Urban Sprawl: Effects and Mitigation

This literature review details the negative effects of urban sprawl and strategies to mitigate them. The purpose of this review is to identify the consequences of urban sprawl on agricultural land and to explore possible solutions for improving global health and advancing progress toward meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the topics connected to the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) priority areas. In the review, the focus was to identify and analyze at least two effects that Urban sprawl has on rural or agricultural land and to analyze the techniques used to help lessen the effects on the land. The literature review included case studies from multiple countries to incorporate a variation of global viewpoints and to incorporate the findings applicable to a larger audience. Multiple scholarly sources and peer-reviewed journals published within the past ten years were used to include reliable and updated information in the review. The effects focused on are food insecurity, the global south, and pollution, an effect that occurs globally. The strategies researched to mitigate urban sprawl effects are the use of conservation easements, notably abundant in the United States (US), and urban development boundaries, common in China. Food insecurity is a pre-existing issue in the global south, and the loss of agricultural land amplifies it. This issue is intertwined with the second Sustainable Development Goal, which is to end hunger. Pollution surges when urban sprawl causes increased runoff and vehicle emissions, closely related to the third Sustainable Development Goal, ensuring healthy lives. The conservation easements and urban development boundaries work to prevent rural, agricultural, and forest land from being developed through the use of economic and legal tactics. These methods are closely linked to the USDA AFRI priority area of Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities. This literature review works to provide an overview of the effects and methods, also working to provide connections to global and country efforts to better the communities that suffer from urban sprawl. The main purpose is to inform people about the harm of urban sprawl and suggest methods that policymakers should implement to protect agricultural land.