Growth Scenarios and Conservation Trade-offs in the US-Mexico Borderlands | Landscapes for People, Food, and Nature Blog

Developing and interpreting alternative future land-use scenarios is an effective way to engage communities in local and regional planning and illustrate how rates and patterns of land-use change may affect human well-being and the environment. Along the arid borderlands between the United States and Mexico, many communities have experienced rapid population growth and land use changes in recent decades, but these patterns vary spatially, driven by different cultural, economic and geopolitical forces. For example, colonias, unincorporated communities along the border in Mexico, developed rapidly and somewhat erratically following passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Just north of the border in the United States, large historic cattle ranches are being subdivided into “ranchettes” and housing developments.



Growth Scenarios and Conservation Trade-offs in the US-Mexico Borderlands | Landscapes for People, Food, and Nature Blog