend on their spatial-temporal contexts. Just like the agricultural production in China, when the northern regions are suffering from the drought, the southern regions are struggling with the flood. That is to say, in one particular place, environmental challenges are less likely to be simply determined by one or a few factors, but instead depend on a wide array of complex and interactive factors, which is usually different from place to place. Thus, the causes of environmental problems, the formation of environmental problems, and the capabilities of responding to environmental problems tend to be place-specific. As a result, even the same environmental issues may manifest themselves in different ways across

Geoforum, 2008

In this article I examine the objectives and substantive claims of a body of work that has come to be known as 'environmental economic geography' (EEG). I characterize this loose grouping of research activities as a topical contrivance: often what unites EEG researchers is simply a desire to apply the theories and methods of economic geography to environmental issues. The article explores an alternative rationale for doing EEG: the development of a distinctive intellectual project out of the encounter between economic geography and environment. Such a project extends beyond an assessment of the environmental impacts of economic activity, to examine the ways in which many 'economic' processes are environmentally constituted.

Ecological Economics, 2006

Journal of Economic Geography, 2006

Contemporary debates in economic geography are characterized by a lack of agreement with respect to both those aspects of the evolving economic landscape that call for explanation and what constitutes an adequate explanation of geographical reality. We articulate a distinctively geographical approach to modeling processes of regional growth and change. The evolving economic landscape is conceptualized as a 'going concern', characterized by complex dynamic interdependencies between the agents and structures that constitute spatial economic systems. At any moment in time, interdependencies between agents are constrained by social and spatial structure, but over time structure and agency are mutually constituted: a socio-spatial dialectic. We contend that the complex interdependence between agents, structures and dynamics increases the likelihood of persistent non-equilibrium space-time trajectories. We conclude that questions of conceptual and epistemological adequacy in economic geography cannot be resolved in favor of any single 'best' approach, and argue that debates should move away from competing monist accounts, towards critically engaged pluralism.

Economic Geography, 2009

Although the "new" economic geography has explored links between the subdiscipline's traditional areas of study and cultural, institutional, and political realms, environmental issues remain comparatively underresearched within the subdiscipline. This article contends not only that the environment is of key importance to economic geography, but also that economic geographers can make an important contribution to environmental debates, through providing not just a better analysis and theoretical understanding, but also better policy proscription. Rather than claim new intellectual territory, the intention is to suggest potential creative opportunities for linking economic geography's strengths with those insights from other theoretical perspectives. In particular, this article focuses upon linking insights from ecological modernization theory, developed by environmental sociologists, with regulationist approaches. giving me the opportunity to present the paper at that conference and to the conference participants for their comments on it. I am also grateful to Arthur Mol and Rob Krueger for their comments on a revised version of the article. Three anonymous reviewers provided a helpful and insightful critique of the article, and I am grateful for their suggestions and those of Henry Yeung on expanding and restructuring the article. All errors and omissions remain my responsibility.

Environmental Modeling and Assessment, 2001

Land use and land cover changes are a major source of environmental degradation and therefore a serious issue in sustainable development studies and in the integrated assessment of environmental problems. In an attempt to understand part of the complexity of land use change we here aim to explore the ways in which economists deals with the land use issue. We argue that space is one of the forgotten items in economics. Economists often seem to ignore high-resolution spatial dynamics either because they are not considered as an important feature of the problem or out of habit. It seems as though there is a trade-off between spatial resolution and human behaviour in current applications. Certain types of models are capable of capturing the spatial complexity of urban and regional areas, for instance, by using cellular automata. Other types of land use models clearly have shortcomings where it concerns spatial detail. Dynamic modelling approaches do not guarantee a high spatial resolution.

Environmental Management, 2013

Many economic processes are intertwined with landscape change. A large number of individual economic decisions shape the landscape, and in turn the changes in the landscape shape economic decisions. This article describes key research questions about the economics of landscape change and reviews the state of research knowledge. The rich and varied economic-landscape interactions are an active area of research by economists, geographers, and others. Because the interactions are numerous and complex, disentangling the causal relationships in any given landscape system is a formidable research challenge. Limited data with mismatched temporal and spatial scales present further obstacles. Nevertheless, the growing body of economic research on these topics is advancing and shares fundamental challenges, as well as data and methods, with work in other disciplines.