The Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) forms the geospatial backbone of the Integrated Administration and Control System supporting implementation of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. The transition to a performance-based CAP delivery model and the ongoing EU enlargement process have increased demands on LPIS accuracy, scalability, and harmonization. This study examines LPIS modernization from a land governance perspective and proposes a regulatory-centric framework integrating stable reference parcel ontology, eligibility logic based on Maximum Eligible Area, and AI-assisted boundary detection within a human-in-the-loop workflow. Using very high-resolution satellite imagery from pilot areas in Albania and Ukraine, automated parcel delineation was benchmarked against manually defined LPIS reference parcels. Results show high boundary localization accuracy but moderate parcel-level agreement, revealing a structural gap between image-driven segmentation and regulatory parcel definitions. The findings highlight how AI can support LPIS creation while remaining embedded within harmonized institutional rules governing agricultural land management.
Wetlands are biodiversity hotspots and critical nature-based solutions for water purification, climate regulation, and flood and coastal risk reduction, yet they remain among the world’s most threatened ecosystems. This scoping review synthesized 2,482 China-focused studies published between 2001 and 2026 to examine how wetland plant biodiversity supports ecosystem services and informs governance and United Nations. Multidimensional biodiversity, including taxonomic, compositional, functional, and phylogenetic attributes, was consistently linked to water-quality regulation, carbon sequestration, habitat provision, and flood protection. Major pressures included land conversion, hydrological alteration, pollution, coastal reclamation, invasive species, and climate change. Although few studies explicitly referenced SDGs or named policy instruments, substantial evidence supported SDG 6, 13, 14, and 15. Synthesized within a State–Function–Pressure–Response framework, the findings demonstrate that conserving wetland plant biodiversity is essential for sustaining ecosystem services and strengthening biodiversity-informed wetland governance in China.
Agricultural trade moves food alongside embedded water, land and carbon, creating environmental ties between producing and consuming areas. Yet most China-focused research only examines individual virtual resource flows and cannot fully expose agricultural trade’s ecological effects, with limited studies on interprovincial compensation mechanisms for synergistic virtual water-land-carbon flows (VWLCF). To address this gap, this study quantifies VWLCF characteristics and drivers and develops an equity-based compensation framework. Key findings: (1) VWLCF primarily flows from Northeast and inland Northwest China to southeast coasts; by 2030, virtual water, land and embodied carbon will rise by 12.23%, 21.67% and 51.21%. (2) Resource intensity (-37.67%) and per capita final demand (29.89%) dominate VWLCF changes. (3) Northeast and Northwest China receive over 70% of total ecological compensation, while Beijing-Tianjin and southeast coastal provinces take 82.34% of compensation obligations. This multi-factor VWLCF-based horizontal provincial compensation framework provides fresh perspectives for sustainable agricultural development.
This paper examines whether policy cognition is associated with rural households’ stated willingness to participate in China’s homestead reform, which is a case of restructuring layered and incomplete property rights. Using a 2019 survey of 1,355 households in 11 provinces, we estimate probit models for compensated exits and transfers of homestead use rights. A one-point increase in the nine-item policy cognition index is associated with 2.31- and 1.97-percentage-point increases in the two predicted probabilities. The associations remain positive across most alternative estimators and alternative constructions of the policy cognition index. Conditional mixed-process estimates are treated only as sensitivity evidence because the village-peer policy cognition index may reflect shared local conditions. The potential pathway results are consistent with the roles of prior market experience and procedural acceptance of collective recovery but do not establish mediation. The findings support targeted policy communications on eligibility, transaction rules, compensation, inheritance, and postexit security.
We describe and evaluate the evolution of pastoral land tenure in Kazakhstan, home to one of the largest areas of temperate rangeland on earth. After independence, Kazakhstan introduced individual property rights over pasture, but later sought to mitigate negative outcomes with new legal instruments. As well as excluding smallholders from land titles, initial reforms aggravated the breakdown of migratory grazing systems. The second phase introduced landscape scale pasture management plans and expanded public grazing by expropriating under-used plots. But implementation has been hindered by a high coverage of long-term leaseholds and planning is often a paper exercise. Poor infrastructure, scarce herding labour and weak social institutions also hinder use of distant pastures. However, some local authorities have found mechanisms to improve livestock mobility and pasture access. We draw on international examples to discuss whether individual tenure may be combined with more inclusive arrangements, supporting recovery of seasonal grazing systems.
