Land Institute Category: Organizations, agencies, and programs Date: Established 1976 Through its Natural Systems Agriculture, the Land Institute seeks to make conservation a consequence
Trang 1applies have three dimensions: biological, temporal,
and geographical In the anthropocentric perspective
of ethics, the relevant moral community includes only
Homo sapiens, while in the nonanthropocentric
per-spective (biocentrism, ecocentrism, ecofeminism, and
deep ecology) the moral community is holistic and
in-cludes other nonhuman entities This means that the
moral community also includes, as Leopold said, soil,
water, plants, and animals—or, in a single word, the
entire Land Therefore, all forms of life have an
in-trinsic value and deserve moral concern
indepen-dently of their utilitarian value for humans However,
whether this means only sentient forms of life or also
nonsentient forms, and whether this is a responsibility
toward individuals or groups of individuals such as
species, ecosystems, or ecological communities,
re-mains open for debate This enlarged and holistic
responsibility to other forms of life extends also to
future generations and to other geographic areas—
in fact, to the entire Earth ecosystem From a
non-anthropocentric point of view, only those actions that
tend to preserve the integrity and stability of the
eco-systems at a local and global scale can be considered
correct
Since Leopold first enunciated the basic principles
of his land ethic in the 1940’s, nonanthropocentric
perspectives gained gradual acceptance in society and
in political discourses Though the 1972 U.N
Stock-holm Declaration on the Environment may be within
the anthropocentric ethical paradigm, documents and
policies adopted by the United Nations in relation to
the environment in the 1980’s and afterward reflected
increasingly nonanthropocentric and
nonconsequen-tialist perspectives That was the case of the U.N
World Charter for Nature (1982), which stated the
principle that human needs should be fulfilled with
full respect for the essential natural processes; the
cre-ation, in 1983, of the U.N World Commission on
En-vironment and Development, which produced the
landmark report Our Common Future, also known as
the Brundtland Report; the subsequent developments
associated with the Earth Summit of 1992 in Rio de
Ja-neiro, Brazil; and conventions on other
environmen-tal issues
Carlos Nunes Silva
Further Reading
Beatley, Timothy Ethical Land Use: Principles of Policy
and Planning Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1994
Leopold, Aldo A Sand County Almanac Updated ed.
Topeka, Kans.: Topeka Bindery, 2000
Silva, Carlos Nunes “Urban Planning and Ethics.” In
Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy,
edited by Jack Rabin New York: Marcel Dekker, 2005
See also: Agenda 21; Deep ecology; Earth Summit; Ecology; Ecozones and biogeographic realms; Inter-national Union for Conservation of Nature; United Nations climate change conferences; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Land Institute
Category: Organizations, agencies, and programs Date: Established 1976
Through its Natural Systems Agriculture, the Land Institute seeks to make conservation a consequence of agricultural production by returning to natural and diverse perennial grain crops, as opposed to single spe-cies annual crops Its mission is to improve food and fi-ber security, lessen soil erosion, reduce dependency on and pollution caused by fossil fuels and toxic chemi-cals, and enhance sustainable agriculture based on eco-systems that existed before industrialized agriculture.
Background Globally, the demand for and production of food con-tinue to increase, and major grain crops, such as wheat and corn, make up more than two-thirds of the human caloric intake Plant geneticist Wes Jackson believed that the best agricultural practices are not being used to produce these grains As a result, cur-rent methods of agricultural production may not be sustainable in the future because of their negative im-pact on global ecology Among these practices are overreliance on nonrenewable resources such as fos-sil fuels In addition, growing single-species annual crops, especially in areas that are not suitable for their production, causes serious soil erosion and depletion
of nutrients from the soil because of tilling This loss
in soil and nutrients ultimately results in reduced pro-duction Moreover, toxins, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides necessary to sustain nonnative, annual, single-species crops are increasingly being found in human tissues
Trang 2In 1976, Jackson left a tenured teaching position at
California State University, Sacramento, to create the
Land Institute, which has become a globally
recog-nized model of sustainable agriculture With his wife,
Dana, Jackson founded the Land Institute for the
pur-pose of performing sustainable agriculture research
and breeding plants that would have the ecological
stability of native, perennial prairie plants but would
yield grain in amounts comparable to annuals
Extremely critical of industrialized agriculture,
Jackson sought to explore the possibilities of
“peren-nial polyculture” as an alternative to the growing and
harvesting of annual grains One of his primary
con-cerns was to halt the soil erosion that he believed was
exacerbated by monoculture or single-species
agricul-ture techniques and that he believed would eventually
lead to a crisis in American agriculture
The Jacksons established the Land Institute in
Sa-lina, Kansas, on a minimal budget, constructing the
institute’s building themselves Although sustainable
agriculture was the main purpose of the facility, early
experiments involved testing wind power and using
hay bales to construct houses In 1980, Jackson
pub-lished a book entitled New Roots of Agriculture that
ar-gued against agricultural practices that have been
on-going for more than ten thousand years, because of
his belief that they are not sustainable Jackson
pro-posed a new form of agriculture based on natural
eco-systems, which became known as Natural Systems
Ag-riculture Natural Systems Agriculture, as practiced
on the Kansas prairie, involves the growing of diverse
perennial plants to prevent depletion and erosion of
the soil and destruction of the ecosystem
The Land Institute consists of a 111-acre nonprofit
research and education facility for a small number of
students The Land Institute utilizes the natural,
sur-rounding prairie land for ecology and agronomy
re-search and observation The main rere-search facility at
the Land Institute is a large greenhouse In-house
sci-entists, including breeders and agroecologists, work
with ten to twelve graduate students who receive
fel-lowships to participate in the institute’s research
pro-grams The students also work on the institute’s farm
while completing an intensive, alternative education
program These students develop into informed
mul-tidisciplinary leaders who are dedicated to building a
sustainable agriculture and integrating it into a
sus-tainable society
The research that takes place at the Land Institute
involves breeding prototype plants from native edible
perennial grains Scientifically, the Land Institute has shown that producing perennial, edible grain crops is feasible The goal of the institute is to one day make these grain crops commercially feasible
Although sustainable perennial agriculture may not be available until 2030 or later, the Land Institute has made great strides in developing some of the fol-lowing crops: perennial wheat varieties, drought-hardy grain sorghum, the prairie legume known as Illinois bundleflower, and a perennial species of sunflower In the future, the Land Institute hopes to breed addi-tional perennial grain species from crops such as rice, flax, maize, and chickpeas The Land Institute has col-laborated with many public institutions to carry out its Natural Systems Agriculture research in locations other than the Land Institute facility The institute shares its research willingly and distributes perennial parent seeds freely, with the objective of supporting scientists conducting related research worldwide
Impact on Resource Use Jackson, through his agricultural practices at the Land Institute, seeks to develop what he refers to as an ecological agriculture, or a marriage between ecology and agriculture This ecological agriculture involves the production of multiple plant species rather than just one and the planting of perennial rather than annual grain crops Significant challenges include breeding perennials with increased seed yields and with heads of grain that resist shattering, as wild grains typically release their seeds if knocked The Land In-stitute supports research mainly in two areas: peren-nial grain crop production, through breeding and nurturing of new major grain crops and domestica-tion of wild perennials, and diversificadomestica-tion of grain crops to achieve more efficient use of nutrients and water, enhance pest and disease control, and increase productivity
The Land Institute has several programs that seek
to develop sustainable agriculture and prosperous, enduring human communities These programs in-clude Perennial Grain Cropping Research, the Cli-mate Energy Project, and Sunshine Farm Research
In addition, the Land Institute offers short courses to scientists and nonfarmers and conducts seasonal festi-vals for the purpose of educating others about its Nat-ural Systems Agriculture The Land Institute’s “Land Report” and numerous other educational outreach projects, such as its Prairie Writer’s Circle, help pro-mote the institute’s mission, demonstrate the
Trang 3resil-ience and sustainability of natural systems, and
ex-plain how natural ecosystems apply to agriculture and
human communities
The purpose of the Perennial Grain Cropping
Re-search program is to breed and nurture perennial
prototypes of annual grain crops that do not require
tilling, chemicals, or pesticides This program’s dual
goals are to supply humanity’s food needs while
con-serving resources and eliminating toxins Both plant
breeders and agroecologists work in this program
The Climate Energy Project (CEP) came about
af-ter a serious drought in Salina, during which the local
river went dry The CEP, now located in Lawrence,
Kansas, has many purposes, including public
out-reach and education about climate and energy
con-servation The CEP is also involved in climate change
and renewable energy research The CEP maintains a
website that provides educational materials
The Sunshine Farm Research Program seeks to
re-spond to the fundamental and underlying question
concerning the Land Institute’s Natural Systems
Agri-culture: Can this new form of agricultural production
based on a perennial polyculture be profitable for the
small farmer? One purpose of this ten-year program
has been to model a farm based on Natural Systems
Agriculture The model farm uses renewable energy
including Sun power, wind power, photoelectric cells,
and other natural sources that can be generated on
the farm rather than using fossil fuel Further
reduc-tions in fossil-fuel use are achieved by using refined
soybean oil rather than diesel fuel in farm equipment
and returning to draft horses for some of the farm
work In addition, soil erosion is reduced by raising
hybrid perennial crops rather than annuals, and toxic
chemical use is mitigated through planting of
geneti-cally diverse grain crops that are pest resistant The
Sunshine Farm Research Program also involves
com-parison of energy, materials, and labor data from a
20.2 hectare farm raising conventional crops with
the same data from a 40.5 hectare perennial grain
pasture for cattle grazing The data will assist in the
affordability and sustainability analyses of the new
farming techniques
The potential for sustainable agriculture is
impor-tant The Land Institute plans to continue research
into such diverse areas as biofuel and ethanol
tion and how they may impact future food
produc-tion, the use of crop biomass for synthetic organics,
community-scale farmer cooperatives, alternative
en-ergy strategies, and perennial grain breeding The
Land Institute also had proposed to study ecological community development, as opposed to conventional economic development, in Matfield Green, Kansas However, the institute sold its properties in Matfield Green People may visit the Salina facility, which in-cludes prairie flora and herb gardens and an area of virgin tall-grass prairie, containing more than two hundred naturally growing species Other displays at the Salina facility concern alternative energy and en-vironmental strategies
Thomas A Eddy, updated by Carol A Rolf
Further Reading
Jackson, Wes New Roots for Agriculture Lincoln:
Uni-versity of Nebraska Press, 1985
_ “The Next Forty-nine Years.” Public Library Quarterly 27, no 2 (2008): 167-173.
Richards, Donald “Economics and ‘Nature’s
Stan-dard’: Wes Jackson and the Land Institute.” Re-view of Radical Political Economics 41, no 2 (2009):
186-195
Web Site The Land Institute http://www.landinstitute.org See also: Agriculture industry; Agronomy; Erosion and erosion control; Jackson, Wes; Land manage-ment; Monoculture agriculture; Soil management
Land management
Category: Environment, conservation, and resource management
Efforts put toward using land to its best advantage are collectively called land management Land manage-ment decisions affect both public and private lands, and they entail such issues as what use or uses—agricul-ture, forestry, mining, industry, residential develop-ment, and ecological preservation—should be encour-aged or discourencour-aged in a given area Appropriate land management has become increasingly important as con-cerns about pollution and the environment have grown.
Background
“Land management” is a term that describes deci-sions and practices regarding the uses of land Land
Trang 4management may emphasize any one of a variety of
different land uses Farmers, for example, may
man-age their land to obtain the most efficient crop
pro-duction, while city planners seek to ensure that land
within their boundaries is used to benefit the
commu-nity as a whole The land that comprises the fifty
United States covers about 9.06 million square
kilo-meters, and to some extent laws govern the
manage-ment of every centimeter, public or private The
in-tent of much of this legislation is to prevent practices
that pollute or harm the environment in other ways
Whether landowners wish to harvest timber, graze
livestock, or operate ski areas, legislation sets clean air
and water requirements Permits are also required for
any activity that disturbs stream beds or changes the
channel of a water course
As population increases, public land
administra-tors are under greater pressure to resolve conflicts
over land use while protecting the land from abuse
Myriad questions may be raised How much
timber-land should be cut for forest products, and how much
preserved for watershed and wildlife? Should New
York City, for example, restrict economic
develop-ment in the Hudson River watershed to reduce pollu-tion caused by storm-water runoff ?
Public Land Management
In 1960, Congress passed the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act In many respects it simply codified practices (particularly regarding forest management) that had been followed informally since the early twentieth century Under a multiple-use approach, land is man-aged so as to support more than one use (such as for-estry and recreation) simultaneously Sustained yield refers to management (again, particularly forest man-agement) that fosters continuous production without depleting the resource
A few years later, in 1964, the Public Land Law Re-view Commission was chartered to study federal land policies Its report, released in 1970, was criticized for its recommendation that there be designated areas on public lands that would produce income for private companies, such as mining and ranching interests Termed “dominant use,” the concept was not new In
1878, John Wesley Powell, an explorer and member of
a commission to study public lands, had proposed
The Lost Coast of California is one of the National Conservation Areas controlled by the U.S Bureau of Land Management (©James
Bossert/Dreamstime.com)
Trang 5that public lands be classified according to whether
the land’s most appropriate use was irrigated
farm-ing, livestock grazfarm-ing, timber harvestfarm-ing, or other
uses Critics of dominant use argued that a variety of
activities should be allowed in any given area of public
land
Congress formed separate management systems
requiring different management approaches for
na-tional forests, parks, wildlife refuges, and grasslands
In 1964, the Wilderness Act created another form of
land management, one that recognized and
empha-sized recreation The result was more hiking and
bik-ing trails, ski areas, and campgrounds as well as
im-proved access to these recreational opportunities In
areas where primary uses overlap, such as a
forest-covered mountain, a multiple-use approach permits
different activities on or near the same site, such as
logging alongside a ski area boundary
A flurry of legislation in the 1970’s, including the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the
Na-tional Forest Management Act, both enacted in 1976,
had important consequences for public lands For the
first time, public comment was invited, and input
from many diverse groups made setting common
goals for public land management nearly impossible
Gridlock developed among those with various private
rights to public lands (such as ranchers with grazing
rights, outfitters and guides with hunting rights, and
forest products companies with timber-cutting rights)
and wilderness supporters with recreational-use rights
Water, Mining, Rights-of-Way, and Wildlife
Water rights are extremely important in the arid West
Land managers may register water rights and can
then withdraw water if it is available When allocation
is restricted, those with the earliest dates of water use
receive their allocations first Such is not the case in
the East, where water rights are not an issue City
dwellers can expect a rush of water when they turn a
faucet and are not faced with negotiating their
indi-vidual water rights
The greatest source of income from U.S public
lands is royalties from oil, gas, and coal Ninety
per-cent of federal lands were once open to mining, but
with passage of the Wilderness Act (1964), many
pub-lic lands became off-limits to mining A variety of
legis-lation covers mining on federal land, the central act
being the General Mining Act of 1872 It has
provi-sions allowing citizens to lay claim to a specific tract of
federal land for an annual fee The claimant then has
mining and surface rights This law remains in effect but has been limited through the years In 1920, oil and coal were removed from coverage under the act and covered by separate legislation; in 1955, common rocks and minerals were withdrawn; and in 1976, all national parks were withdrawn
Both public and private land managers routinely exchange right-of-way agreements to allow passage of livestock or access to timber sales Private landowners
of vast tracts of forest or rangeland often permit pub-lic access for recreational use Wildlife on pubpub-lic and private land is subject to state and federal regulations, and game harvests are regulated In many states pri-vate landowners with farmland damaged by game ani-mals can apply for a depredation hunt, but they can-not legally trap or harvest the animals without state permission Similarly, hunting seasons for waterfowl and migratory game birds are set by the federal gov-ernment, and these seasons must be followed by all land managers, public and private
Federal, State, and Private Management There has been considerable debate concerning the effectiveness of private versus public management, and of federal versus state or local management Pri-vate landowners have a strong financial incentive to take care of their land and use it wisely, or at least prof-itably Public managers do not have the same motiva-tion Some advocates propose returning federal pub-lic lands to state and local ownership or control, thereby letting those people paying the bills—the lo-cal taxpayers—see that the lands are managed wisely Opponents of this proposal argue that state managers could not manage the land as effectively as federal managers and fear that eventually the land would be acquired by private owners There are existing state public lands; most are small and scattered parcels, many of which were gained from education land grants Although land exchanges have consolidated some tracts, these small parcels are difficult to man-age effectively Proponents of the transfer of federal lands to state control claim that bigger parcels would result in improved land management by state admin-istrators
Jill A Cooper
Further Reading
Babbitt, Bruce E Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America Washington, D.C.: Island
Press/Shearwater Books, 2005
Trang 6Cawley, R McGreggor Federal Land, Western Anger: The
Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics
Law-rence: University Press of Kansas, 1993
Dale, Virginia H., and Richard A Haeuber, eds
Ap-plying Ecological Principles to Land Management New
York: Springer, 2001
Fairfax, Sally K., et al Buying Nature: The Limits of Land
Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy, 1780-2004.
Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Press, 2005
Francis, John G., and Leslie Pickering Francis Land
Wars: The Politics of Property and Community Boulder,
Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003
Fretwell, Holly Lippke Who Is Minding the Federal
Es-tate? Political Management of America’s Public Lands.
Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2009
Nelson, Robert H Public Lands and Private Rights: The
Failure of Scientific Management Lanham, Md.:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1995
Prescott, Samuel T Federal Land Management: Current
Issues and Background New York: Nova Science,
2003
Randolph, John Environmental Land Use Planning and
Management Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004.
Skillen, James The Nation’s Largest Landlord: The
Bu-reau of Land Management in the American West
Law-rence: University Press of Kansas, 2009
Web Site
U.S Department of the Interior
U.S Bureau of Land Management
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en.html
See also: Bureau of Land Management, U.S.;
Depart-ment of the Interior, U.S.; Forest manageDepart-ment;
Gen-eral Mining Law; Land-use planning; Multiple-use
ap-proach; National parks and nature reserves; Public
lands; Sagebrush Rebellion
Land-use planning
Category: Environment, conservation, and
resource management
Land-use planning is a management technique used
to protect the environment while fostering responsible
and compatible economic development The basic
phi-losophy of land-use planning is to mediate and avoid
conflicts between land uses and users, avoid hazards, conserve natural resources, and generally protect the environment through the use of sound ecological and economic principles.
Background Some form of planning is involved in most decisions about land use, but the term “land-use planning” usu-ally refers to a scale of decision making greater than that of an individual land unit Land-use planning usually involves government at one level or another in the decision-making process and is usually concerned with reconciling the goals and objectives of individu-als and groups that may be in conflict concerning pro-spective land uses
The purpose of land-use planning is to make the most sensible, practical, safe, and efficient use of par-cels of land Much of the motivation for land-use plan-ning arises from the current reality that a large and growing population occupies a fixed expanse of real estate and that some land is unstable and unsuitable for certain types of usage Because land-use decisions are based, in part, on scientific and engineering con-siderations, land-use planning involves a great deal of interdisciplinary team work Planners must weigh and consider decisions about the potential economic or practical benefits from a given use of the land and the possible negative environmental or aesthetic impacts
As a result, land-use planning often takes the form of assessing the suitability of a particular parcel of land for a particular purpose and proceeds somewhat like
an environmental impact assessment
Conflicting Values and Objectives Land-use planning is conducted to reflect differences
in goals between individual land users and the public
as a whole or among broad interest groups within the general population Individual land users may be con-cerned with selling or utilizing land to maximize its profitability, while government or concerned por-tions of the public may perceive greater utility in re-taining the land as is, or for an alternate purpose Sim-ilarly, individual land users may be content to manage their land in a fashion that does not maximize output, while the government may seek to use the land in such
a way as to increase the resource’s output It is the goal
of land-use planning to aid in resolving these conflict-ing societal values concernconflict-ing land resources
At one level, land-use planning is concerned with reconciling conflicting objectives At another level,
Trang 7planning seeks to mediate or adjudicate between the
objectives of interest groups and work to establish
compromise in goal setting for the management of
public lands so as to balance broad policies among
land-exploiting sectors of the population As a result,
few environmental topics are as controversial as
land-use planning The controversy involves several factors
First, unlike concerns over environmental pollution,
which can be measured, evaluated, and possibly
cor-rected, it is difficult to determine the “best use” of the
natural environment as opposed to the “most
profit-able use.” Second, landowners often fear that
plan-ning will take away their right to decide what to do
with their property A frequent problem in land-use
planning is that individual judgments about the
rela-tive importance or value of different land
consider-ations are involved, and these judgments often differ
sharply For example, an old-growth forest may appeal
to a lumber company as a source of valuable timber, whereas campers may prefer it to remain pristine and unlogged As a result, land-use planning has become
an important political and environmental issue
Politics and the Planning Process
In the end, sound land-use planning depends on how political power is distributed and exercised Land-use planning is not value free Professional planners con-tribute the means of planning, but the ends and ob-jectives are highly subjective and political in nature They depend on how land is perceived by society, on whether land use should be dictated by market forces and the pursuit of profit by its owner, or whether land should be regarded as a common-property resource like air or water, and on whether land is seen as an in-heritance to which an obligation of stewardship is owed to future generations
IDENTIFY
PROBLEMS
AND
DEFINE
GOALS
AND
OBJECTIVES
COLLECT AND INTERPRET DATA
FORMULATE PLANS
REVIEW AND ADOPT PLANS
IMPLEMENT PLANS
Evaluate impacts — environmental, social, economic, fiscal
Public initiative and response
COLLECT DATA
Earth science and other
information
Background studies
Existing land use
Transportation
Economic
Political
Social
Land capability studies
FORMULATE PLANS
Land use Watershed Natural resources Hazard mitigation Open space Waste management Public facilities
IMPLEMENT PLANS
Zoning and subdivision regulations Erosion and sedimentation control ordinances
Building and housing codes Environmental impact statements Capital improvement programs Health and information codes
The Land-Use Planning Process
Trang 8Land-use planners, like land users, often have
mul-tiple goals, and the methods and techniques of
plan-ning are highly diverse and usually include a variety of
steps In any land-use planning project the first and
most essential step is to identify and define issues,
goals, and objectives concerning the lands in
ques-tion This step is usually accomplished through a
com-bination of public input and scientifically based
re-search and assessment Data on the lands, including a
complete inventory of resources and hazards, must be
collected, analyzed, and interpreted A series of
land-use alternatives can be developed and tested based on
the collected data; the results of this process can be
used to formulate a potential land-use plan After
re-view, the plan can be adopted or revised prior to
im-plementation The key to the entire planning process
is to match the natural capability of a land unit to
spe-cific potential uses
Randall L Milstein
Further Reading
Berke, Philip R., et al Urban Land Use Planning 5th ed.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006
Butterfield, Jody, Sam Bingham, and Allan Savory
Ho-listic Management Handbook: Healthy Land, Healthy
Profits Rev ed Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2006.
Dale, Virginia H., and Richard A Haeuber, eds
Ap-plying Ecological Principles to Land Management New
York: Springer, 2001
Dramstad, Wenche E., James D Olson, and Richard
T T Forman Landscape Ecology Principles in
Land-scape Architecture and Land-Use Planning Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Graduate School of
De-sign, 1996
Fabos, Julius Gy Land-Use Planning: From Global to
Lo-cal Challenge New York: Chapman and Hall, 1985.
Mannion, A M Dynamic World: Cover and
Land-Use Change New York: Arnold/Oxford University
Press, 2002
Meyer, William B., and B L Turner II, eds Changes in
Land Use and Land Cover: A Global Perspective New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1994
Randolph, John Environmental Land Use Planning and
Management Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004.
Savory, Allan, and Jody Butterfield Holistic
Manage-ment: A New Framework for Decision Making 2d ed.
Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999
Steiner, Frederick The Living Landscape: An Ecological
Approach to Landscape Planning 2d ed Washington,
D.C.: Island Press, 2008
See also: Bureau of Land Management, U.S.; Land management; Mineral resource ownership; Multiple-use approach; Population growth; Public lands; Soil management
Land-use regulation and control
Categories: Government and resources; social, economic, and political issues
Government regulation and control of land use repre-sents the point at which land management and land-use planning considerations become official policy that
is enforced by law Such government regulation is fre-quently controversial.
Background Land-use regulation and control represent the sets of rules established by governing entities in a particular area that permit or prohibit certain activities on a par-cel of land Numerous activities can have significant impacts on land, so a specific set of guidelines must be
in place regarding the land uses that are considered
to be of greatest importance Subdivision controls were originally designed to obtain accurate land rec-ords as land was described, sold, and legally recorded Later, these controls were better described as develop-ment controls, because subdivision laws resulted in standards for design and construction work Zoning is the most well-known means of land-use control used
by local governing bodies: A geographic area is divided into sectors or zones based on the specific land-use controls established for these areas The most general land-use classes include agricultural, commercial, in-dustrial, and residential, since these classes occur even in small towns and may occur in larger urban areas Zoning ordinances contain a map which indi-cates the zones for the regulated areas and a text or narrative which explains the legal or allowed activities that may occur in each zone
Types of Regulation and Control Various levels of government use specific types of land-use controls to allow, encourage, discourage, or forbid resource exploitation in given areas One ex-ample is regulations concerning the development of floodplains or other potentially high-risk areas A floodplain can be an excellent site for development as
Trang 9long as a carefully designed land-use plan
incorpo-rates a detailed cost-versus-benefit analysis of the
ad-vantages and disadad-vantages of building in this
ecologi-cally sensitive zone Attempts to determine the true
cost of developing the floodplain must consider the
benefits of floodwater storage, aesthetic beauty, linear
parkland, and opportunities for viewing animal or
plant communities Decisions on these kinds of
com-plex and controversial development proposals should
consider the full range of environmental, social,
polit-ical, and legal issues that will affect the area Scenic
ar-eas are valuable because of their aesthetic beauty
However, they are also attractive building sites
be-cause of that beauty
Government entities have used land-use controls
to foster conservation and preservation efforts in
ar-eas that are recognized as environmentally
signifi-cant Determination of environmental significance
may be based on the limited land area of the resource
or on the presence of endangered or threatened
spe-cies within the boundary area A growing emphasis on
ecosystem-level (large-scale) approaches to
conserva-tion and management of terrestrial and aquatic areas
has caused local governments to reconsider some of
the adverse affects of their localized,
community-based development plans Since ecosystems can en-compass a regional area, a wider view must be taken by the regional planning organization to mesh environ-mental preservation issues with environenviron-mental plan-ning goals Land-use regulation must be based on an understanding of the balance between environmen-tal science and the discipline of urban planning
Land Management and Land-Use Planning The regulation of land use is based on, and linked
to, the processes of land management and land-use planning Land management focuses on the proper maintenance of the land’s condition and quality to maintain the property in the most efficient manner Management should consider the land as a natural resource to be preserved and maintained as a valu-able commodity Land management can be regu-lated and controlled by governing entities through the use of subdivision and zoning laws In rural areas, regional planning organizations can exert a strong influence on major land-management decisions if
a proactive view has already focused on mid- to long-term development issues Regional organizations gen-erally have less policy enforcement strength than the local governing board A properly conducted
man-agement plan comprises a number
of steps that focus on the various parts of the selected environment; these must be accurately inventoried before a land-management plan is implemented
Land-use planning focuses on the systematic definition and thought-ful design of the methods to be used
to effect the present and future uses
of land The plan must be developed through intensive examination of the site conditions and project alterna-tives that may affect the implementa-tion of the project The site condi-tions inventory must include data collected from the soils, vegetation (plant cover), hydrology, and clima-tic conditions, which will be analyzed and reported as part of a summary of the plan In addition, data acquired
by remote sensing may be incorpo-rated into the overall plan, because such data is significant on a large scale
Floodplains, like this one off the Nenana River in the Yukon region of Alaska, are
exam-ples of areas affected by land-use regulation (USGS)
Trang 10Trends in Planning and Control
Trends in land-use planning and control include
in-creased public and institutional interest and
participa-tion, development of new land-use planning tools, and
a larger role for environmental considerations “New”
land-use planning tools may be better thought of as
creative combinations of older methods to achieve the
desired outcome Environmental and natural resource
issues have caused citizens and planning organizations
to consider further the benefits of including
surround-ing natural habitats as an enhanced part of the overall
plan Land-use regulation has begun to focus more
in-tensely on the education of the public, because this is
often the group that will make the final decision
about whether a plan is accepted or declined
Richard Wayne Griffin
Further Reading
Arnold, Craig Anthony, ed Wet Growth: Should Water
Law Control Land Use? Washington, D.C.:
Environ-mental Law Institute, 2005
Elliott, Donald L A Better Way to Zone: Ten Principles to
Create More Liveable Cities Washington, D.C.: Island
Press, 2008
Epstein, Richard A Supreme Neglect: How to Revive
Con-stitutional Protection for Private Property New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008
Hoch, Charles J., Linda C Dalton, and Frank S So,
eds The Practice of Local Government Planning 3d ed.
Washington, D.C.: International City/County
Man-agement Association in cooperation with the
American Planning Association for the ICMA
Uni-versity, 2000
Juergensmeyer, Julian Conrad, and Thomas E
Rob-erts Land Use Planning and Development Regulation
Law 2d ed St Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2007.
Levy, John M Contemporary Urban Planning 8th ed
Up-per Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009
Nolon, John R., and Dan Rodriguez, eds Losing
Ground: A Nation on Edge Washington, D.C.:
Envi-ronmental Law Institute, 2007
Nolon, John R., and Patricia E Salkin Land Use in a
Nutshell 5th ed St Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West,
2006
Platt, Rutherford H Land Use and Society: Geography,
Law, and Public Policy Rev ed Washington, D.C.:
Is-land Press, 2004
See also: Land management; Land-use planning;
Public lands; Rangeland; Sagebrush Rebellion
Landfills
Category: Pollution and waste disposal
Landfills, repositories for general municipal waste, have the potential for contaminating resources, most notably water resources.
Background Landfills are naturally occurring depressions or artifi-cial excavations that serve as repositories for munici-pal waste or general refuse The waste is usually buried under successive layers of clay or other earth materials
as the debris gradually accumulates Generally, mu-nicipal wastes consist mostly of paper products (greater than 50 percent), with significant foodstuffs, glass, metals, minor garden and lawn debris, plastics, and wood scrap Some special facilities are authorized to receive toxic waste such as industrial chemicals and
contaminated soil Carla W Montgomery, in Environ-mental Geology (2006), states that a municipal sanitary
landfill requires a land commitment of 1 hectare per year for each 10,000 people if the facility is filled to a depth of about 7.4 meters
Types and Site Selection There are two types of repositories: area landfills and depression landfills Area landfills are large open areas generally situated on low-lying, relatively flat ter-rain Extensive excavation is involved, and the exca-vation is generally filled in sections Depression land-fills, characterized by individual cells, are usually located in places with irregular topography The cells are long rectangular cuts that usually range from 100 meters to 150 meters long, up to 50 meters wide, and from 8 to 10 meters deep
The location of a sanitary landfill is usually based on the following criteria The primary consideration is the presence of a suitable host rock such as shale or marl with a minimum site thickness of 15 meters If not structurally disturbed, these argillaceous rocks provide
a nearly impervious container for long-term storage
of waste material The facility should also be sited in
an area of low to moderate relief where the base of the landfill will be well above the groundwater table dur-ing all seasons of the year The site should be within a moderate haul distance from the communities served and have an all-weather road network available Geo-logic faults, both small and large, should be avoided