The global ‘land grab’ debate is going urban and needs a specific conceptual framework to analyze the diverse modalities through which land commodification and speculation are transforming cities across the globe. This article identifies new avenues for research on urban land issues by drawing on an extensive body of academic literature and concrete cases of urban land transformations in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Het landelijk gebied beslaat circa 70% van het grondoppervlak van Nederland. Om de biodiversiteit en de landschappelijke waarden te beschermen, heeft het Rijk de Ecologische Hoofdstructuur en Nationale Landschappen aangewezen. Buiten deze rijksprioritaire gebieden komen echter ook belangrijke natuur- en landschapswaarden voor. Dit werkdocument beschrijft de natuur en landschapswaarden in het agrarisch gebied. Dit onderzoek is uitgevoerd in het kader van de Natuurbalans 2009. Op verzoek van het ministerie van LNV is het thema ‘Biodiversiteit en het landelijk gebied’ uitgewerkt.

Nieuwe bebouwing tast de openheid van het landschap aan en verlaagt de belevingswaarde. Op basis van berekeningen en veldwaarnemeningen is vastgesteld dat het areaal aan zogenaamde ¿zeer open gebieden¿ tussen 1989 en 2000 met 4% is afgenomen. De toekomstige bedreiging is in hoge mate afhankelijk van de mate van spreiding. Bij 50% meer spreiding dan tussen 1989 en 2000 is het effect twee keer zo groot.

The southern and central regions of The Netherlands are part of the Northwest- European Delta Metropolis. The demands placed by modern, urban society on the agricultural sector are numerous. Not only are the environment, animal welfare, and food hygiene and quality at stake here, but also must these demands be met in a period of a structural decline in economic yields and under the permanent pressure of a shortage of available land. Intensification and increase of scale, which have characterized European agriculture for a long time, are set to continue in the future.

Propelled by rapid urbanization, city administrations in low-and middle-income countries face a raft of challenges to secure food and nutrition for its poor urban dwellers. Urban agriculture (UA) seems a viable intervention to address urban food insecurity, however, experience has shown that urban gardens do not expand at the expected rate. Tackling this issue requires a deeper understanding of the main constraints that block UA expansion. Benin is not an exception; the country witnesses a breathtaking growth of its main cities that is in synchronization with a mounting food insecurity.

Land use and land cover change is a critical factor of ecosystem services, while water yield plays a vital role in sustainable development. The impact of urban expansion on water yield has long been discussed, but water yield change resulting from cropland protection is seldom concerned. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the impacts of cropland protection on water yield by comparing the water yield in two cropland protection scenarios (i.e., Strict Cropland Protection scenario and No Cropland Protection scenario).

A wide variety of settlement systems exist, ranging from small villages to large metropolises. However, spatial analyses are typically confined to the mere presence or absence of built-up land and the changes therein, while more subtle differences between various settlement systems are ignored. In this paper we study the spatial distribution of Chinese settlements in terms of their built-up land, cluster density and cluster size, as well as their changes between 1990 and 2010.

Countries in Southeast Asia have been developing quickly from a predominantly rural to predominantly urban society, leading to a rapid increase in urban land. This increase in urban land has mainly occurred in river deltas and floodplains, exposing humans and human assets to flood hazard. Here we present an assessment of current and future flood risk in five countries of mainland Southeast Asia, using a new modeling approach that accounts for differences in urban land systems.

Urban land and rural land are typically represented as homogenous and mutually exclusive classes in land change analyses. As a result, differences in urban land use intensity, as well as mosaic landscapes combining urban and rural land uses are not represented. In this study we explore the distribution of urban land and urban land use intensity in Europe and the changes therein. Specifically, we analyze the distribution of built-up land within pixels of 1 km2. At that resolution we find that most built-up land is distributed over predominantly non-built-up pixels.

Without healthy soils, it is not possible to produce healthy food. But soils do not just produce food: they

Today, the Coalition for Urban Transitions releases a new report ‘Seizing the Urban Opportunity’, which provides insights from six emerging economies on how national governments can recover from COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis and secure shared prosperity through cities. Launching as a call to action for national governments ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, it builds on the Coalition’s flagship 2019 report: Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity.