Empricial evidence for the diffusion of knowledge in land use change

Changes and innovations in land management have been hypothesised to spread through knowledge diffusion between land managers. Such diffusion can occur directly between neighbours or, in recent years, through various forms of information technology. Land system models and policy initiatives do not generally account for this process, partly because of a lack of empirical studies of its spatial and temporal properties. We look for evidence of the existence and form of diffusion in UK agriculture and forestry between 1968 and 2015, using logistic models of spatial dependencies in the uptake of new crops and subsidies. Strong evidence is found of spatial diffusion, with no clear evidence that its form has changed systematically over recent decades. We conclude that improved understanding of diffusion is necessary for land use policy-making and modelling to account for the spatial aggregations and time lags that remain characteristic of the uptake of new management practices.