149
Major Conceptual Advances in Land-Use Planning
and Broader Applications
Modern land-use planning is based on bottom-up strategies (Sabatier 1986), where
society stakeholders, policy makers, and academics interact and negotiate land-use
priorities. The generation of knowledge, and co-design and management of natural
resources emerge as key issues for socio-ecological system-based regional planning
(Schuttenberg and Guth 2015). For successful land-use planning, sustainable development is a fundamental concept that involves the continuous dialogue between a
team of scientist, inhabitants (at all sectors), and decision makers (at all levels) with
the main objective of integrating ecological and social knowledge for the generation
and development of proper and flexible public policies through a constant evaluation process.
The description and function of a watershed as a socio-ecological system has
been presented by several authors (Márquez and Valenzuela 2008; Parkes et al.
2010; Rathwell and Peterson 2012; Fischer et al. 2015). Still, Fischer et al. (2015)
mention that some issues need to be explored, such as the development of a stronger
science–society interface that could help enhance understanding and improve the
interactions involved in ecosystem stewardship. Watersheds have been considered
as exploratory laboratories because they offer the ideal settings for long-term
research of dynamic natural resources, such as water (Schmidt and Friede 1996;
Slaughter and Richardson 2000; Malhi et al. 2010). Another useful concept is the
development of an ecological network that incorporates multi-actor planning,
change, and large-scale processes (Opdam et al. 2006); they also call for participatory planning but from the ecological point of view (Luz 2000). A new approach
includes incorporating social-ecological concepts when co-designing and planning
land-use projects (Guerrero et al. 2015) by transdisciplinary teams that combine
top-down and bottom-up land-use modeling (Verburg and Overmars 2009). In summary, watersheds are great territories for land-use planning and even have been
proposed to be administrative units such as municipalities (Espejel et al. 2004),
especially in drylands where focused aquifer management planning is crucial.
Case Study: Guadalupe Valley Official Planning and New
Proposals
A case study in Mexico was chosen because it has only enforced top-down regional
planning public policies and the sectorial, ecological, and territorial planning overlap, causing all land-use decisions to favor economic priorities. The selected case
study explains how three top-down land-use programs have been implemented, and
why it has been unsuccessful of achieving its main goal. Based on the reasons
behind the failure to follow regulation on land-use, we propose various bottom-up
strategies as an alternative based on the development of a transdisciplinary learning
9 The Construction and Sabotage of Successful Agricultural Lands in Semiarid Lands…
Major Conceptual Advances in Land-Use Planning
and Broader Applications
Modern land-use planning is based on bottom-up strategies (Sabatier 1986), where
society stakeholders, policy makers, and academics interact and negotiate land-use
priorities. The generation of knowledge, and co-design and management of natural
resources emerge as key issues for socio-ecological system-based regional planning
(Schuttenberg and Guth 2015). For successful land-use planning, sustainable development is a fundamental concept that involves the continuous dialogue between a
team of scientist, inhabitants (at all sectors), and decision makers (at all levels) with
the main objective of integrating ecological and social knowledge for the generation
and development of proper and flexible public policies through a constant evaluation process.
The description and function of a watershed as a socio-ecological system has
been presented by several authors (Márquez and Valenzuela 2008; Parkes et al.
2010; Rathwell and Peterson 2012; Fischer et al. 2015). Still, Fischer et al. (2015)
mention that some issues need to be explored, such as the development of a stronger
science–society interface that could help enhance understanding and improve the
interactions involved in ecosystem stewardship. Watersheds have been considered
as exploratory laboratories because they offer the ideal settings for long-term
research of dynamic natural resources, such as water (Schmidt and Friede 1996;
Slaughter and Richardson 2000; Malhi et al. 2010). Another useful concept is the
development of an ecological network that incorporates multi-actor planning,
change, and large-scale processes (Opdam et al. 2006); they also call for participatory planning but from the ecological point of view (Luz 2000). A new approach
includes incorporating social-ecological concepts when co-designing and planning
land-use projects (Guerrero et al. 2015) by transdisciplinary teams that combine
top-down and bottom-up land-use modeling (Verburg and Overmars 2009). In summary, watersheds are great territories for land-use planning and even have been
proposed to be administrative units such as municipalities (Espejel et al. 2004),
especially in drylands where focused aquifer management planning is crucial.
Case Study: Guadalupe Valley Official Planning and New
Proposals
A case study in Mexico was chosen because it has only enforced top-down regional
planning public policies and the sectorial, ecological, and territorial planning overlap, causing all land-use decisions to favor economic priorities. The selected case
study explains how three top-down land-use programs have been implemented, and
why it has been unsuccessful of achieving its main goal. Based on the reasons
behind the failure to follow regulation on land-use, we propose various bottom-up
strategies as an alternative based on the development of a transdisciplinary learning
9 The Construction and Sabotage of Successful Agricultural Lands in Semiarid Lands…