Towards regenerative landscape futures: the role of policy legacies, environmental stress, and landscape change

数百万人依靠农牧混合景观维持生计，因为这些景观具有独特的保护价值。然而，许多这些系统日益受到极端气候的威胁，包括干旱和蝗灾等病虫害的爆发，这些威胁到农业生产力。由于这些累积的压力因素，这些地区正在经历越来越多的具有全球地缘政治意义的冲突。该项目旨在支持在农牧系统中加强人类和环境福祉的景观管理方法。该项目的结果旨在促进对景观模式、过程和生态系统服务在当前和未来压力下最好地促进再生能力的理解。这项研究还为代表性不足的学生提供了教育机会，推进了一个公民科学应用程序来监测农业健康，并促进了学者和从业者之间的伙伴关系，以更好地理解和支持景观层面的决策。本研究建立在地理学多个分支学科（景观生态学、遥感、土地变化科学）和相关框架（社会生态系统和恢复力）的概念模型和技术的基础上。该研究发展了再生景观设计的概念，其中景观模式和过程可以更有针对性地设计，以导致更理想的未来。本研究通过案例研究，跨越历史土地权属政策、生物物理环境、当代或未来压力因素的广泛梯度，探讨了景观变化的挑战和机遇，并在这些历史、当代和未来景观格局的背景下推进了对家庭适应能力的理解。更好地了解家庭和景观层面的再生能力可以提高农业和畜牧业生产力，并有助于指导支持人类福祉的景观层面政策。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Millions of people depend on mixed agricultural and pastoral landscapes for their livelihoods and because of these landscapes’ unique conservation value. However, many of these systems are increasingly threatened by climate extremes, including drought, and pest outbreaks such as locust plagues, which threaten agricultural productivity. As a result of these cumulative stressors, these regions are experiencing increasing conflicts with global geopolitical significance. This project aims to support landscape management approaches that enhance human and environmental well-being in agropastoral systems. The results of this project are intended to advance understanding of what landscape patterns, processes, and ecosystem services best promote regenerative capacity under contemporary and future stressors. This research also provides educational opportunities for underrepresented students, advances a citizen science app to monitor agricultural health, and promotes partnerships among scholars and practitioners to better understand and support landscape-level decision making.This research builds upon conceptual models and techniques from multiple sub-disciplines of geography (landscape ecology, remote sensing, land change science) and related frameworks (socio-ecological systems, and resilience). The research develops the concept of regenerative landscape design, in which landscape patterns and processes can be more purposely designed to lead to more desirable futures. Using case studies that span broad gradients in historical land tenure policies, biophysical settings, and contemporary or future stressors, this research explores the challenges and opportunities of landscape change and advances understanding of household adaptive capacity in the context of these historical, contemporary, and future landscape patterns. A better understanding of household and landscape level regenerative capacity can enhance agricultural and pastoral productivity and help guide landscape-level policies that support human well-being.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.