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

Project: Research project

Project Details

Description

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.

StatusActive
Effective start/end date6/1/225/31/25

Funding

  • National Science Foundation: $399,748.00

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