In a new paper published in Conservation Letters, THESys Member Tobias Kümmerle discusses how land use is often oversimplified in conservation assessments, policy, and planning—and how integrating Land System Science and Conservation Science can help overcome this. Specifically, he highlights how limited data on (global) land use, weak consideration of land-use dynamics and actor diversity, and a narrow focus on habitat transformation often miss the social-ecological complexity surrounding land use. Concepts and approaches such as archetype analysis, system mapping/modeling, and regionalization can help move beyond these simplified land-use representations.
This paper summarizes some of the main ideas behind the ERC project SystemShift, with more results to come soon!
To access the full paper, please visit this link.
