324
C. Fürst
the achievement of many of them provokes critical trade-offs for the sustainable
development of land use systems, e.g. through soil sealing (SDG’s 8 (Decent Work
and Economic Growth), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities)). This requires planning and policy instruments that
reduce such trade-offs through spatial prioritization of areas foreseen to contribute
to the SDGs and strategies to make them ecologically less problematic (e.g. through
keeping green infrastructures, greening of facades and roofs, etc. (e.g. Ignatieva and
Anrné 2013; Keesstra et al. 2016; Norton et al. 2015). An open question remains,
how the land use systems in highly different political, cultural, social and economic
surroundings can contribute not only locally but globally to the achievement of these
goals and what kind of criteria need to be defined to correspond to the diverse contextual situations when judging how far adapted land use has contributed to or improved
the achievement of the SDGs.
In this complex and interwoven areas of political and societal discourse, land use
science has the potential to reveal dependencies of the different political areas and the
interlinkages of the land use systems and subsystems from local to cross-continental
scale referring to the theories of social-ecological systems and their tele-coupled
connections (Friis et al. 2016; Liu et al. 2014; Schlueter et al. 2012). This theoretical
frame can help to identify which intervention strategies, either through regulating
or financial governance instruments or community-efforts can be most efficient in
reducing CC, CC impacts and biodiversity losses (Carter et al. 2014; Pereira et al.
2012). Policy and planning recommendations need to stretch over all the above
raised topics and reflect through an assessment of their impacts on the sustainable
development by the use of approaches such as sustainability criteria or ecosystem
services how relevant trade-offs, but also synergies are for local populations and in
a global context (Costanza et al. 1991; Kumar et al. 2013).
17.3 Topics for Future Research Areas
Land use science and its methodological concepts can contribute largely to make
societies aware of future challenges and risks in their development. Refocussing on
social-ecological systems, for instance, health and medical treatments are at high risk
to get lost including regulating and provisioning ES, taking waterborn diseases and
not yet explored medical substances as examples (Alves and Rosa 2007; Romanelli
et al. 2015). This poses also a problem for the long-term achievement of UN SDG
3 “Health and Human Well-being”. Besides the public and political discourse on
such highly relevant topics, there is a number of other research areas, where land use
science is called to contribute from an inter- and transdisciplinary perspective.
One of them is urbanization; currently, roughly 55% of the world’s population is
living in a city or in an urban/metropolitan area. This is expected to be increased in
the upcoming decades to an amount of 68% (UN World Populations Prospects 2019),
which means that the major part of the global population has no direct access to natural
resources and no direct relation to more natural land use systems such as agriculture
C. Fürst
the achievement of many of them provokes critical trade-offs for the sustainable
development of land use systems, e.g. through soil sealing (SDG’s 8 (Decent Work
and Economic Growth), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities)). This requires planning and policy instruments that
reduce such trade-offs through spatial prioritization of areas foreseen to contribute
to the SDGs and strategies to make them ecologically less problematic (e.g. through
keeping green infrastructures, greening of facades and roofs, etc. (e.g. Ignatieva and
Anrné 2013; Keesstra et al. 2016; Norton et al. 2015). An open question remains,
how the land use systems in highly different political, cultural, social and economic
surroundings can contribute not only locally but globally to the achievement of these
goals and what kind of criteria need to be defined to correspond to the diverse contextual situations when judging how far adapted land use has contributed to or improved
the achievement of the SDGs.
In this complex and interwoven areas of political and societal discourse, land use
science has the potential to reveal dependencies of the different political areas and the
interlinkages of the land use systems and subsystems from local to cross-continental
scale referring to the theories of social-ecological systems and their tele-coupled
connections (Friis et al. 2016; Liu et al. 2014; Schlueter et al. 2012). This theoretical
frame can help to identify which intervention strategies, either through regulating
or financial governance instruments or community-efforts can be most efficient in
reducing CC, CC impacts and biodiversity losses (Carter et al. 2014; Pereira et al.
2012). Policy and planning recommendations need to stretch over all the above
raised topics and reflect through an assessment of their impacts on the sustainable
development by the use of approaches such as sustainability criteria or ecosystem
services how relevant trade-offs, but also synergies are for local populations and in
a global context (Costanza et al. 1991; Kumar et al. 2013).
17.3 Topics for Future Research Areas
Land use science and its methodological concepts can contribute largely to make
societies aware of future challenges and risks in their development. Refocussing on
social-ecological systems, for instance, health and medical treatments are at high risk
to get lost including regulating and provisioning ES, taking waterborn diseases and
not yet explored medical substances as examples (Alves and Rosa 2007; Romanelli
et al. 2015). This poses also a problem for the long-term achievement of UN SDG
3 “Health and Human Well-being”. Besides the public and political discourse on
such highly relevant topics, there is a number of other research areas, where land use
science is called to contribute from an inter- and transdisciplinary perspective.
One of them is urbanization; currently, roughly 55% of the world’s population is
living in a city or in an urban/metropolitan area. This is expected to be increased in
the upcoming decades to an amount of 68% (UN World Populations Prospects 2019),
which means that the major part of the global population has no direct access to natural
resources and no direct relation to more natural land use systems such as agriculture