Confronting international research topics with stakeholders on multifunctional land use: the case of Inner Mongolia, China

The established pattern of land use in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region is being challenged by China's rapid overall economic transition. The provision of required land-related functions and services is subject to land management decision making. Scientific research can offer substantial support to decision making by providing evidence of the interaction between land management and land function services. The goal of this paper was to identify the most important land use functions and services from a local perspective and to compare these functions and services with the land-related research topics addressed in the scientific literature. For this purpose, we conducted a workshop with local stakeholders (land use decision makers) in the West Ujimqin Banner (Inner Mongolia) as a specific case study and performed a comprehensive survey of the Inner Mongolian land use research published in international scientific journals. Our analysis indicated that the stakeholders assigned particular importance to social land use functions, such as jobs, as well as environmental land use functions and ecosystem processes. In contrast, the research topics were primarily concerned with natural science. We discussed possible shortcomings in the research agenda by emphasising and contrasting local stakeholder perspectives with the research topics and concluded that without bottom-up stakeholder participation, there would be a mismatch between the research interests of land use scientists and the needs of stakeholders. Future research that can contribute to local policy making with the aim of meeting the objectives of a multifunctional land use concept is required.