Assessing land clearing potential in the Canadian agriculture–forestry interface with a multi-attribute frontier approach |
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| Institution: | 1. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, 1219 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6A 2E5, Canada;2. USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center, 3041 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA;3. Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, 1 Airport Road, Swift Current, SK S9H 3X2, Canada;4. Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C6, Canada;5. Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, Research and Analysis Directorate, Floor 4, Tower 7, 1341 Baseline Road, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C5, Canada;1. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Elbasan, Elbasan, Albania;2. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania;3. Department of Chemistry, University of Vlora, Vlora, Albania;4. Institute of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia;1. Key Laboratory of Urban Habitat Environmental Science and Technology, School of Environment and Energy, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055, China;2. Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China;3. Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States;1. CNRS, UMIFRE 21, Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, Pondicherry 605001, India;2. School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sheffield, Western Bank Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom;3. UMR 5059 CBAE, Centre de Bio-Archéologie et d’Ecologie, 34 000 Montpellier, France;4. CIRAD UMR TETIS, Maison de la Télédétection, 500 rue J.F. Breton, Montpellier F-34093, France;1. Amnis Opes Institute and Department of Fisheries & Wildlife, Oregon State University, 200 SW 35th Street, Corvallis, OR 97333, USA;2. Department of Fisheries & Wildlife, Oregon State University, 200 SW 35th Street, Corvallis, OR 97333, USA;3. Department of Statistics, Oregon State University, 44 Kidder Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA |
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| Abstract: | The pattern of forest land clearing in a region can be viewed as a gauge of sustainable (or unsustainable) use of agricultural and forest resources. In this study we examine the geographical distribution of land clearing potential in the Canadian agriculture–forestry interface and propose a new landscape-scale indicator that quantifies this potential. We consider the possibility that forested land will be cleared for agriculture as a trade-off between the land's capacity to support agriculture and its comparative value if it remains forested. However, this trade-off is complicated by the land's susceptibility to fragmentation (and subsequent conversion), which derives from the local pattern of forest, agriculture and other land cover types. We find the locations in the agriculture–forestry interface with the highest land clearing potential by delineating nested multi-attribute frontiers in the dimensions of the land's agricultural capacity, its estimated forest productivity and its fragmentation potential. The multi-attribute frontier concept addresses our lack of knowledge about the relative importance of these multiple drivers of land conversion by objectively combining them into a single-dimensional land clearing pressure metric in a geographical setting. Overall, our approach provides a simple yet informative indicator which reveals the geographical stratification of land clearing pressures across large regions. In general, the spatial delineation of areas with high land clearing potential agrees well with recent evidence of land clearing and deforestation events in Canada. |
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| Keywords: | Multi-attribute frontier Non-dominance Land clearing potential Agriculture–forestry interface Canadian land inventory Landscape fragmentation potential |
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