Loss or Gain: New Article Published by ALI Research Team

The Alberta Land Institute's three-year project Economic Evaluation of Farmland Conversion and Fragmentation in Alberta is examining the province's agricultural landscape.

Led by Principal Investigators Dr. Scott Jeffrey and Dr. Brent Swallow, along with Co-Investigators Dr. Feng Qiu and Dr. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, this research is helping create a clearer understanding of the ways in which rapid population growth in Alberta is influencing agricultural land from the standpoints of its use, its value, and even the way it is perceived by the public. The project wraps up later this year, and members of the research team have been busy publishing papers based on their work.

Last November, two articles were published related to the project's research. The first was "Impacts of fragmentation and neighbor influences on farmland conversion: A case study of the Edmonton-Calgary Corridor, Canada," which appeared in the journal Land Use Policy. The second paper, "Assessing Neighbor and Population Growth Influences on Agricultural Land Conversion," appeared in Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy. 

Now, a third piece of research has been accepted for publication: "Loss or gain: A spatial regression analysis of switching land conversions between agriculture and natural land," by Dr. Feng Qiu, MSc student Haoluan Wang, and PhD student Xiaofeng Ruan, will appear this April in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. This research comprehensively investigates the gains and losses between agriculture and natural land in the Edmonton–Calgary corridor from 2000 to 2012.

The article is available for free download until March 28, 2016.

More information from this project will be available in the coming months, and some of its findings will be featured at ALI's next conference, Land Use 2016, for which registration is now open.

To learn more about Economic Evaluation of Farmland Conversion and Fragmentation in Alberta, visit the project page, and download the research team's first year report. Stay tuned to this website for more information.