Characterizing land tenure dynamics by comparing spatial and temporal variation at multiple scales

The dynamics of landscape change are closely linked to the dynamics of land tenure—the societal institutions (organizations, rules, rights and restrictions) that control the allocation and use of land and its associated resources by people. Land tenure occurs over a characteristic set of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding the nature of variation in land tenure in space and time is an important step towards developing a deeper understanding of land tenure change and its impacts on societies and ecosystems. In this paper we develop a new method of characterizing and exploring spatial and temporal variation in land tenure, focusing on the potential for dynamic feedbacks between variation in space and variation in time. The primary objective of this research is to develop a robust set of methods that can be used to make inferences about pattern-process linkages across multiple scales in landscapes that contain interlinked social and ecological systems. We apply our approach to the analysis of a 30-year data set of land ownership in part of Hamilton County (north central Florida) and find strong evidence for positive feedbacks between spatial and temporal variation. Our results suggest that spatial and temporal variation in land tenure interact strongly, raising the interesting possibility that strategic purchases of land in ecologically important areas may serve to limit habitat fragmentation.