Reconstructing land use drivers and their spatial scale dependence for Costa Rica (1973 and 1984)

Abstract Costa Rican land use and cover (in 1973 and 1984) were investigated using a nested scale analysis. Spatial distributions of potential biophysical and human land use/cover drivers were statistically related to the distribution of pastures, arable lands, permanent crops, natural and secondary vegetation, for 0.1° grid units and five artificially aggregated spatial scales. Multiple regression models describing land use/cover variability have changing model fits and varying contributions of biophysical and human factors, indicating a considerable scale dependence of the land use/cover patterns. The observation that for both years each land use/cover type has its own specific scale dependencies suggests a rather stable scale-dependent system. In Costa Rica two land use/cover trends between 1973 and 1984 can be discerned: (a) intensification in the urbanized Central Valley and its surroundings, where agriculture is extended to steeper and less favourable soils due to a high population density; and (b) land use expansion in remoter areas, where the extension of arable land and pastures increased at the cost of natural vegetation. This deforestation was not driven by land shortage. The scale analysis of the Costa Rica land use/cover confirms that land use/cover heterogeneity is, like ecosystem and landscape heterogeneity, a multiscale characteristic which can best be described as a nested hierarchical system.