Exotic plant invasions in forested wetlands: effects of adjacent urban land use type

There are a variety of land use types in urbanized areas that may have different effects on the ecological characteristics of patches of natural vegetation. In particular, residential housing and industrial land-use may have different effects on adjacent forest communities. We tested this hypothesis by examining the vegetation of forested wetlands in a densely urban region, northeastern New Jersey. Wetlands embedded in industrial areas were much less invaded by exotic plant species than were wetlands embedded in residential areas, as reflected in the number of exotic species, the fraction of the total flora that was exotic, and their frequencies of occurrence. Few other structural characteristics of the vegetation differed between the two types of urban areas. We suggest that the management of land adjacent to forest edges may explain this surprising result. The low rate of invasion of wetlands within industrial areas suggests they could have high conservation value in urban ecosystems.     

Structure and composition of woody plants in urban forest remnants with different adjacent land-use and slope aspect

The plant community in the karst forest is influenced by mesoclimatic conditions, such as temperature and humidity and these conditions are in turn influenced by topographic features. Urban areas adjacent to karstic forest remnants also have the potential to influence mesoclimatic variables and may serve as a source of exotic species. We described the temperature and relative humidity of karstic forest remnants at slopes with combinations of either southeast (SE) or northwest (NW) aspect, and adjacent to either urban (URB) or secondary forest (SF). We also compared forest structure and composition on these slopes to understand the interaction between forest aspect and adjacent land use on the plant community. URB-SE slopes had highest temperature and lowest humidity among all adjacent land use-aspect combinations. Understory species in SE slopes had similar richness and diversity independently of adjacent land use, however within NW aspect, slopes adjacent to urban areas showed higher values than slopes adjacent secondary forest. Canopy trees species in slopes adjacent to secondary forest were more diverse and rich in SE than in NW, although no differences between aspects were detected within URB-adjacent slopes. Understory species composition was different among the four land use-aspect combinations. However, composition of canopy trees species was different only between aspect types. Most exotic species in the sites were associated with previous agricultural practices and not with current land use. Our results show a temporal and spatial influence of anthropogenic systems on the plant community in karstic forest remnants at a suburban area of Puerto Rico.     

上海农村土地管理制度的改革创新

上海深化农村土地管理制度改革的思路是:通过有序流转承包农用地,促进农业规模经营、集中经营;通过归并、整理农民宅基地,促进农民集中居住;通过有序开发、规范利用农村集体建设土地,为农村第二、第三产业发展提供空间;通过完善征地补偿制度,确保农民利益。为此,上海要抓紧开展确权登记工作;培育新型经营主体,推动农业规模经营;加快宅基地归并和土地整理;完善农村集体建设用地流转收益分配制度;鼓励利用农村集体建设用地建设公租房;完善"征地留地""征地留房"等补偿安置方式。     

Poverty,Residential Mobility,and Student Transiency within a Rural New York School District*

Abstract Human capital models assume residential mobility is both voluntary and opportunity‐driven. Residential mobility of low income households, however, often does not fit these assumptions. Often characterized by short‐distance, high frequency movement, poverty‐related mobility may only deepen the social and economic instability that precipitated the movement in the first place. Children may be particularly affected because of disrupted social and academic environments. Among community institutions, schools often experience significant student turnover as a consequence. This paper presents a case study of student transiency and residential instability within an impoverished rural New York school district, examining both enrollment change data and residential histories collected from economically disadvantaged parents of mobile students. It finds that poverty‐related mobility is frequently not voluntary but the consequence of precipitating social and economic crises at the household level in combination with the inability to obtain adequate and affordable housing. Hence, poverty‐related hypermobility may be interpreted as both a consequence and determinant of rural community disadvantage.     

Towards a theory of the American rural residential land market

Since the late 1960s there has been a notable acceleration in America in the demand for rural residential land within commuting range of urban and suburban employment and service opportunities. American rural residential households do not seem to purchase acreage tracts primarily for their ‘productive’, or resource value, however. Instead, they purchase rural land for its ‘consumptive’ or residential value, as its value is primarily derived from the bundle of residential attributes associated with it. Over time, rural land within commuting range of metropolitan areas becomes underproductive and idled — a situation which precedes urban sprawl. Rural residential development has thus become a focus of debate on the effects and inefficiencies associated with urban sprawl. Yet, not enough is known about the nature of the rural residential land market. It is argued that American rural residential households are different from their suburban and urban counterparts for at least three reasons. First, they are distinguishable for their pursuit of self-sufficiency, self-expression, and the cultural status that a rural residential lifestyle offers. Second, they seek low cost rural jurisdictions in order to afford more housing and land than they could afford in higher cost urban and suburban locations. Third, they value distance from the city center colinearly with externalities such as pollution, crime, overcrowding, and noise associated with central city areas. In the latter sense, American rural residential households value land more highly the farther away it is from the city center, but discount land value the farther away it is from the boundary of urban development. In light of these considerations, this paper (a) reviews the literature describing the motivations of American rural residential households, (b) poses a theory of the American rural residential land market, (c) applies the theory to a case study, and (d) offers implications of the theory to planning efforts aimed at preserving resource land and containing urban sprawl.     

Rural residential properties in China: Land use patterns, efficiency and prospects for reform

Rural residential land represents one of the most important land use types in China. However, the literature so far has paid insufficient attention to the patterns and efficiencies of this type of land use. To fill in this gap, this paper uses a national survey to analyze the institutional setups for rural residential land use, to assess the effectiveness of existing regulations, and to evaluate the efficiencies in rural residential land use. Farmers’ subjective receptiveness toward rural residential property regulation reform is also investigated. We find that rural residential properties are inefficiently utilized under the existing land use regulations, that those who are younger and who had previous migration experiences are more likely to support the free trading of rural residential properties while the village cadres are more likely to oppose it. A coordinated policy reform package that includes free trading of rural residential properties and Household Registration System to facilitate permanent migration out of the countryside is proposed to address the existing efficiencies in China’s rural residential land use.     

Changing ruralities, changing landscapes: exploring social recomposition using a multi-scale approach

Changes in agricultural practices have led to declines in the farming population and significant changes within the landscape. Paradoxically, many rural areas are recording significant demographic growth. Given the extent of rural areas experiencing these changes, little attention has been devoted to the relationship between rural migration processes and landscape developments. Therefore, the various rural dynamics resulting from these phenomena merit closer investigation. Moreover, we should explore these complex processes at scales where they are most evident. Through the multi-scale research approach used in this study, these processes are investigated in their regional, local, and domestic contexts.As shown by regional typological outlines, the great diversity of the rural areas indicates an increasing dissociation between the agricultural and socio-demographic trajectories. From our local-scale study, changes in lot occupation revealed new residential settlement patterns induced by an influx of in-migrants. Specific landscape characteristics seem to be a determining force shaping these population flows. At the same time, these population movements have dissimilar influences on evolving landscape dynamics. With the exception of isolated agricultural abandonment trajectories, migrant relocation does not seem to affect specific local-scale land use development. However, it is significantly associated with individual domestic practices. These practices are indicative of the migrant's identity in the rural landscape; further, they suggest specific values for the landscape's qualitative dimensions. These emerging urban and non-farming interests in rural landscapes challenge planning policies to guide the landscape's evolution for the benefit of its “producers” and “consumers”.     

Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: Gaps in the research agenda

The direction, complexity and pace of rural change in affluent, western societies can be conceptualized as a multifunctional transition, in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all scales. This transition is propelled by three dominant driving forces, namely: agricultural overcapacity; the emergence of market-driven amenity values; and growing societal awareness of sustainability and preservation issues. Australia's generous supply of land and sparse investment in agriculture has facilitated local transitions towards enhanced consumption and protection values, enabling a clearer delineation of emerging differentiated modes of rural occupance than in more contested locales. In Australia seven distinctive modes of occupance can be identified, according to the relative precedence given to production, consumption or protection values. These modes are described as: productivist agricultural; rural amenity; small farm (or pluriactive); peri-metropolitan; marginalized agricultural; conservation; and indigenous. Within these seven modes, alternative trajectories are identified, indicating variability in the intensity and type of resource use. Articulation of the transition concept may provide synergy between discrete discourses in rural research.     

The politics of marginality in Wallowa County,Oregon: Contesting the production of landscapes of consumption

The state of Oregon’s (USA) land use planning framework has long been characterized by tensions between state and local authority, between traditionally-defined “urban” and “rural” concerns, and between the competing interests of various landowners. An examination of Wallowa County, Oregon’s implementation of House Bill 3326, a 2001 law giving counties the power to define certain agricultural lands as “marginal,” and therefore exempt from restrictions on subdivision and development, illustrates the ways in which these tensions become magnified as rural communities attempt to govern private land use in the context of rural restructuring. Implementation of HB3326 highlighted the tensions between landowners interested in capitalizing on development opportunities afforded by HB3326, neighboring producers concerned about interference from future amenity migrants, and existing amenity migrants with interests in protecting their rural idyll. Contestations over nonfarm development took place in the context of a strong agricultural community identity, concerns about the effects of economic restructuring on producers, and local resistance to the rural gentrification process. The process of defining marginality came to encompass not only technical issues of land productivity, but also broader community contestations over the continuation of traditional land uses and the legitimacy of various actors to govern private land.     

Bird responses to housing development in intensively managed agricultural landscapes

Housing a growing human population is a global issue and designing environmentally friendly developments requires identifying the species likely to be negatively impacted and finding mitigation solutions. Existing studies that consider fragmentation of natural habitats have limited application in countries such as Britain where a prime target for development is agricultural land where decades of intensive management have already diminished biodiversity. Here I used citizen science data on the abundance of 146 breeding and wintering birds to develop models linking abundance to human population density and habitat features. I used these as a proxy for the urbanisation process, finding that impacts of urbanisation were species-specific and context dependent. Low-density developments benefited a high proportion of birds, with wetland birds benefitting most and farmland birds least, but as human densities increased further, up to 75% of species were negatively impacted. Almost half of species currently occurring at 14 flagship residential development sites were predicted to decline based on projected human population density increases, with a third predicted to increase. Presence of wetlands, canopy cover and patches of trees all benefited certain species but efforts to identify more detailed habitat associations were hampered by collinearity among variables. I conclude that even in heavily degraded agricultural landscapes, a high proportion of species will be negatively impacted by residential development and that some will require spared land to persist in the wider landscape. As no single habitat benefited the entire bird community, urban planners wishing to design bird-friendly developments will need to make difficult decisions over which aspects of the bird community to prioritise.

     

关于深化上海农村改革的若干思考

上海深化农村改革应着力发展现代农业经营的"三类主体":家庭农场、农民合作社和农业企业;着力保障农民的"三项权利":农民的土地承包经营权、农村集体经济组织成员权利和农民宅基地用益物权;着力盘活农村的"三块土地":农村承包土地、农民宅基地和农村集体建设用地;着力完善涉农的"三项制度":农产品价格形成制度、农业支持保护制度和土地征收制度;着力提升农村公共服务的"三项水平":农村义务教育水平、农村社会保障水平和农村医疗服务水平。     

Across the divide (?): Reconciling farm and town views of agriculture–community linkages

In North America and elsewhere it is frequently asserted that changes in rural society have led to an economic and social ‘decoupling’ of agriculture from the wider rural community. Casual analysis of contemporary media reporting and popular discourse would suggest that interactions between the two spheres are as often characterized by neglect or conflict as by complementarity and collaboration. However, scholarly interpretation of evolving relations between farming and the wider rural community, and whether these constitute a trend to relinking or decoupling, has remained elusive and problematic. This paper advocates for and articulates a case study approach to the analysis of ‘ambiguous interdependency’ at the local level. Specifically, it is argued that much can be learned from a comparative analysis of farm and town views of sector-specific development trajectories and of implications for agriculture–community linkages. Insights obtained from in-depth interviews with 68 farm and town residents of South Huron County, Ontario, suggest a strong tendency for farmers to undervalue their importance and influence within the local community, but also highlight certain consequences of ongoing agricultural change and recent municipal restructuring that point toward the continued reshaping of agricultural community linkages. The research suggests both points of convergence and divergence that may be valuable in understanding, and perhaps managing, future development at the local scale and beyond.     

关于上海松江区发展家庭农场的思考

上海松江区改革农村土地管理制度,规范农村承包地流转,创新农业经营主体,培育、发展家庭农场,取得了明显成效。松江家庭农场经营模式为上海乃至全国发展家庭农场提供的启示是：顺应形势发展,为家庭农场成长创造良好的外部环境;培养职业农民,为家庭农场发展提供坚实的人力保障;加强扶持服务,为家庭农场发展提供有力的政策支持。推广松江家庭农场模式,要注意把握好3方面的问题,即：家庭农场经营规模＂度＂的问题;土地如何＂流转＂的问题;政策措施＂扶持＂的问题。     

Similar effects of residential and non-residential vegetation on bird diversity in suburban neighbourhoods

Estimating the relative importance of vegetation on residential land (gardens, yards, and street-trees) and vegetation on non-residential land (parks and other large green spaces) is important so that competing options for urban conservation planning can be prioritized. We used data from an urban breeding-bird monitoring program to compare the relative effects vegetation on residential land and vegetation on non-residential land (both the amount and type of vegetation at local and landscape scales) on bird species richness and an index of conservation value for the bird community. We then estimated the realised relative benefit of managing the amount of vegetation on these two types of land (i.e., as alternative management options for promoting biodiversity), which might be achieved within the practical limits imposed by human population density. The local effects of increasing residential and non-residential vegetation amount were similar and positive on all measures of bird species richness and conservation value. Non-residential vegetation had an additional landscape-scale influence on bird diversity that residential vegetation did not. Options for managing the amount of non-residential vegetation appear to be more limited by high human population density than for managing the amount of residential vegetation. This suggests that there may be greater realised benefits to bird diversity from managing the amount of vegetation on residential land than from the more common focus of urban planning of managing vegetation on non-residential land.     

Influence of Perceptions of Current and Future Community on Residential Aspirations of Rural Youth

Outmigration of youth has concerned rural communities and researchers for several decades. Yet not all communities experience extensive youth outmigration and some youth want to stay in their rural communities as adults. This article examines youth satisfaction with their current community and the importance of characteristics of the community in which they would like to live as an adult for youth preferences to leave or stay in their rural community. The data are for rural ninth‐grade youth in Pennsylvania from the Rural Youth Education Project. The results suggest that perceptions of available jobs and educational opportunities in both current and future community, parental and friend influences, and the quality of the natural environment and outdoor recreation are important in determining residential aspirations. In particular, identifying a clean natural environment and outdoor recreation as important in the adult community increases the likelihood that rural youth have residential aspirations to stay in their rural community. This research adds to our knowledge about factors important in determining youth residential aspirations by identifying attributes of community beyond jobs and educational opportunities that youth find attractive as they consider places to live as adults.     

Relationship between urbanization and bat community structure in national parks of the southeastern U.S.

Urbanization and development are predicted to increase considerably in the United States over the next several decades, and this is expected to result in large-scale habitat loss, fragmentation and loss of wildlife species. Thus, natural parks and preserves are becomingly increasingly important in the conservation of regional biodiversity. We used mist-nets and AnabatII acoustic detectors to survey bats in 10 national parks in the southeastern U.S. and examined the relationship between bat community structure and development in the surrounding 5 km. We predicted that species richness would increase with park size and that species richness and evenness would decrease with development. Species richness was not related to development or any other landscape characteristics including park size. In contrast, species evenness declined with increasing development. Percent Developed land in the surrounding 5 km area was the only variable that entered into the stepwise regression model. The decrease in species evenness in the urban parks was due to the dominance of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) in these parks. The percentage of big brown bats in our captures was positively related to percent Developed land in the surrounding area. Our data suggest that urban parks may be important for conserving regional bat biodiversity. However, the low species evenness in these parks suggests that some bat species may be susceptible to the effects of urbanization and may be extirpated over time. Thus, management of urban as well as rural parks should strive to conserve as much bat roosting and foraging habitat as possible.     

Reconstructing rurality and community: plantation forestry in Victoria, Australia

Changes in land use are a common response to deterioration in the economic viability of farming. While diversification into other agricultural land uses apparently takes place with little consternation or resistance, the development of plantation forestry on agricultural land is often accompanied by concern and controversy. What sets plantation forestry apart from agriculture is that it often involves new forms of ownership and control, it is accompanied by changes in population, and it transforms the production landscape. The development of plantation forestry has become increasingly commonplace in many parts of rural Australia, and it has been met with mixed reactions from rural communities. Our interest was to explore the outlook and perspectives on forestry within a rural locality—Branxholme in the State of Victoria—that is experiencing relatively rapid land-use change into planted forests. We provide a synopsis of community reactions to land-use change. The social construction of change is reported at one level in relation to well-established elements—population, service provision, and employment. Underlying our analysis, though, is an attempt to understand the social construction of change in relation to the higher-order concepts of rurality and community.     

Rural development in the context of conflictual resource usage

The paper examines the role of aquaculture in sustainable development of rural communities. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, aquaculture is the fastest growing sector in the food sector, and the only growing component in the fisheries. It offers year-round jobs and incomes. However with its agricultural focus on ‘enclosing’ waterways, aquaculture is frequently opposed by the traditional fishery, and residential property owners. Their opposition may succeed in banning aquaculture. This paper, recognizing that aquaculture may produce conflicting rights and damage to other users, suggests that mutual economic and environmental interactions should be identified. This will permit a more holistic approach to coastal management. Regulations can be imposed to mitigate adverse environmental repercussions, and a cost-benefit study made to clarify socio-economic impacts. Cage culture of salmon in the Bay of Fundy in Atlantic North America is used to illustrate conflictual relationships, but the illustration could have come from Galicia in Spain, or the Tenth Region in Chile.     

发展陷阱：城镇化建设何去何从？

中国历经30多年的高速经济增长,重返社会建设既是现实的需要,也是发展规律的内在要求。随着城乡社会的融合,村庄在消逝,城市人与农村人的权利心理在走向趋同。乡土社会经济正在消逝,取而代之的是城市社会的快速扩张,非农、非正规经济在农村土地上快速长成,而这一过程其实又是一次试错运动。推进中国的城市化,不是解除户籍和土地制度的束缚,而是依靠生产方式转变和农民收入提高,以及农村的土地经营模式的改变。城镇化道路的选择,关注重点应该是农村而不是城市,出路在于城市建设稳步推进以及其与农村社会经济发展之间的协调。     

Resources management in India and China — an overview

India and China reached national sovereignty at the end of the 1940s. Since that time the two countries have made significant industrial progress and they have, relative to other Third World countries, a large number of well-educated people. However, the agricultural developments in India and China have been very different, though the two countries have a similar resources base. While the Chinese peasants, through hard work upon the rural land, have seen a substantial increase in their standard of living, the mass of Indian peasants are still living under severe circumstances and poverty. Furthermore, the rational management of land and water resources are much more advanced in China than in India. An important part of the difference in the agricultural and resources development of the two countries is related to the various guidelines of national economic performance and institutional settings. China has adopted a self-reliant basic-needs-oriented approach of national economic performance, which has given due attention to agricultural development and resources management. India has followed a Western-inspired liberal economic growth model of national economic performance, which has emphasised industrial development directed toward fastgrowing isolated economic enclaves within a basically subsistence economy. The cooperative ownership approach has improved resources management in China, whereas the small peasant/tenant approach in India has been unable to improve the resources management situation. The paper suggests that only a cooperative ownership approach towards land and water resources management will give any future prospect for an improvement in the standard of living for the mass of the people and the resources situation in India. Consequently, research activities in resources management ought to be directed towards cooperative solutions and experiences in India.