Meeting increasing food demands in an environmentally sustainable manner is a worldwide challenge. Agricultural land covers 38% of the world's land area and produces about 30% of the world's net primary products to meet human needs. It is the expansion and intensification of arable land that has driven the huge increase in global food production over the past few decades, which is a crucial way to achieve the "zero hunger" goal of the United Nations (UN). However, high-intensity use and uncontrolled expansion of agricultural land have caused many environmental problems, like overexploitation of groundwater, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and serious nitrogen or phosphorus pollution. Unsustainable arable land use beyond the environmental limits affects the stability of the natural system. Therefore, how to increase food production sustainably while reducing the environmental impact has become a global issue that should be considered for realizing Sustainable Development Goals.
Given the significance of sustainable agricultural land use for global food security, our research topic seeks to bring together perspectives and empirical studies of sustainable agricultural land use and environmental risk management related to land intensification and expansion. Specifically, we seek contributions to sustainable agricultural land use transition within the environmental limits. This Research Topic will help to (1) identify factors responsible for environmental risks of agricultural land use and evaluate its impacts; (2) highlight the costs and risks associated with policies and solutions to environmental problems; and (3) provide examples, concepts, and pathways of sustainable agricultural land-use transition. The Research Topic will be of great interest and value to researchers, decision-makers, and educators across a wide range of fields, including farming, ecology, conservation, planning, economy, sociology, and environmental history.
Hypothesis and Theory, Methods, Original Research, Policy and Practice Reviews, Review, and empirical contributions are encouraged by established and early-career researchers from across and between the social, economic, geography, ecology, natural, and inter-and transdisciplinary sciences. We welcome contributions from fields that have examined the harms or benefits of agricultural land use that environmental processes and phenomena have been dealt with in certain regions (for example, vulnerability, disaster risk reduction, and risk assessment) in this Research Topic. Examples of possible subject areas include but are not limited to those answering the following questions:
• What is the process of agricultural land intensification and expansion?
• What are the environmental risks of agricultural land intensification and expansion, and what are the characteristics of these risks in space and time?
• How to evaluate the environmental risks of agricultural land intensification and expansion?
• How do agricultural land intensification and expansion lead to these environmental risks, and how to quantify the paths?
• How to weigh the trade-off between environmental impacts and food security?
• What are the costs and risks associated with policies and solutions to environmental problems?
• How to realize sustainable transformation of the agricultural land use system?
The Topic Editors wish to thank Dr Eric Koomen for his editorial contribution and assistance in the realization of this collection.
Meeting increasing food demands in an environmentally sustainable manner is a worldwide challenge. Agricultural land covers 38% of the world's land area and produces about 30% of the world's net primary products to meet human needs. It is the expansion and intensification of arable land that has driven the huge increase in global food production over the past few decades, which is a crucial way to achieve the "zero hunger" goal of the United Nations (UN). However, high-intensity use and uncontrolled expansion of agricultural land have caused many environmental problems, like overexploitation of groundwater, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and serious nitrogen or phosphorus pollution. Unsustainable arable land use beyond the environmental limits affects the stability of the natural system. Therefore, how to increase food production sustainably while reducing the environmental impact has become a global issue that should be considered for realizing Sustainable Development Goals.
Given the significance of sustainable agricultural land use for global food security, our research topic seeks to bring together perspectives and empirical studies of sustainable agricultural land use and environmental risk management related to land intensification and expansion. Specifically, we seek contributions to sustainable agricultural land use transition within the environmental limits. This Research Topic will help to (1) identify factors responsible for environmental risks of agricultural land use and evaluate its impacts; (2) highlight the costs and risks associated with policies and solutions to environmental problems; and (3) provide examples, concepts, and pathways of sustainable agricultural land-use transition. The Research Topic will be of great interest and value to researchers, decision-makers, and educators across a wide range of fields, including farming, ecology, conservation, planning, economy, sociology, and environmental history.
Hypothesis and Theory, Methods, Original Research, Policy and Practice Reviews, Review, and empirical contributions are encouraged by established and early-career researchers from across and between the social, economic, geography, ecology, natural, and inter-and transdisciplinary sciences. We welcome contributions from fields that have examined the harms or benefits of agricultural land use that environmental processes and phenomena have been dealt with in certain regions (for example, vulnerability, disaster risk reduction, and risk assessment) in this Research Topic. Examples of possible subject areas include but are not limited to those answering the following questions:
• What is the process of agricultural land intensification and expansion?
• What are the environmental risks of agricultural land intensification and expansion, and what are the characteristics of these risks in space and time?
• How to evaluate the environmental risks of agricultural land intensification and expansion?
• How do agricultural land intensification and expansion lead to these environmental risks, and how to quantify the paths?
• How to weigh the trade-off between environmental impacts and food security?
• What are the costs and risks associated with policies and solutions to environmental problems?
• How to realize sustainable transformation of the agricultural land use system?
The Topic Editors wish to thank Dr Eric Koomen for his editorial contribution and assistance in the realization of this collection.