Land use planning: an optimization approach

Abstract

These teaching materials are included in Session 21 of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)—Contributions from Forest Landscapes, an online teaching course developed by the Global-SDG-Campus network held by forestry schools from five universities across Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. Specifically, this session reviews the notion of Land Use Planning (LUP) and its contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasizing possible applications of the optimization theory to solve its typical problems. First, current land use is characterized and described quantitatively on a global scale. Land use change is also characterized and described quantitatively over the last decades, also on a global scale. A set of definitions of the LUP process is then presented, highlighting those characteristics that conceptually justify the application of optimization techniques. With this background, the most relevant aspects of optimization theory for solving LUP problems are reviewed, focusing on multi-objective programming for the major role that the idea of trade-off solutions plays on it. As a practical exercise, the session provides an opportunity to reproduce the computer code for solving an illustrative LUP problem of regional scope. The problem is formulated to cope with climate change in the near future and is taken from a recent scientific paper. At the end of the session, the linkages between LUP and the SDGs are reviewed, introducing the promising idea of Land Degradation Neutrality to catalyze the simultaneous achievement of several SDGs.