An Integrated Economic, Environmental and Social Approach to Agricultural Land-Use Planning

Sahar Shahpari, Janelle Allison, Matthew Tom Harrison and Roger Stanley
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Sahar Shahpari: Institute for Regional Development, University of Tasmania, Tasmania 7320, Australia
Janelle Allison: University College, Cradle Coast Campus, University of Tasmania, Tasmania 7320, Australia
Matthew Tom Harrison: Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Tasmania 7320, Australia
Roger Stanley: Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Tasmania 7320, Australia

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Agricultural land-use change is a dynamic process that varies as a function of social, economic and environmental factors spanning from the local to the global scale. The cumulative regional impacts of these factors on land use adoption decisions by farmers are neither well accounted for nor reflected in agricultural land use planning. We present an innovative spatially explicit agent-based modelling approach (Crop GIS-ABM) that accounts for factors involved in farmer decision making on new irrigation adoption to enable land-use predictions and exploration. The model was designed using a participatory approach, capturing stakeholder insights in a conceptual model of farmer decisions. We demonstrate a case study of the factors influencing the uptake of new irrigation infrastructure and land use in Tasmania, Australia. The model demonstrates how irrigated land-use expansion promotes the diffusion of alternative crops in the region, as well as how coupled social, biophysical and environmental conditions play an important role in crop selection. Our study shows that agricultural land use reflected the evolution of multiple simultaneous interacting biophysical and socio-economic drivers, including soil and climate type, crop and commodity prices, and the accumulated effects of interactive decisions of farmers.

Keywords: land use changes; spatial agent-based modelling; stakeholder insights; irrigation expansion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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