Land use institutions and social-ecological systems: A spatial analysis of local landscape changes in Poland

Understanding the complex impacts of human settlement patterns on social and natural systems is critical for immediate and long-term policy decisions and ecosystem preservation. Land-use patterns can be conceptualized as a form of integrated natural-human system within urban regions. However, extant scholarship on urban development and sprawl often overlooks the institutional diversity which exists across countries and regions. Development and land-use are politically charged governance issues, and these studies have rarely examined the influences of local political institutions on land-use changes across countries and over time. To help build cumulative knowledge on such urban systems, this study examines landscape change in Poland, which has undergone significant institutional evolution since the fall of the Soviet Union. Drawing from the urban and social-ecological systems (SES) literatures, we estimate spatio-temporal models of the interactive effects of socio-economic and political variables on land-use intensity. Consistent with an SES approach, the analysis finds that characteristics of the institutional design of land-use regulation – local autonomy, the productivity of the resource, and the predictability of land-use dynamics – influence more-intensive landscape changes over the study period (2006–2018). Specifically, both the electoral stability of the mayor and wealth of the community have a positive interactive effect on the conversion of landscapes to more urban uses. Development is also influenced by spatial and temporal dependency, and the availability of European Union “cohesion” investments intended to address economic inequality and promote sustainable development. The findings advance our understanding of the complexity of urban land-use patterns and sustainability goals.