Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Land system science and affiliated research linked to sustainability require improved understanding and theorization of land and its change as a social-ecological system (SES). The absence of a general land-use theory, anchored in the social subsystem but with explicit links to the environmental subsystem, hampers this effort. Drawing on land-use explanations, meta-analyses, and associated frameworks, we advance a broad framework structure of eight elements–aggregations of explanatory variables–with links to the biophysical subsystem, for systematic comparisons of extant explanations. Tests and models can be employed to identify which set of variables and their configurations provide robust explanations of across land uses, identifying the potential for theory development. The framework and its application are applicable to both top-down and bottom-up explanatory approaches employed in the social sciences. Links to the environmental subsystem invite future exploration of SES explanations that reach across the different dimensions of global change and sustainability science.
Publication Title
Journal of Land Use Science
Publication Date
2020
Volume
15
Issue
4
First Page
489
Last Page
508
ISSN
1747-423X
DOI
10.1080/1747423X.2020.1811792
Keywords
explanatory chains, land systems, Land-use/cover change, middle range theory, social-ecological systems
Repository Citation
Turner, B. L.; Meyfroidt, Patrick; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Müller, Daniel; and Roy Chowdhury, Rinku, "Framing the search for a theory of land use" (2020). Geography. 570.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/570
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Copyright
Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged with citation: Turner, B. L., et al. "Framing the search for a theory of land use." Journal of Land Use Science 15.4 (2020): 489-508.