University of Toronto

Department of Geography and Programme in Planning

Environmental Consequences of Land Use Change

JPG1416

Tuesday 1 to 3, PGB rm. 107

 

Instructor: Tenley Conway

Office: 5057 Sid Smith (on Tuesdays); UTM, Dept. of Geography, South Building

Phone: 905-828-3928

E-mail: tenley.conway@utoronto.ca (best communication method)

Office Hours: Tuesdays 3 to 4 or by appointment

 

 

Course Description

 

This reading seminar focuses on land use/ land cover within a global environmental change framework.  Changing land use/land cover, alongside climate change, has emerged as a key component of environmental change research, with researchers from both the social and physical sciences contributing to the growing body of literature.  The course begins by exploring the processes and consequences of land use changes.  This is followed by an examination of the approaches to studying historical, current, and future land use/ land cover.  The course ends with a detailed examination of North American suburban development.  Throughout the course issues associated with bridging the gaps between the social and natural sciences, connections between global and local processes, and the role of individual decision-makers will be considered. 

 

 

Course Requirements

 

Weekly required readings should be completed prior to the class.

 

Students are also required to write a paper proposal (2 to 3 pages) and a final paper (20 to 25 pages), exploring a theoretical and/or empirical aspect of land use/ land cover change.  The final requirement is to give a presentation on your paper at the end of the course.  One option for the paper is to complete a case study of land use change and the associated environmental impacts for a particular location (town, region, watershed).

 

 

Evaluation

 

The final grade will be based on the following factors:

Class participation (attendance, class discussion)                                               15%

Paper proposal (due October 14^th)                                                                  15%

Final paper (due December 5^th)                                                                        60%

Paper presentation                                                                                            10%

 

Schedule of Topics and Readings

 

Week 1                             Sept. 9^th    Introduction to Course

 

 

Week 2                             Sept. 16^th   Land Use/Land Cover as a Focus of Global Environmental Change

 

Required Readings

 

Turner, B.L. 1997. The sustainability principle in global agendas: justifications for understanding land use/ cover change. Geographical Journal 163(2): 133-140.

 

Slaymaker, O. 2001. Why so much concern about climate change and so little attention to land use change? Canadian Geographer 45: 71-79.

 

Head, L. 2000. Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Change. Arnold Publishing, London. Pp 34-45.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Nunes, C. and J.I. Augé (eds.). 1999. Land-Use and Land-Cover Change: Implementation Strategy. International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Report No. 48 and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change Report No. 10.

 

Committee on Global Change Research. 1999. Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. National Academy Press, Washington DC.

 

Ojima D.S., K.A. Galvin, and B.L. Turner II. 1994. The global impact of land-use change. Bioscience 44 (5): 300-304.

 

 

Week 3           Sept. 23^rd        Land Use/Land Cover and Complexity Theory

 

Required Readings

 

Malanson, G.P. 1999. Considering complexity. Annals of the American Association of American Geographers 89(4): 746-753.

 

O’Sullivan, D. 2004. Complexity science and human geography.  Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29 (3): 282-295.

 

Briassoulis, H. 2008. Land-use policy and planning, theorizing, and modeling: lost in translation, found in complexity? Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 35(1): 16 – 33.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Manson, S.M. 2001. Simplifying complexity: a review of complexity theory. Geoforum 32: 405-414.

 

Merchant, C. 1994. Postmodern science. In C. Merchant (ed.) Ecology: Key Concepts in Critical Theory. Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, NJ. Pages 334-369.

 

 

Week 4           Sept. 30^th        Land Use/Land Cover and Socio-ecological Systems

 

Machlis, G.E., J.E. Force, and W.R. Burch Jr. 1997. The human ecosystem part I: the human ecosystem as an organizing concept in ecosystem management. Society and Natural Resources 10: 347-367.

 

Cadenasso, M.L., S.T.A. Pickett, and J.M. Grove. 2006 Dimensions of ecosystem complexity: heterogeneity, connectivity, and history. Ecological Complexity 3(1): 1-12.

 

Matthews, R. and P. Selman. 2006. Landscape as a focus for integrating human and environmental processes. Journal of Agricultural Economics 57 (2): 199-212.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Botkin, D.B. 1990. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century. Oxford University Press, New York.

 

McDonnell, M.J. and S.T.A. Pickett (eds.) 1993. Humans as Components of Ecosystems: The Ecology of Subtle Human Effects and Populated Areas. Springer-Verlag, New York.

 

Zimmerer, K.S. 1994. Human geography and the “new ecology”: the prospect and promise of integration. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84(1): 108-125.

 

 

Week 5                             Oct. 7th     Drivers of Land Use Change

 

Required Readings

 

Ehrlich, P.R. and J.P. Holdren. 1971. Impact of population growth. Science 171: 1212-1217.

 

Heilig, G.L. 1994. Neglected dimensions of global land-use change: reflections and data. Population and Development Review 20(4): 831-859.

 

Proctor, J. D. 1998. The meaning of global environmental change: retheorizing culture in human dimensions research. Global Environmental Change 8(3): 227-248.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Fischer-Kowalski, M. and C.Amann. 2001. Beyond I=PAT and Kuznets curves: globalisation as a vital factor in analysing the environmental impact of socio-economic metabolism. Population and Environment 23(1): 7-47

 

Meyer, W.B. and B.L. Turner II (eds.). 1994. Changes in Land Use and Land Cover: A Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pages 259-328.

 

Molotch, H., W. Freudenburg, and K. E. Paulsen. 2000. History repeats itself, but how? city character, urban tradition, and the accomplishment of place. American Sociological Review 65(6): 791-823.

 

Mattingly, P. H. 2001. Suburban Landscapes: Culture and Politics in a New York Metropolitan Community. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Pages 236-260.

 

 

Week 6                             Oct. 14^th   Environmental Consequences: Abiotic

 

            Paper proposal due

 

Required Readings

 

Houlahan1, J.E. and C.S. Findlay. 2004. Estimating the ‘critical’ distance at which adjacent land-use degrades wetland water and sediment quality. Landscape Ecology 19: 677–690.

 

Chang, H. 2004. Water quality impacts of climate and land use changes in southeastern Pennsylvania. Professional Geographer 56(2): 240-257.

 

Olson, J.M., G. Alagarswamy, J.A. Andresen, D.J. Campbell, A.Y. Davis, J. Ge, M. Huebner, B.M. Lofgren, D.P. Lusch, N.J. Moore, B.C. Pijanowski, J. Qi, P.K. Thornton, N.M. Torbick, J. Wang. 2008. Integrating diverse methods to understand climate–land interactions in East Africa. Geoforum 39: 898-911.

 

Bonan, G.B. 2000. The microclimates of a suburban Colorado (USA) landscape and implications for planning and design. Landscape and Urban Planning 49: 97-114.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Dale, V.H. (ed.). 1994. Effects of Land-Use Change on Atmospheric CO₂ Concentrations: South and Southeast Asia as a Case Study. Springer- Verlag, New York.

 

DeFries, R., G. Asner, and R. Houghton (eds). 2004. Ecosystem and Land Use Change, Geophyscial Monograph Series 153. American Geophyscial Union, Washington DC. 

 

Dolman, A.J., A. Verhagen, C.A. Rovers (eds.) 2003. Global Environmental Change and Land Use. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston.

 

 

Week 7           Oct. 21^st          Environmental Consequences: Biotic

 

Required readings

 

Schulze, C.H., M. Waltert, P.J.A. Kessler, P. Pitopang, Shahabuddin, D. Veddeler, M. Muhlenberg, S.R. Gradstein, C. Leuschner, I. SteffanDewenter, and T. Tscharntke. 2004. Biodiversity indicator groups of tropical land-use systems: comparing plants, birds, and insects. Ecological Application 14(5): 1321-1333.

 

Scharlemann, J. P.W., R.E. Green, A. Balmford. 2004. Land-use trends in endemic bird areas: global expansion of agriculture in areas of high conservation value. Global Change Biology 10(12): 2046-2051.

 

McKinney, M.L. 2002. Urbanization, biodiversity, and conservation. Bioscience 52(10): 883-890.

 

 

Recommended

 

Maestas, J.D., R.L.Knight, and W.C. Gilbert. 2001. Biodiversity and land-use change in the American Mountain West. Geographical Review 91(3): 509-524.

 

Walker, B. and W. Steffen. 1997. An overview of the implications of global change for natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems. Conservation Ecology 1(2):2.

 

Hansen, A.J., R.P. Neilson, V.H. Dale, C.H. Flather, L.R. Iverson, D.J. Currie, S. Shafer, R. Cook, and P.J. Bartlein. 2001. Global change in forests: responses of species, communities, and biomes. Bioscience 51(9): 765-779.

 

Gaston, K.J., T.M. Blackburn, and K.K. Goldewijk. 2003. Habitat conversion and global avian biodiversity loss.  Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences 270 (1521): 1293-1300.

 

 

Week 8                             Oct. 28^th    Examining Historical Conditions

 

Required Readings

 

Whitney, G.G. 1994. From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America 1500 to the Present. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pp. 98-120.

 

Blondel, J. 2006. The ‘design’ of Mediterranean landscapes: a millennial story of humans and ecological systems during the Historic Period. Human Ecology 34(5): 713-729.

 

Nusser, M. 2001. Understanding cultural landscape transformation: a re-photographic survey in Chitral, eastern Hindukush, Pakistan. Landscape and Urban Planning 57(3-4): 241-255.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Cronon, W. 1983. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. Hill and Wang, New York.

 

Duram L.A., J.  Bathgate, and C. Ray. 2004. A local example of land-use change: southern Illinois: 1807, 1938, 1993. Professional Geographer 56(1): 127-140.

 

Klepeis, P.  and B. L. Turner II. 2001. Integrated land history and global change science: the example of the Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region project. Land Use Policy 18(1): 27-39.

 

 

Week 9                             Nov. 4^th     Predicting Future Conditions

 

Required Readings

 

Schneider, L.C. and R. G. Pontius Jr. 2001. Modeling land-use change in the Ipswich watershed, Massachusetts, USA. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 85: 83-94.

 

Clarke, K.C. and L.J. Gaydos. 1998. Loose-coupling a cellular automaton model and GIS: long-term urban growth prediction for San Franciso and Washington/ Baltimore. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 12(7): 699-714.

 

Entwisle B., G, Malanson, R.R. Rindfuss, and S.J. Walsh. 2008. An agent-based model of household dynamics and land use change. Journal of Land Use Science 3(1): 73-93.

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Bockstael, N.E. 1996. Modeling economic and ecology: the importance of a spatial perspective. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 78: 1168-1180.

 

Brown, D.G. et al. 2008. Exurbia from the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a complex system. Geoforum 39 (2): 805-818.

 

Wang, Y. and X. Zhang. 2001. A dynamic modeling approach to simulating socioeconomic effects on landscape changes.  Ecological Modelling 140: 141-162.

 

 

Week 10                           Nov. 11^th   After the Conversion: Urban Ecosystems

 

Required Readings

 

Ehrenfeld, D. 2002. Swimming Lessons. Pp. 152- 157.

 

Heynen, N., H.A. Perkins, and P. Roy. 2006. The political ecology of uneven green space: the impact of political economy on race and ethnicity in producing environmental inequality in Milwaukee. Urban Affairs Review 42(1): 3–25.

 

Pickett, S.T.A. et al. 2008. Beyond urban legends: An emerging framework of urban ecology, as illustrated by the Baltimore ecosystem study  BioScience 58(2): 139-150

 

 

Recommended Readings

 

Rome, A. 2001. The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism. Cambridge University Press, New York. Pp. 87-118.

 

Robbins, P., A. Polderman, and T,Birkenholtz. 2001. Lawns and toxins: an ecology of the city. Cities 18(6): 369-380.

 

Grove, J.M., Cadenasso, M.L., Burch, W.R., Pickett, S.T.A., Schwarz, K., O’Neil-Dunne, J., Wilson,M., Troy, A., Boone, C., 2006. Data and methods comparing social structure and vegetation structure of urban neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. Society and Natural Resources 19(2): 117–136.

 

Martin, C.A., Warren, P.S., Kinzig, A.P., 2004. Neighborhood socioeconomic status is a useful predictor of perennial landscape vegetation in residential neighborhoods and embedded small parks of Phoenix, AZ. Landscape and Urban Planning 69: 355–368.

 

Marzluff, J.M. (ed). 2008. Urban Ecology: An international perspective on the interaction between humans and nature. Springer, New York.

 

Alberti, M. 2008. Advances in Urban Ecology: Integrating humans and ecological processes in urban ecosystems. Springer,New York.

 

 

Week 11         Nov 18^th           Final Thoughts

 

Required Readings

 

Kaufman, W. 2000. Confessions of a developer. In L.M. Benton and J.R. Short. Environmental Discourse and Practice.  Blackwell, Oxford. Reprinted from P. Sauer (ed). 1992. Finding Home: Writing on Nature and Culture from Orion Magazine. Beacon Press, Boston.

 

Youngentob, K and M. Hostetler. 2005. Is a new urban development model building greener communities? Environment and Behavior 37(6): 731-759.

 

Berke, P. 2002. Does sustainable development offer a new direction for planning? Challenges for the twenty first century. Journal of Planning Literature 17(1): 21-36.

 

 

Week 12                     Nov 25^th          Paper Presentations/ Conclusions

 

 

Week 13                     Dec. 2^nd          Paper Presentations/ Conclusions

 

 

Paper due Dec 5^th at 5 pm.