Agricultural land use pattern dynamics in the Sudan–Sahel—towards an event-driven framework

While addressing the issue of field encroachment and land use pattern changes in the desert margin regions, the paper proposes to develop a model which recognises land use pattern changes as event-driven. The picture that underpins development efforts and policy papers for environmental improvement in the Sudan–Sahel region often describes changes in agricultural landscape systems as a unidirectional expansion of fields onto marginal land in response to population pressure and resource degradation. It is proposed that models of land use pattern trajectories as well as of resilience of land use systems have to recognise a strong random element related to unforeseeable events.