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In geopolitical conflict zones, the phenomenon of abandonment often correlates with challenges of legal definitions and ownership status. The abandoned properties in conflict zones share similar characteristics with what is commonly known as a brownfield site. However, due to the nature of geopolitical conflict zones, which is mixed with people and sentiments other than technical challenges, the usual solutions to the brownfield question, cannot provide enough tools to deal with the land management of areas engulfed in conflicts. This paper, therefore, aims to discuss and propose a land-use typology that describes abandoned properties in a geopolitical context.

The proposed land-use typology serves as the main conceptual framework that integrates the sustainable brownfield regeneration approach with social theories of space and place. As an inductive research approach, this conceptual framework brought the fundamental and comparative literature on brownfield regeneration to support the main argument related to the similarities and challenges of the regeneration of abandoned properties in conflict zones. The approach used in this paper addresses the broader consideration of land management in geopolitical contexts and urban conflict zones that considers the relationship of exercise of extreme power over space.

The findings highlight an insufficient understanding of the origin of the property problems in geopolitical conflict zones, especially after a power struggle, producing significant land management issues. In a geopolitical context, urban planners and economists' perspective on definitions of space and place defined by maps, GIS data sets, Excel and other similar tools may not bring any practical or long-term solution to the land management challenges. The study suggests that dealing with abandoned properties and regeneration plans in conflict zones requires identifying and evaluating geo-political, geo-social, geo-economic characteristics of the area before any further action.

This paper's findings are of particular interest to decision-makers and conflict stakeholders in geopolitical conflict zones, such as local governments, policymakers and peacekeeping agencies. The findings of this research can clarify and help them have an alternative understanding of the space engulfed in the conflict, other than a technocratic, mapping, GIS, statistical way of understanding and approaches to the complex aspect of a space.

This paper's conceptual framework provides a value-added contribution to the literature on land management in conflict zones by taking the reader's attention to the origin of the problems and their associated real estate issues in geopolitical contexts. For the first time, this inductive research proposes a land-use typology that considers the complexity of the interrelationship between land policies, land-use theory, social theories of space and place and the exercise of extreme power over space. This paper produced a concept that is not easily measurable by quantitative nor qualitative approaches.

This paper introduces the concept of manihah and develops a conceptual framework to address Malaysia's abandoned lands and food security issues.

This is a conceptual paper based on insights from the existing literature and secondary data on food security, abandoned lands and manihah. Based on the prevailing gaps, the study proposes a conceptual framework of the Manihah Agricultural Financing Model to address Malaysia's abandoned land and food security issues.

The proposed model can address abandoned lands and food security issues due to the new incorporation of manihah within Malaysia's agricultural and Islamic financial industries' milieu.

This is a conceptual paper mainly intended to spark a discussion on the potentiality of manihah.

The paper contends that Islamic banks have a crucial role in furthering the socio-economic development agenda under the value-based intermediation (VBI). The paper will also be an excellent introduction to Islamic bank practitioners in understanding manihah's relevance to their daily operation.

This paper introduces manihah as the potential solution to food security issues by utilizing abandoned lands.

This study explores how the land tenure system helps in protecting land quantity during agricultural production by estimating the influence of land certification on cropland abandonment, its mechanisms and its heterogeneous effects among groups at the provincial, community and household levels.

To deal with potential homogeneity concerns, the authors investigate the impact of land certification on the area of abandoned croplands using nationally representative panel data from the 2017 and 2019 China Rural Household Panel Survey on 15,000 households across 29 provinces and time-varying difference-in-differences and propensity score matching-difference-in-differences models.

Land certification significantly contributes to the protection of land quantity during agricultural production, and it reduces the area of abandoned croplands by at least 4%. This effect is mainly achieved by improving soil fertility, promoting land transfer, increasing the availability of agricultural subsidies and raising agricultural income. However, while land certification benefits farmers in nonmajor grain-producing areas and western regions, in plain, remote and nonpolitically central villages, and farmers who have not undergone land transfer or land adjustment, it is not beneficial for others.

In the postepidemic era, food security based on the protection of the amount of cultivated land becomes increasingly important. It is realistic and inevitable to rationally use every inch of cultivated land and curb the cropland abandonment by strengthening land tenure system reform, especially in the case of the insecurity of land tenure.

There are various factors affecting farmers' cropland abandonment, such as poor soil fertility, unavailable land transfer, too little agricultural subsidies and too low agricultural income, but the root cause is the insecurity of land tenure. Empirical evidence from rural China has shown that a clear definition and effective protection of property rights can help curb the cropland abandonment. Enhancing the land protection behavior of farmers through the reform of land certification and promoting the sustainable use of land are what the reform of land tenure system should be.

Cultivated land, as the material carrier and endowment basis of grain production, is of great importance to safeguarding national food security, especially in the postepidemic era. At the present stage, it is still necessary for most developing countries to strengthen the construction of land tenure system, to carry out land certification reform and to issue farmers with clearly defined and legally effective land certificates. Equally important, efforts also should be made to promote the diversified utilization of the achievements of the certification after the completion of land certification reform in China and other developing countries.

Expropriation and occupation of croplands are essential in protecting land quantity during rapid urbanization, and so is reducing cropland abandonment during agricultural production; therefore, it deserves close attention. In this regard, this study estimates the impact of land certification on the area of abandoned croplands, examines its possible mechanisms and identifies its heterogeneous effects to test the applicability of the property rights theory in the Chinese context and enrich the relevant literature and provide Chinese evidence for other developing countries to strengthen the protection of land quantity, by deepening the reform of the land tenure system under different circumstances.

The objective of this chapter is to provide an approach to the farmland abandonment problem in Galicia, the Spain’s north-western region. We describe the land use pattern that characterized the traditional agricultural system, and analyze the process of structural adjustment and changes in land use recorded in the last 50 years. The empirical basis is provided mainly by an original elaboration of agricultural census data for the period 1982–2009. The results show that in the last five decades the area devoted to crops and pastures was constrained to a small portion of the territory (just over 20%), while the agro-livestock uses of hill land which were very important up to the mid-twentieth century disappeared. All this led to a remarkable expansion of abandoned land, which currently occupies at least 20% of the regional area. The drivers of this farmland abandonment are diverse and vary from one zone to another. But among them the conditioners derived from the structure of land ownership must be emphasized, coupled with the poor functioning of the land market and leasing. Land abandonment has had a major impact on the dynamics of the agricultural sector, limiting the size of farms and causing an increasing intensification in a small portion of the territory. This has also led to severe environmental problems, especially forest fires. Consequently, improving mobility and land use should be a priority of agricultural and rural development policies in this region.

Financial assurance rules, also known as financial responsibility or bonding requirements, foster cost internalization by requiring potential polluters to demonstrate the financial resources necessary to compensate for environmental damage that may arise in the future. Accordingly, assurance is an important complement to liability rules, restoration obligations, and other regulatory compliance requirements. The paper reviews the need for assurance, given the prevalence of abandoned environmental obligations, and assesses the implementation of assurance rules in the United States. From the standpoint of both legal effectiveness and economic efficiency, assurance rules can be improved. On the whole, however, cost recovery, deterrence, and enforcement are significantly improved by the presence of existing assurance regulations.

This research examines farmers’ cognitions to the policy and how such cognitions influence their intentions and behaviors of land transfer, with the implementation of the Three Rights Separation (TRS) policy.

Using data collected from the Beijing area, this research tests the relationship between farmers’ policy cognition and their intention/behavior through the mediation of their psychological constructs. Both Causal step test and Bootstrap test are adopted.

Farmers’ intention of land transfer is influenced by their cognition of the TRS policy. In this process, farmers’ psychological constructs play a mediating role between their policy cognition and their intentions of land transfer, thereby eventually influencing their behaviors. This research confirms that institutions are not exogenous and the policy is not wishful thinking from the government. Instead, any policies, even enacted by governmental authority, have to be internalized within target groups’ cognition to be implemented.

Land transfer deserves close attention since it is the direct aim of the TRS reform. In this regard, this paper, based on an institutional perspective, aims to extend our understanding on the incentives of land transfer. This research proposes a revised model of planned behavior and argues that farmers’ intention of land transfer is influenced by their cognition of the TRS policy. On one hand, this study is the first to examine farmers’ cognition formed through the implementation of the TRS policy. On the other hand, it reveals the path of how policy can finally influence farmers’ intentions and behaviors through shaping their cognitions and changing subjective perceptions, which enriches our understanding of the mechanism of how policy has a concrete impact on society.

This paper aims to report on subalterns' emancipatory accounting (SEA) embedded in transformation of governance and accountability structures (GAS) in Ceylon Tea.

The paper draws on James Scott's political anthropology to examine how subalterns' resistance and emancipatory accounting triggers structural transformations.

An attempt is made to theorise subaltern resistance as a form of emancipatory accounting. Concerning the commentaries that accounting has been to suppress or hegemonise the subalterns and appreciating the analysis of indigenous resistance implicated in emancipatory potential, this paper examines how a distinct subaltern group in Ceylon Tea deployed their own weapons towards the changes in GAS.

The accounting literature neglects how subalterns reconstruct governance and accountability structures: this paper introduces a social accounting perspective on resistance, control and structural transformations. Also, it introduces to accounting researchers James Scott's political anthropology as an alternative framework.

The increasing African population and economic growth leading to urbanisation continues to increase the need to redevelop brownfields as a strategy of encouraging sustainable development of cities, in particular in Ethiopia. However, the adoption of brownfield redevelopment in Ethiopia is at initial stage. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the framework based on grey-incidence decision-making approach to manage brownfields in African countries by taking Ethiopia as case example. The grey-incidence decision-making model integrates multiple factors such as economic, social, environmental, technical and associated risks and provides an effective decision-making and management tool for environmental practitioners and government agencies.

Questionnaires were used to collect data on terms and definitions of brownfield. The questions were prepared on the basis of currently used definitions developed by a number of developed countries. Moreover, this study utilises a grey-incidence decision-making approach to help in management and decision-making for the implementation of brownfield redevelopment projects (BRPs) in the remediated sites.

Standard definition of brownfield and essential guidelines for brownfield redevelopment is proposed for Ethiopian context. The research findings were tested and verified using literature data and survey from major stakeholders. In addition, the grey-incidence decision-making approach is applied for the evaluation of BRPs in the remediated sites. A framework is proposed to control future brownfields for African countries by taking Ethiopia as a case example.

This research stresses the significance of an urban structure to address sustainable development, and the need to consider redevelopment of brownfields and identify the potential for a specific government policy framework. This research provides the best opportunity for Ethiopia by devising an urban land policy and create a strategy to contribute social, economic, financial and environmental benefits. It also provides a foundation to solve environmental issues by involving all major stakeholders, including community citizens, environmentalists and government agencies, and it also serves as guidelines to transform brownfields into Greenfields; and finally, it contributes to achieve the 2030 UN global goals.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of the rural revitalization strategy, from the perspective of the fundamental functions that should be served by China’s rural areas in the implementation of this strategy.

Theoretical and comparative analyses of the functional relationship between China’s rural development and urban development, between China’s agricultural development and industrialization and that between China’s traditional culture and rural development today are conducted to identify the fundamental functions that should be performed well by China’s rural areas in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Three fundamental functions of China’s rural areas are identified: first, the function of ensuring national food security and the supply of important agricultural products; second, the function of providing effective ecological barriers, a good eco-environment and high-quality ecological products; third, the function of inheriting the extraordinary traditional Chinese culture.

This paper is the first to systematically summarize the fundamental functions China’s rural areas should perform during the process of rural revitalization.

The purpose of this paper is to implement the istibdal waqf concept using a geographical information system (GIS) for the benefit of socio-economics and Muslim cemetery waqf management. GIS is a technique that provides clearer, precise and faster access to a location based on actual space data. It attempts to analyze the area that one wishes to develop to establish whether it fulfills the criteria set for istibdal.

This research was conducted qualitatively. The study begins with the development of the concept of istibdal waqf and the concept of GIS. The concept was developed by conducting a literature review of books, articles, newspapers, fatwa and circulars related to istibdal waqf and GIS. After the concept was formed, field studies were conducted on two mosques, namely, Jamek Jelutong Mosque and Masjid Jamek Sungai Nibong because both mosques have gravesites located within their compound. To obtain information on the problems faced by the mosques Jemaah community, researchers have interviewed the Mosque Committee Members and Jemaah Community in both mosques using the unstructured interviewing method. This process is essential in managing both material and spiritual for sustaining socio-economics of the society.

The results showed that by applying GIS technique could identify new land locations according to the criteria set by istibdal. Additionally, new location environments found through the GIS application can be viewed more clearly and accurately than using the manual method. The findings also revealed that some of the mosque managers and the heirs of the waqf grave land were not open-minded in accepting the istibdal concept of the grave that had been allowed by the Syarak until the process of expanding the mosque was affected. The study also found that the maslahah consideration was considered between doing istibdal waqf and not doing istibdal waqf, the maslahah of doing istibdal waqf is greater because general (umum) maslahah should be prioritized compared to the special (khusus) maslahah. In addition, this effort can appreciate the morality and ethics of waqf donors to donate their wealth or properties for benefit of society.

This study only focuses on Muslim cemetery waqf in Penang Island.

This study is expected to benefit both material and spiritual where Muslim cemetery site can be developed for expanding mosque site and consequently able to accommodate the increasing of Muslim using the mosque.

This study proposes the transformation of the concept of istibdal waqf from the traditional methods to modern and advanced methods using the GIS application. The study also demonstrates how the software for solving the real problem can be used, i.e. the problem of a limited mosque space for sharing space with a cemetery in Penang.