Track 4a. Sustainable land use policy/planning to manage land competition

Track Chair:

Dagmar Haase. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Berlin, Germany.

Kua Harn Wei. Department of Building, School of Design & Environment, National University of Singapore.

Contact: dagmar.haase@geo.hu-berlin.de; bdgkuahw@nus.edu.sg

Goals and objectives of the track

Land systems are under enormous pressure: Firstly, they changing rapidly under conditions of population growth and globalization. Secondly, they are result of multiple and interconnected drivers of change and we still have got a bit to go to understand these specific interrelated relationships, impacts and actions. And thirdly, the consequences of land use and land system change in a spatially-explicit manner is a major challenge.

A key aspect here is land scarcity forced by biophysical limits, rising demands, and the relational, often systemic nature of land use change, particularly in and around cities and metropolitan regions that are attractive for people and business to approach. Scarcity exacerbates many different demands on land and its resources including ecosystems and, last but not least, it leads to land use competition. On the one hand. On the other, yet scarcity and its effects can be and are mediated by the processes of planning and governance that regulate land use competition in many parts of the world.

There are several ways of land and resources competition mediation, of which one is the market which structures processes of competition in relations of demand and supply and allocating land parcels to the highest bidder. A second, due to land’s territorial nature, is the formal regulation by means of legislation, state intervention and governance through manifold institutions and implicit social and cultural orders. Moreover, and thirdly, land and its ecosystems are shaped by different types of infrastructure, power and knowledge, and it cuts across different scales and occurs at different points along value chains and political decision-making processes.

In this concern, sustainability of land use and land systems is a high claim as it is heuristic in nature and normative, too. Moreover, and a consequence of the aforementioned issues, sustainability of land systems and land use involves several dimensions of sustainability such as the economic, the social, the ecological and the governmental. Each of the four dimensions include different actors and decisions and land use management brings them together.

Set against this background, the session of “Sustainable land use policy/planning to manage land competition” is interested in contributions that focus on research questions such as:

• Where, how and why do we have land (use) competition currently in different parts of the world?
• How can we close major gaps in mapping, monitoring and modeling land use systems and related competition at different scales?
• How land systems and the conflicts involved are governed, particularly in intensively used urban landscapes?
• How are these modes of governance able to deliver efficient, fair and meaningful outcomes and what is the role of classical planning in this concern?
• What are innovative indicators for a sustainable land use planning which is able to mediate conflicts by minimizing environmental impacts? Is this a realistic goal for our European landscapes?
• What are the likely trajectories for future land use and how can we better inform more sustainable pathways?

Contributions from the followings geographical/spatial areas are sought-after:

• Urbanization, urban planning and cities;
• Peri-uban areas and the linkage between the urban and the rural
• Nature conservation;
• Urban land teleconnections and externalized impacts;
• Land grabbing.

You may submit your abstract by visiting the Ex Ordo abstract submission system (you will be required to setup an account first): http://isdrs2016.exordo.com/