title: Synthesis in land change science: methodological patterns, challenges, and guidelines.
abstract: Global and regional economic and environmental changes are increasingly influencing local land-use, livelihoods, and ecosystems. At the same time, cumulative local land changes are driving global and regional changes in biodiversity and the environment. To understand the causes and consequences of these changes, land change science (LCS) draws on a wide array synthetic and meta-study techniques to generate global and regional knowledge from local case studies of land change. Here, we review the characteristics and applications of synthesis methods in LCS and assess the current state of synthetic research based on a meta-analysis of synthesis studies from 1995 to 2012. Publication of synthesis research is accelerating, with a clear trend toward increasingly sophisticated and quantitative methods, including meta-analysis. Detailed trends in synthesis objectives, methods, and land change phenomena and world regions most commonly studied are presented. Significant challenges to successful synthesis research in LCS are also identified, including issues of interpretability and comparability across case-studies and the limits of and biases in the geographic coverage of case studies. Nevertheless, synthesis methods based on local case studies will remain essential for generating systematic global and regional understanding of local land change for the foreseeable future, and multiple opportunities exist to accelerate and enhance the reliability of synthetic LCS research in the future. Demand for global and regional knowledge generation will continue to grow to support adaptation and mitigation policies consistent with both the local realities and regional and global environmental and economic contexts of land change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 211 Sondheim, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD USA ; The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland, College Park, 1 Park Place, Annapolis, MD USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Magliocca
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Rutgers University, 26 Nichol Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ USA.
authors.forename: Thomas K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Rudel
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Verburg
authors.affiliation: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, Manly Miles Building, Suite 115, 1405 South Harrison Road, East Lansing, MI USA.
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: McConnell
authors.affiliation: Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 10, 1350, Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ole
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mertz
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gerstner
authors.affiliation: Swiss National Centre of Research (NCCR) North-South, Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 10, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heinimann
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 211 Sondheim, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD USA.
authors.forename: Erle C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Ellis
keywords: Case studies; Land-use change; Meta-analysis; Meta-study
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