Globalizing Our Understanding of Land-use Change

As the world becomes ever more interconnected, the decision-making processes of a range of global and local actors and their social-environmental contexts have increasingly influenced use of rural agricultural lands. Rethinking and re-examining rural dynamics in the context of both biophysical and socioeconomic drivers is therefore essential. While a wealth of case study evidence exists, there is a need to integrate this data into a global context. Synthesis will enable a systematic classification of the multiple trajectories of rural land change and the conditions under which these trajectories are found world‐wide.

This workshop will synthesize knowledge on the global patterns of local land change processes using a range of cross‐disciplinary methods. Four central themes will be explored:

1. Inventory of different, disciplinary methods for meta-analysis,
2. The use of these methods in the interdisciplinary field of land science to synthesize case study knowledge,
3. The use of this information outside academia, and
4. The application of this information in integrated models for policy support.

Results of this meeting will yield a high‐level peer‐reviewed paper and a detailed plan for the development of a methodology to synthesize rural land‐use change trajectories.