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Advancing theory and methods to better understand land system dynamics and telecoupled interactions. Land systems change through processes that are rarely contained within one place. Restricting land use in one region can shift pressure elsewhere, and the mechanisms behind those shifts are still imperfectly described. This theme develops the theory and the methods needed to describe them.

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Topics

  • Forest transition theory — why forest loss persists despite conservation commitments, and under what social and economic conditions landscapes shift from net loss to net recovery.
  • Land-use displacement, spillover and leakage effects — where land use is displaced to when it is restricted in one place, and whether displacement simply relocates the problem.
  • Nexus approaches — treating land, water, food, biodiversity, and climate as interacting systems rather than separate sectors.
  • Spatial analysis and modelling — scenario simulation, including agent-based and cellular approaches to land-use change.
  • Geo-AI — deep learning on Earth-observation data for classification, attribution, and prediction.

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Approach

We work with satellite-derived forest-change products and land-cover time series, combined with socio-economic and agricultural statistics, to characterise patterns and attribute drivers. We use land-system typologies to describe how land is used — not only what covers it — and trade and commodity data to trace telecoupled links between distant places. Analyses are typically multi-scale: global and pan-tropical assessments to establish trends, and national or subnational work where drivers and policy levers can be identified.

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Selected publications

Theme selections may include work published before the lab was established. See the lab publication list and individual faculty profiles for other work.
  • Estoque, R. C., Wu, J. & Verburg, P. H. (2026). Land system science for global environmental change and sustainability: Advances, challenges, and future directions. Geography and Sustainability, 7(2), 100415. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C., Dasgupta, R., Winkler, K., Avitabile, V., Johnson, B. A., Myint, S. W., Gao, Y., Ooba, M., Murayama, Y. & Lasco, R. D. (2022). Spatiotemporal pattern of global forest change over the past 60 years and the forest transition theory. Environmental Research Letters, 17(8), 084022. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C. (2020). A review of the sustainability concept and the state of SDG monitoring using remote sensing. Remote Sensing, 12(11), 1770. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C., Ooba, M., Togawa, T. & Hijioka, Y. (2020). Projected land-use changes in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways: Insights and implications. Ambio, 49(12), 1972–1981. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C., Gomi, K., Togawa, T., Ooba, M., Hijioka, Y., Akiyama, C. M., Nakamura, S., Yoshioka, A. & Kuroda, K. (2019). Scenario-based land abandonment projections: Method, application and implications. Science of the Total Environment, 692, 903–916. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C., Ooba, M., Avitabile, V., Hijioka, Y., DasGupta, R., Togawa, T. & Murayama, Y. (2019). The future of Southeast Asia’s forests. Nature Communications, 10, 1829. DOI
  • Wang, R., Derdouri, A. & Murayama, Y. (2018). Spatiotemporal simulation of future land use/cover change scenarios in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Sustainability, 10(6), 2056. DOI