Impacts of fragmentation and neighbor influences on farmland conversion: A case study of the Edmonton-Calgary Corridor, Canada

• Feng Qiu ^[1] ; Larry Laliberté ^[1] ; Brent Swallow ^[1] ; Scott Jeffrey ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Alberta

     University of Alberta

     Canadá

     
• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 48, 2015, págs. 482-494
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 3 Citas
• Resumen

  • Under heavy development pressure, farmland is rapidly being converted to non-agricultural uses such as houses, roads, and industrial uses. A great deal of research has investigated these farmland losses and their associated drivers. However, the existing empirical studies have neglected two important issues related to farmland conversion: spillover effects from neighboring areas and the impacts of farmland fragmentation. This study incorporates fragmentation and neighboring impacts into the farmland conversion analysis and provides new insights for the land-use/cover change literature. Empirical results indicate that increases in fragmentation further encourage farmland conversion to urban uses, but the effects are not linear with decreasing marginal influences. Land-use activities and decisions have strong spillover effects on neighboring areas. Ignoring this externality could result in biased estimates and marginal effects and thus misleading policy decisions and recommendations.