Environment → Human
Environment → Human
Embedded Files
Environment → Human
Environment → Human
Human → Environment
Human → Environment
How land rental reshapes rangelands?
How land rental reshapes rangelands?
Land rental markets are growing worldwide and facilitate efficient utilization of land. However, the short duration of occupancy and limited property rights mean that rental contracts may discourage longer-term sustainable land management. Direct investigation into the relationship between land tenure and ecological outcomes has been hampered by scale-appropriate data on land tenure, resource management, and land outcomes. In this project, we address these issues with a study design that combines participatory mapping, household surveys, and remote sensing. We analyzed these data in a multilevel statistical model, controlling for environmental and land management influences.
Our results show that rented land parcels are associated with worse rangeland outcomes compared to privately held parcels. This study contributes to the literature by documenting important empirical effects of rental markets and presenting a replicable workflow for integrating earth observations and micro-level survey data, which can be adopted by researchers and practitioners in regions where land registry data is unavailable or inaccessible. The results have important implications for incentive and compensatory-based environmental policy.
Lu, Luci, Ping Li, Margaret Kalacska, and Brian E. Robinson. "Environmental impacts of renting rangelands: integrating remote sensing and household surveys at the parcel level." Environmental Research Letters 18, no. 7 (2023): 074005. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd8d9
Environment → Human
Environment → Human
Environment → Human
Environment → Human
Enivornment → Human
Enivornment → Human
How environmental characteristics influence ranch turnover?
How environmental characteristics influence ranch turnover?
In the western United States, ranchers lease grazing rights on public lands through permits issued by the Bureau of Land Management. But these permits don't always stay in the same hands—some change owners frequently, while others remain with the same ranching families for generations. When permits change hands often, the land tends to be managed by short-term users who might not have a long-term care plan as compared to multi-generational ranching families. Understanding what drives permit (un)stability is crucial is crucial for protecting these public lands.
We analyzed long term Bureau of Land Management permit records (1938-present) from over 500 allotments in southern New Mexico, combining archival tenure data with satellite time series to identify environmental and social factors that influence turnover patterns.
Human Systems
Human Systems
Human Systems
Human Systems
Rental contract preferences in Inner Mongolia
Rental contract preferences in Inner Mongolia
Land rental markets provide essential access for land-poor households, yet renters hold shorter and more restricted rights than owner-operators. Across Asia and Africa, rangeland privatization is replacing communal and collective tenure with individuated rights, and rental markets have grown as land shifts from households that hold allocations to those that need grazing. However, what renters value in a rental contract is largely unknown, and most of the existing evidence comes from cropland settings. To address this gap, we conducted a choice experiment with 192 herder households in Inner Mongolia, China, where four decades of grassland privatization have produced a large rental market.
We found that herders prioritize formal contracts, protection against early termination, and rights to receive eco-compensation allocated by use rather than by title. Longer contract terms, typically the focus of ownership-centered reforms, are not among their priorities. As privatization and rental markets expand across dryland regions, understanding renters’ tenure security is critical, because it directly shapes the conditions under which environmental stewardship decisions are made.
Lu, Luci, Ping Li, Margaret Kalacska, and Brian E. Robinson "Securing the renter: tenure preference in Inner Mongolia’s grassland rental market". In Preparation.
Enivornment Systems
Enivornment Systems
Mapping the patches that sustain rangelands
Mapping the patches that sustain rangelands
key resources are patches that provide relatively stable and predictable forage through periods of overall forage scarcity (e.g., dry seasons or prolonged droughts). These areas function as drought refugia, buffering livestock populations from the full impact of climatic fluctuations and preventing catastrophic losses during severe droughts. As rainfall variability increases, identifying and managing these key resources becomes critical for sustaining pastoral livelihoods and enhancing rangeland resilience.
Using 35+ years of satellite data from the Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP), we are identifying and analyzing key resources across public lands in southwestern New Mexico. Our work assesses the spatiotemporal dynamics of persistent forages and quantifies their stability and productivity over three decades and characterizing their biophysical attributes.
Lu, Luci, Sarah McCord, Brandon Bestelmeyer. Identifying dought refugia: Locating and understanding key forage resources in non-equilllibirum rangelands. In Preparation.
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