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Intermediate disturbance-complexity (IDC) model* (mean values high—green, medium—orange and low—red)**, landscape ecology metric (Le) and human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), applied to the Palmira case study (1943–2010). Notes *Possible theoretical values represented in the grey colour figure. **IDC empirical values (coloured dots) come from a nonlinear relationship between Le and HANPP. Source Our own
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Agroecosystems are facing a global challenge amidst a socioecological transition that places them in a dilemma between increasing land-use intensity to meet the growing demand of food, feed, fibres and fuels, while avoiding the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. We applied an intermediate disturbance-complexity approach to the land-use ch...
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Urbanization is one of the most important drivers of change worldwide, with the fastest pace happening in Latin America, impacting negatively on biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). In this study we evaluated the effects of past and future land cover changes in ES, ecosystem disservices (EdS) and biodiversity, in a case study in the Barranquil...
Citations
... Therefore, tropical Andean countries face a critical choice: sustain their natural ecosystems or pursue current economic development models. The metropolitan region of Cali, Colombia, exemplifies this dilemma, experiencing significant socioeconomic and land-use changes driven by agro-industrial practices and rural migration (Delgadillo-Vargas 2014; Marull et al. 2017;Martínez-Toro and Patiño-Gómez 2015; Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica 2014; Uribe-Castro 2017). ...
... This area comprises agricultural, agroforestry, and agropastoral mosaics (Fig. 1), reflecting different agricultural practices, including traditional peasant, Afro, and Indigenous agroecological models (Duarte Torres et al. 2018). The findings build upon those of Marull et al. (2017) by extending the study beyond the administrative boundaries of a single municipality to encompass the Cauca River Valley region. This approach highlights the importance of adopting a green infrastructure approach within the metropolitan region of Cali and incorporating a broader spectrum of biocultural landscapes representative of the entire biogeographic region. ...
... The approach integrates landscape-metabolism to assess how urban growth and agricultural intensification impact the socioecological functionality of a tropical Andean metropolitan region. Our results elaborate on Marull et al. 2017, by providing a classification of landscape metabolic configurations, and relating them with the provision of ecosystem services (i.e., water supply, food production, flood regulation among others), increasingly pertinent to the ongoing process of metropolitan growth in this region and the occurrence of regular yet increasingly severe climatic phenomena. Different landscape-metabolic configurations along a land-use gradient are linked to ecosystem service provisioning. ...
Context
Urbanization is rapidly increasing worldwide, with about 60% of the global population currently residing in cities and expected to reach 68% by 2050. In Latin America's tropical Andes region, managing these changes poses challenges, including biodiversity loss and vulnerability to climate change.
Objectives
This study assesses urban growth and agricultural intensification impacts on the ecological functionality of metropolitan green infrastructures and their capacity to provide ecosystem services using a landscape sustainability and sociometabolic approach. Specifically, it aims to identify landscape configurations promoting socio-ecological sustainability amidst rapid urbanization.
Methods
A landscape-metabolic model (IDC) was applied to evaluate the interactions between land use changes and ecosystem functions in the metropolitan region of Cali.
Results
Agricultural intensification and industrialization, coupled with uncontrolled urban growth, have significantly transformed the landscape, posing threats to its sustainability. The prevailing biocultural landscapes hold a substantial potential to provide essential ecosystem services to the metropolis. The IDC offers an approach that utilizes a land cover map and agricultural production/metabolism data to calculate an indicator closely related to ecosystem services and multifunctionality.
Conclusions
The IDC model stands out for efficiently capturing landscape dynamics, providing insights into landscape configuration and social metabolism without extensive resource requirements. This research highlights the importance of adopting a landscape-metabolic and green infrastructure framework to guide territorial policies in the tropical Andes and similar regions. It stresses the need for informed land use planning to address challenges and leverage opportunities presented by biocultural landscapes for regional sustainability amidst rapid urbanization and agricultural expansion.
... Adopting a 20-year interval, it delves into the dynamic characteristics of transfer structures and directions between different land classes in Zichang City during its initial and final stages. Its conventional expression format is elucidated as follows [51]: ...
Over recent decades, the hilly and gully regions of the northern Loess Plateau in Shaanxi province have grappled with severe soil erosion and a precarious ecological milieu. Shaped by urbanization policies, this locale has encountered a gamut of issues, including an imbalance in human–environment dynamics and the degradation of ecological integrity. Consequently, the comprehension of how urban expansion impacts the optimization of regional landscape configurations, the alignment of human–environment interactions in the Loess Plateau’s hilly and gully domains, and the mitigation of urban ecological challenges assumes paramount importance. Leveraging data from land use remote sensing monitoring, alongside inputs from natural geography and socio-economic spheres, and employing methodologies such as landscape pattern indices, we conduct an exhaustive analysis of Zichang City’s urban fabric from 1980 to 2020. Furthermore, employing the CLUE-S model, we undertake multifaceted scenario simulations to forecast urban expansion in Zichang City through to 2035. Our findings delineate two distinct phases in Zichang City’s urban expansion trajectory over the past four decades. From 1980 to 2000, urban construction land in Zichang City experienced a phase of methodical and steady growth, augmenting by 64.98 hectares, alongside a marginal decrease in the landscape shape index (LSI) by 0.02 and a commensurate increase in the aggregation index (AI) by 1.17. Conversely, from 2000 to 2020, urban construction land in Zichang City witnessed an epoch of rapid and haphazard expansion, doubling in expanse, marked by a notable escalation in LSI (2.45) and a corresponding descent in the AI (2.85). The precision of CLUE-S model simulations for Zichang City’s land use alterations registers at 0.88, fulfilling the exigent demand for further urban expansion and land use change prognostication. Under the aegis of the natural development scenario, the augmentation of urban construction land in Zichang City primarily encroaches upon grassland, farmland, and woodland, effectuating an increase of 159.81 hectares. Conversely, under the ambit of urbanization development, urban construction land contends predominantly with farmland, grassland, and woodland, heralding an augmentation of 520.42 hectares. Lastly, under the mantle of ecological protection, urban construction land expansion predominantly encroaches upon grassland, farmland, and woodland, resulting in an augmentation of 4.27 hectares. Through a nuanced analysis of the spatiotemporal evolution of urban expansion and scenario-based simulations, this study endeavors to furnish multi-faceted, scenario-driven, and policy-centric insights for regional planning, urban spatial delineation, and regional ecological safeguarding.
... For the purposes of this paper, and considering the application at the local level, a methodology suggested by the Colombian Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies (IDEAM in Spanish) in its Environmental Information System for Colombia (SIAC in Spanish) [54] was used. IDEAM formulated a set of rules and indicators to be followed for the characterization of the ecosystems in Colombia, with a total of 149 indicators for 10 different areas [55][56][57]. The indicator used in this research falls in the biodiversity area, forests, and LC uses. ...
Conventional agricultural practices, such as the use of agrochemicals, implementation of monocultures, and the expansion of crops in strategic ecosystems, have significant impacts in Andean basins, directly increasing nutrient inputs to waterways, and contributing to ecological fragility and socioeconomic vulnerability. This complex dynamic is related to land-use change and production activities that affect the provision of hydrological ecosystem services. This study presents an integrated analysis of socioecological interactions related to water quality in the Las Piedras River basin (LPRB), a water supply basin located in the Andean region of southwestern Colombia. The analysis was conducted over a five-year monitoring period to assess the spatiotemporal variation and correlation of water quality between streams and agricultural runoff water within the LPRB. Furthermore, water quality indices were calculated based on physicochemical and biological parameters to evaluate the impact of land-use/land-cover changes and agricultural activities within the basin. Results demonstrate that different types of actors, productive logics, mechanisms of use, and access to water within the basin affect water quality and uncertainty for water management, while facing socioecological conflicts between actors.
... El Valle, a través de la Estación Agrícola Experimental de Palmira, primero, y el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), después, hospedó a algunos de los proyectos de investigación más importantes sobre cultivos tropicales en el marco de la Revolución Verde que tendrían un impacto significativo en otras partes del Sur Global (Picado Umaña, 2013). En el espacio circundante a los centros de investigación del Valle, simultáneamente, se consolidó un clúster agroindustrial de caña de azúcar cuyo sistema de monocultivo hoy afecta los ciclos hídricos, la sustentabilidad en los suelos y el bienestar de sociedades rurales de la región (Delgadillo Vargas, 2014;Marull et al., 2018). Como en el Valle, en este artículo explicamos de qué manera la naturaleza y las sociedades rurales que acogieron a las instituciones destinadas a la transformación de la agricultura en la Sabana de Bogotá sufrieron importantes cambios durante el proceso. ...
Durante el siglo XX, la Sabana de Bogotá fue uno de los espacios escogidos por el Estado colombiano para diseñar y poner en práctica las instituciones científicas que acarrearon la modernización de la agricultura de vocación altoandina. Las estrategias utilizadas para la gestión de los conocimientos agropecuarios importados y producidos localmente por estas instituciones se plantearon el incremento de la producción de alimentos para mejorar la calidad de vida de los colombianos. Sin embargo, estos programas de investigación y extensión terminaron por impactar los sistemas agroalimentarios locales y dieron paso a la entrada de la agroindustria de flores ornamentales. Este artículo estudia las contradicciones entre las estrategias utilizadas por el Estado colombiano para la gestión del conocimiento agropecuario y los impactos socioecológicos de estos programas en los paisajes locales. Para lo cual se hace un recorrido por la historia de las instituciones científicas agropecuarias en la Sabana de Bogotá y se evidencia su injerencia en las transformaciones del paisaje local entre 1926 y 1990.
... También se destaca la utilidad de considerar esta región como un sistema socioecológico, lo que en términos administrativos significaría establecer la Región Metropolitana de Cali. Esto procuraría un uso ordenado, justo y sostenible del territorio en el que los diversos actores interactúan y se articulan, contribuyendo así a la gestión de conflictos territoriales, interculturales y ambientales (Duarte, 2015;Hurtado-Bermúdez et al., 2020;Marull et al., 2017;Vélez-Torres et al., 2019). ...
... Aunque algunos sistemas de producción ganadera son pastos abiertos utilizados exclusivamente para el pastoreo y la cría de ganado, otros, como en el caso de los pastos enarbolados, podrían estar contribuyendo a la estructura ecológica funcional de la RMC y sus mosaicos agro-silvo-pastoriles (Marull et al., 2017). Ante esta realidad, se propone generar estrategias institucionales y comunitarias que permitan limitar la expansión de la frontera agrícola en ecosistemas vitales y restaurar los paisajes intervenidos con sistemas silvo-pastoriles que garanticen la sustentabilidad del territorio. ...
Planteamos la hipótesis de que los paisajes bioculturales, configurados por sistemas agrícolas indígenas, campesinos y afrodescendientes, contribuyen a la funcionalidad ecológica de los Andes tropicales. Los paisajes actuales en el valle del Cauca (Colombia) reflejan la transición de una agricultura de base orgánica a una industrial, iniciada en la primera mitad del siglo xx. Esta transición ha ocurrido dentro de un contexto sociocultural complejo en el que los medios de vida rurales se encuentran en la encrucijada entre el desarrollo agroindustrial regional y la sostenibilidad socioecológica. Este artículo propone una evaluación integrada del metabolismo social y la ecología del paisaje en la infraestructura verde metropolitana de Cali. Los resultados muestran la contribución de diferentes paisajes bioculturales al funcionamiento ecológico de la cuenca alta del río Cauca, apoyando la hipótesis de que los sistemas agroforestales ofrecen contribuciones
prometedoras para la conservación de la biodiversidad y la conectividad ecológica. Paralelamente, se evidencia cómo grandes parcelas de caña de azúcar han homogeneizado el sistema agrario. El modelo metabolismo-paisaje propuesto ofrece la oportunidad de enriquecer la formulación de políticas territoriales intersectoriales para regiones biológica y culturalmente diversas. Dada la confluencia de la agenda colombiana de implementación posconflicto, la crisis global de (in)sostenibilidad y los objetivos de desarrollo de la ONU, existe la necesidad de llevar los paisajes bioculturales a un diálogo interdisciplinario más amplio y evaluar la transición ecológica, la cohesión social y la viabilidad política que requiere el actual modelo agrario metropolitano.
... To that aim, the main set of indicators of landscape configuration used are based on the Marull et al. (2016) Intermediate Disturbance-Complexity model (IDC) to account for how the spatial gradients of land cover patterns are affected by different levels of ecology disturbances when farmers alter the photosynthetic net primary production (NPP) and carry out land-use changes (Marull et al. 2016). The IDC modelling is based on the theoretical assumption that agricultural landscapes can retain more farm-associated biodiversity when the disturbance exerted by harvesting a share of the photosynthetic net primary production (NPP) is done at intermediate levels through spatiotemporal uneven patterns that allow disturbed species to activate their dispersal abilities and find nearby refuge areas (Loreau et al. 2003;Tscharntke et al. 2005;Marull et al. 2017Marull et al. , 2018. It adopts the landscape continuum model to account for the ecological processes that take place across the land-matrix (Fischer and Lindenmayer 2006) and is based on the interaction of the ecological disturbance exerted by farming (accounted through the Human Appropriation of net primary production, or HANPP) together with the landscape patterns (accounted through the Shannon-Wiener Index of land cover diversity and evenness, and other landscape ecology metrics) and ecological processes (accounted through Ecological Connectivity Indices) (Marull et al. 2018(Marull et al. , 2019. ...
... uni-klu.ac.at/socec/inhalt/5605.htm). NPP act values have been estimated as the sum of harvested and unharvested values, after performing a literature review on NPP by tropical crops (Marull et al. 2017). Harvest ratios from each land-cover across the time points have been transformed into energy values using the conversion factors and the unharvested biomass ratios given in Guzmán et al. (2014). ...
Costa Rica is recognized worldwide for its nature conservation policy following the traditional land-sparing approach. However, concerns have been raised about the opposite trends of the agricultural land cover changes driven by the option to expand old and new export crops after the country’s external debt crisis of the 1980s. We study what happened during the last 20 years by applying landscape ecology metrics to the REDD+ land cover maps of 1986, 2001, and 2014, and statistically testing these indicators with the locations of species richness of plants and birds recorded by INBio. Our results confirm that deforestation has been reversed and most of the biodiversity considered is housed in forestland, but also that the expansion of export monocultures and urban sprawl have fragmented and isolated these tropical forests. Ecological connectivity values decreased 13% across the territory, all crops are negatively correlated with bird and plant locations, and the metropolitan expansion caused a detrimental impact on coffee agroforestry. All these outcomes are consistent with the growing deficit of the Costa Rican physical trade balance due to a faster increase of tropical exports than the growing imports of staple food, with a loss of soil organic matter filled by high doses of agrochemicals imported. Overcoming these environmental problems require a new land-sharing approach to nature conservation aimed at improving ecological connectivity through an agroecology approach combined with land-use planning to preserve the remaining green belt of the shade coffee plantations as a buffer green infrastructure in the metropolitan area.
... Estudos dessa ordem, por exemplo, foram desenvolvidos no Benin (MALIKI et al., 2012), China (ELY et al., 2016) e Etiópia (KASSA et al., 2017. Estudos sobre a transição sociecológica de sistemas agrícolas e comunidades também foram observados nesse período (ALVAREZ-SALAS; GALVEZ-ABADIA, 2014;MARULL et al., 2018), pesquisas relacionadas à transição sociecológica buscam compreender as alterações sociais, econômicas, culturais e ambientais que ocorreram em determinado tempo e região, para propor sistemas sicioeconômicos, agrários e ambientais direcionados ao desenvolvimento sustentável, como a menor utilização de combustíveis fósseis e a diminuição da dependência da agricultura em relação à indústria e autossuficiência aos agricultores. ...
Pesquisadores defendem que a agroecologia interage e dialoga com o conhecimento tradicional, no entanto poucos estudos tentaram mensurar a produção científica que relaciona esse tipo de conhecimento à agroecologia. O estudo faz a análise bibliométrica quantitativa de 661 publicações que apresentaram palavras relacionadas à agroecologia e ao conhecimento tradicional, em seus títulos, palavras-chave ou resumos, entre os anos de 1991 e 2018, obtidas da base de dados Web of Science. A maior parte da literatura científica é composta por artigos em mais de 300 periódicos, com mais de 2.000 autores pertencentes a 878 instituições no total. Um total de 102 países publicaram, sendo que, em número de documentos os Estados Unidos ocupam a primeira posição, seguido por França e Brasil. Variados temas foram abordados, como mudanças climáticas, biodiversidade, sementes, sistemas agrícolas, agricultura familiar e disciplinas das etnociências. As publicações que relacionaram a agroecologia com o conhecimento ecológico tradicional evidenciam a incorporação das três dimensões abordadas por essa disciplina (prática agrícola, movimento social e ciência), o que é evidente nas temáticas mais comuns nos estudos analisados. A dimensão interdisciplinar da agroecologia é evidente nas publicações em diferentes periódicos de escopo multidisciplinares, também na colaboração entre autores, com a maioria dos documentos sendo multiautorais. Finalmente, são sugeridas questões futuras para a pesquisa agroecológica. Palavras-chave: Bibliometria. Agricultura. Conhecimento ecológico. Etnociência. Cienciometria.
Researchers argue that agroecology interacts and dialogues with traditional knowledge, however few studies have attempted to measure the scientific production that relates this type of knowledge to agroecology. The study makes a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 661 publications that presented words related to agroecology and traditional knowledge, in their titles, keywords or abstracts, between the years 1991 and 2018, obtained from the Web Of Science database. Most of the scientific literature is composed of articles in more than 300 journals, with more than 2,000 authors belonging to 878 institutions in total. 102 countries published, with the United States in number of documents in first place, followed by France and Brazil. Various topics were addressed, such as climate change, biodiversity, seeds, agricultural systems, family farming and disciplines of ethnosciences. The publications that linked agroecology with traditional ecological knowledge show the incorporation of the three dimensions addressed by this discipline (agricultural practice, social movement and science), which is evident in the most common themes in the analyzed studies. The interdisciplinary dimension of agroecology is evident in publications in different multidisciplinary journals, also in collaboration between authors, with most documents being multi-authored. Finally, future questions for agroecological research are suggested.
... If we want to ensure ecosystem services in the future, better operative criteria and indicators are needed on when, where, and why the energy throughput driven by farming increases or decreases the mosaic pattern of cultural landscapes in a way that affects its capacity to maintain biodiversity [49]. To address this big societal challenge requires more landscape history research in different bioregions and territories [26,45,50,51]. ...
... The dependent variable to be explained is the spatial distribution of the total biodiversity recorded in the Biodiversity Data Bank of Catalonia (BDBC; http://biodiver.bio.ub.es/biocat) in the 48 cells of 10 × 10 km of the Catalan province of Barcelona in Spain (Figures 1 and 2). Following the intermediate disturbance-complexity (IDC) modelling [26,50,58] to study the interaction between certain levels of farming appropriation of the biomass produced by the photosynthesis in the study area, and the complexity of land-cover patterns of cultural landscapes to assess their capacity to maintain species richness [58], we consider the following explanatory variables: 1) The different amount of farming disturbance exerted on the territory through the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP); and 2) landscape ecology metrics that assess the capacity of the land cover patterns and ecological processes to provide differentiated habitats for biodiversity maintenance: Shannon-Wiener index, polygon density, edge density, largest patch index, effective mesh size, and ecological connectivity index. ...
Could past land uses, and the land cover changes carried out, affect the current landscape capacity to maintain biodiversity? If so, knowledge of historical landscapes and their socio-ecological transitions would be useful for sustainable land use planning. We constructed a GIS dataset in 10 × 10 km UTM cells of the province of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) for 1956 and 2009 with the changing levels of farming disturbance exerted through the human appropriation of photosynthetic net primary production (HANPP), and a set of landscape ecology metrics to assess the impacts of the corresponding land-use changes. Then, we correlated them with the spatial distribution of total species richness (including vascular plants, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). The results allow us to characterize the main trends in changing landscape patterns and processes, and explore whether a land-use legacy of many complex agroforest mosaics maintained by the intermediate farming disturbance managed in 1956 could still exist, despite the decrease or disappearance of those mosaics before 2009 due to the combined impacts of agroindustrial intensification (meaning higher HANPP levels), forest transition (meaning lower HANPP levels) and urban sprawl. Statistical analysis reveals a positive impact of the number of larger, less disturbed forest patches, where many protected natural sites have been created in 1956–2009. However, it also confirms that this result has not only been driven by conservation policies and that the distribution of species richness is currently correlated with the maintenance of intermediate levels of HANPP. This suggests that both land-sharing and land-sparing approaches to biodiversity conservation may have played a synergistic role owing to the legacy of complex land cover mosaics of former agricultural landscapes that are now under a serious threat.
... Elsewhere, excessive exploitation of natural resources by the armed protagonists resulted in deforestation (Álvarez, 2001Dávalos, 2001;Etter et al., 2006). In parallel, this land use change dynamic has had social-economic impacts (Álvarez, 2003;Marull et al., 2018). Rural communities have been forcibly displaced and land acquired illegally even in formally protected areas (World Commission on Protected Areas, 2003;Raliegh, 2011;Castro-Nunez et al., 2017). ...
This paper describes the relationship between the landscape and the socio-economic and political characteristics of a highly biodiverse Andean region of Colombia, which is now recovering from the socio-ecological impact of protracted armed conflict. We quantify the current spatial relationship between nature and society, and we include legacy effects from the most recent period of armed conflict and its consequences of forced displacement and land use disruption. The procedure followed provides a quantitative model where a minimum number of socio-economic and political variables explain the variation in land cover. The results represent the relationship between land use intensity and the main socio-economic and political indicators, highlighting a close interaction between landscape configuration, socio-economic structure of local populations, coercive conservation and armed conflict. A simulated post-conflict landscape shows a clear transition gradient towards agrarian expansion and intensification, also in systems where naturalness is a relevant feature. The peace process in Colombia offers opportunities for new schemes of land planning and management, including natural resource governance and policy reforms to improve welfare and resilience of local communities. The results allow to define options for future planning given the possible consequences of socio-political legacy effects yet to fully play out across Colombia.
... The impact on bodies of water has been forceful in some regions, such as the Cauca Valley, where actual "water grabbing" activities have deprived many communities of this vital resource [162]. The landscape degradation caused by the spread of the industrial cropping of sugarcane in the flatlands of the Cauca Valley has also undermined the ecosystem protection formerly provided by the traditional organic mixed farming carried out by small peasants from indigenous and African-descended communities, which are endowed with a bio-cultural heritage in danger of extinction, who are trying to resist these developments in the piedmont areas beyond the cash-crop frontier [163]. ...
... In the older highland areas, the presence of small farmers is negatively correlated with the increase in deforestation from 1985 to 2005 [170]. Other studies indicate that, in these areas, the capacity for ecological restoration through successional trajectories of the remaining dry-forest fragments is currently linked to the heterogeneity of the landscapes, which, in turn, is strongly influenced by a disturbance from farming [163,171]. In contrast, the advance of colonization in sub-humid and humid tropical lowland forests is correlated positively with forced migration, unsatisfied basic needs, cash crops, pastures, and illicit crops despite the greater number of protected natural areas in them. ...
This article aims to situate a national case study of the global periphery at the core of the debate on the socio-ecological transition by drawing on new data of biomass flows in twentieth-century Colombia. We draw up a century-long annual series converting a wide set of indicators from Net Primary Production (NPP) into the final socioeconomic uses of biomass, distinguishing around 200 different categories of crops, forests, and pastures. Our calculations draw on FAOSTAT and several corpuses of national statistics. The results show a fall of 10% in total NPP related to land-use changes involving forest conversion. Throughout the twentieth century, pasture was the most relevant among domestic extraction. Allocations of cash crops to industrial processing rose while the figure for staple crops for primary food consumption stagnated. The critical role of cattle throughout all periods and the higher yields of the industrial cash crops are behind this profile. This might also mean the start of a new trend of using pasture land for more profitable export crops, which establishes a new inner frontier of land-use intensification. Lastly, the article points out the phases of the socio-metabolic transition of biomass, explores the changes in biomass flows by looking at the history of the main drivers, and identifies the socio-ecological impacts of deforestation and industrial agribusiness.
