Land Planning: population and land use and land cover in Land Management

Exploring the environment, intuiting that it suits your needs, is a behavior related to the natural history of the sapiens species. Since the beginning, when hominids started to cultivate plant species for their livelihood, the ordering of spaces became part of their routine, helping to choose the most suitable land for housing and/or food production. Years passed and the relationship between humans and the environment became closer, while knowledge about soil, plants, climate, seasons, agricultural increments, and others began to spread as knowledge. Today, this knowledge, which has already been consolidated, added to new tools, technologies, and information, advise populations on these choices, which enables their establishment and survival in different biogeographic conditions. However, the disorderly growth of the global population and the lack of urban and environmental planning have led to the problems discussed above (HARARI, 2015; DARWIN, 2014).

In this sense, the global concern turned to the understanding of how the relationship between the human species and the environment has been established and to the search for ways to improve it. This context made it possible to polish the concept of land planning, which reflects the organization of land to provide the population with a safe and healthy environment. In addition, through this planning, the sustainable use of natural resources present in the spaces is intuited. This area of knowledge supplements the development of tools, technologies and methods aimed at environmental preservation and conservation and the well-being of the population in a single ecosystem (BARBIERI, 2012).

The resources produced by this knowledge involve different educational centers, from exact and biological sciences to humanities. Many principles forged by it are already part of Brazilian public policies, such as the National Environmental Policy – PNMA (BRASIL, 1981) and the Federal Constitution (BRASIL, 1988). Furthermore, the growing industrial process has led companies to absorb global concerns and adopt measures that contribute to environmental management within enterprises through the series of ISO 14000 standards (ABNT, 2015) and the ABNT NBR 16001 standard (ABNT, 2012), for example. In addition, some tools have already been established and have become widely disseminated among legislators and managers, such as the ABNT NBR ISO 14064 (2007) standard for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories.

Taking up the premises of land planning and observing the mechanisms, it is observed that two points are crucial for progressing in the results obtained with its application. Knowing the population and the condition of the land becomes the key point for a more efficient land planning (BARBIERI, 2012; PALADINI, 2003). Thus, it is first necessary to understand the fundamentals of population and land use and cover, which support this area of science and guide its application on a global and local scale.

Taking the eyes to the concept of population, we assume what was predicted by Ricklefs and Relyea (2016), who present it as a set of individuals of the same species, which occupy the same area for a given period and who are capable of cross each other, generating offspring. With this precept, it is noted that there is a close relationship between the population and its habitat, enabling the establishment of communities. These, in turn, encompass all populations that occupy a given territory and the physical, chemical, and biological conditions that they produce and/or affect them (outflows and inflows, respectively) within the ecosystem and in transition areas between communities, called ecotones (PERONI & HERNÁNDEZ, 2011).

Resuming authors Ricklefs and Relyea (2016) and Peroni and Hernández (2011), it is understood that land cover reflects the phytotaxonomy, geology and topography of the areas, presenting a global panorama of these sectors. This aspect (soil cover) when associated with biogeochemical cycles and climatic factors portray its biogeography, which is also treated in the literature as morphoclimatic domains. On the other hand, knowledge about land use is associated with two parameters: its ecosystem function and its anthropogenic function.

In the first case, regions that play a crucial role in the cycling of biogeochemical elements, in the dampening of anthropogenic influxes and in the preservation of plant and animal species, such as environmental preservation areas and conservation units, are evident (BRASIL, 1981). In the second, there are areas where anthropic action significantly changed the coverage of areas, whether for housing or for agricultural and industrial production (ELLIS, 2014).

Assuming what Brondizio et al. (2016), note that these two parameters, population and land cover/use, are at the heart of the Anthropocene. Additionally, Rockstrom et al. (2009) demonstrates that knowledge of these two factors are strong indications that guide the establishment of public policies to preserve the environment and maintain planetary resilience. Consequently, spatial planning tools that assimilate these two aspects as focal points can strongly help in environmental preservation and conservation, human health and the planet's ecosystem balance. It is in this context that the antromas are presented (ELLIS & RAMANKUTTY, 2008).

References

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ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE NORMAS TÉCNICAS (ABNT); ABNT NBR ISO 16001: Responsabilidade Social - Sistema de Gestão – requisitos. ABNT, Rio de janeiro, 2012. <https://www.abntcatalogo.com.br/norma.aspx?ID=91309>.

ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE NORMAS TÉCNICAS (ABNT); ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 14064-1: Gases de Efeito Estufa – parte 1: especificação e orientação para quantificação e elaboração de relatórios de emissão e remoção de gases de efeito estufa. ABNT, Rio de janeiro, 2007. <https://www.abntcatalogo.com.br/norma.aspx?ID=1258>.

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