Spatial distribution of pesticide use based on crop rotation data in La Plata River basin: a case study from an agricultural region of Uruguay.

The intensive global use of pesticides presents an escalating threat to human health, ecosystems, and water quality. To develop national and local environmental management strategies for mitigating pollution caused by pesticides, it is essential to understand the quantities, timing, and location of their application. This study aims to estimate the spatial distribution of pesticide use in an agricultural region of La Plata River basin in Uruguay. Estimates of pesticide use were made by surveying doses applied to each crop. This information was spatialized through identifying agricultural rotations using remote sensing techniques. The study identified the 60 major agricultural rotations in the region and mapped the use and application amount of the nine most significant active ingredients (glyphosate, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, flumioxazin, S-metolachlor, clethodim, flumetsulam, triflumuron, chlorantraniliprole, and fipronil). The results reveal that glyphosate is the most extensively used pesticide (53.5% of the area) and highest amount of use (> 1.44 kg/ha). Moreover, in 19% of the area, at least seven active ingredients are applied in crop rotations. This study marks the initial step in identifying rotations and estimating pesticide applications with high spatial resolution at a regional scale in agricultural regions of La Plata River basin. The results improve the understanding of pesticide spatial distribution based on data obtained from agronomists, technicians, and producers and provide a replicable methodological approach for other geographic and productive contexts. Generating baseline information is key to environmental management and decision making, towards the design of more robust monitoring systems and human exposure assessment.

Past and future land use change dynamics: assessing the impact of urban development on agricultural land in the Pantura Jabar region, Indonesia.

The conversion of large-scale agricultural land into urban areas poses a significant challenge to achieving national and global food security targets, as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal number 2, which aims to eradicate hunger. Indonesia has experienced a significant decline in rice field areas, with a reduction of approximately 650 thousand hectares within a year (2017-2018), the largest being in Java. Hence, this study aims to examine the impact of urban expansion on agricultural land in the north coast region of West Java Province from 2013 to 2020 and develop a predictive model for 2030 to support sustainable land use planning. The primary methods employed were random forest (RF) analysis using Google Earth Engine, intensity analysis, multilayer perceptron-neural network (MLP-NN), Markov chains-cellular automata (Markov-CA), and stakeholder interviews. The model also evaluated the influence of "distance to tollgates" as a previously unexplored driving factor in existing land use modeling studies. Landsat image classification results using the RF algorithm showed 87-88% accuracy. Cropland has historically been and is projected to remain the primary target for the expansion of built-up areas. Spatial planning irregularities were found in the growth of these areas that adversely affected farmers' socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Evaluation of land use models using MLP-NN and Markov-CA demonstrated an accuracy rate of 86.29-86.23%. The distance to tollgates factor significantly impacts the models, albeit less than population density. The 2030 intervention scenario, which implements a firm policy for sustainable agricultural land use, offers the potential to maintain the predicted cropland loss compared to business as usual.

Human disturbance in riparian areas disrupts predator-prey interactions between grizzly bears and salmon.

Wildlife must increasingly balance trade-offs between the need to access important foods and the mortality risks associated with human-dominated landscapes. Human disturbance can profoundly influence wildlife behavior, but managers know little about the relationship between disturbance-behavior dynamics and associated consequences for foraging. We address this gap by empirically investigating the consequences of human activity on a keystone predator-prey interaction in a region with limited but varied industrial disturbance. Using stable isotope data from 226 hair samples of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) collected from 1995 to 2014 across 22 salmon-bearing watersheds (88,000 km2) in British Columbia, Canada, we examined how human activity influenced their consumption of spawning salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), a fitness-related food. Accounting for the abundance of salmon and other foods, salmon consumption strongly decreased (up to 59% for females) with increasing human disturbance (as measured by the human footprint index) in riparian zones of salmon-bearing rivers. Declines in salmon consumption occurred with disturbance even in watersheds with low footprints. In a region currently among the least influenced by industrial activity, intensification of disturbance in river valleys is predicted to increasingly decouple bears from salmon, possibly driving associated reductions in population productivity and provisioning of salmon nutrients to terrestrial ecosystems. Accordingly, we draw on our results to make landscape-scale and access-related management recommendations beyond current streamside protection buffers. This work illustrates the interaction between habitat modification and food security for wildlife, highlighting the potential for unacknowledged interactions and cumulative effects in increasingly modified landscapes.

Beyond land use planning and ecosystem services assessment with the conservation use potential framework: A study in the Upper Rio das Velhas basin, Brazil.

Human actions can damage the ecosystems and affect the services depending on them, with ample detrimental consequences. In earlier studies, the Conservation Use Potential (PCU) framework proved useful in assessing the capacity for aquifer recharge, suitable land uses and resistance to erosion at the river basin scale. On the other hand, the joint analysis of PCU and land uses allowed identifying the adequacy of current uses in relation to suitability (natural uses) in various basins. This was especially useful from the management perspective in basins with environmental conflicts, where current uses differed from suitability, because the PCU indicated how and where the conflicts should be mitigated. Besides the use as management tool, the PCU has potential to shed light over environmental issues such as ecosystem services, but that was not tempted so far. The aim of this work was therefore to bridge that knowledge gap and frame the PCU's application from the standpoint of Ecosystem Services (ES) assessment. We demonstrated how the PCU could be used to improve provision (recharge), support (sustainable agriculture) and regulation (resistance to erosion) services in a specific basin with land use conflicts (the Upper Rio das Velhas basin, located in Minas Gerais, Brazil), through the planning of suitable uses. It was noted that the studied basin is mostly composed of Very Low, Low and Medium potentials. These classes occur because steep slopes, fragile soils and lithologies with high denudation potential and low nutrient supply dominate in the basin. On the other hand, urban sprawl has a negative impact on all ES, while maintaining agricultural areas with appropriate management can effectively regulate erosion. As per the current results, the premise of using the PCU as joint management-environmental tool was fully accomplished, and is recommended a basis for public policy design and implementation in Brazil and elsewhere.

Optimization of land use planning under multi-objective demand-the case of Changchun City, China.

Modeling and scenario analysis are the core elements of land use change research, and in the face of the increasingly serious ecological and environmental problems in urbanization, it is important to carry out land use simulation studies under different protection constraints for scientific planning and policy formulation. Taking Changchun City, the capital of Jilin Province, a pilot national eco-province, as an example, a CLUE-S model with coupled landscape ecological security patterns was constructed to predict and simulate the land use structure and layout under multi-objective optimization scenarios in the planning target year (2030), and the results were analyzed based on landscape index evaluation. The study found the following: (i) the proportion of ecological land area under low, medium, and high security levels in the study area was 8.7%, 64.8%, and 26.5%, respectively; (ii) under the current development trend scenario, the trend of increasing fragmentation of cultivated land patches in Changchun in 2030 will remain unchanged, with construction land spreading along the periphery in a compact and continuous pattern, while ecological land will be seriously encroached upon; and (iii) in the 2030 multi-objective optimization scenario, land use patches of all types will begin to show a tendency to cluster, with less landscape fragmentation and more connectivity, while cultivated land and construction land will also begin to converge and do not deteriorate as a result of spatial conflicts over ecological land.

Taking the spatio-temporal effects of climate change into account for Life Cycle Assessment of prospective scenarios to secure water supplies in agricultural areas.

To cope with climate change, agricultural territories are forced to implement adaptation strategies, including the implementation of irrigation infrastructures. These strategies are deployed over a long term, and their environmental performance may vary in time and space due to climate change. Environmental assessment methods that include spatio-temporal dynamics must be developed to identify long term "no-regret" scenarios. This study proposes an innovative approach based on the coupling between a crop model, i.e. AquaCrop, and the Territorial-Life Cycle Assessment (T-LCA) framework. Results are exemplified and discussed, with comparison of scenarios with or without irrigation, between 1981 and 2099, at six contrasting locations in terms of climate and soil conditions for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 5-8.5 scenario developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The assessments report that climate change can affect the eco-efficiency of irrigated perimeters over time. Moreover, climate change may alter the conclusions of the comparison of scenarios with or without irrigation infrastructure at a given location. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis is performed on key parameters of the study highlighting the importance of the electricity mix. Finally, spatio-temporal dynamics need to be considered to assess the environmental performance of long-term land planning scenarios and account for environmental effects such as climate change.

Projection of bioclimatic patterns via CMIP6 in the Southeast Region of Türkiye: A guidance for adaptation strategies for climate policy.

Over the past three decades, global urbanization and climate change have caused significant differences in climate conditions between urban and rural environments. The effects of global warming affect the climatic values in the urban area. The bioclimatic comfort in an area effectively chooses a site regarding the urban quality of life and activities. This study aims to predict the temporal and spatial changes of the bioclimatic comfort zones of Gaziantep province in terms of climate comfort in the context of long-term global scenarios. The future climate simulation maps were produced and analyzed comparing comfort conditions according to Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) 245 and 585 scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Phase 6 (CMIP6). Spatio-temporal changes in temperature, humidity, and bioclimatic comfort areas were analyzed to inform these efforts according to Thom's discomfort index (DI) and effective temperature-taking wind velocity (ETv). The current situation of bioclimatic comfort areas to examine their synergy under extreme hot weather throughout the province and their possible concerns in 2040, 2060, 2080, and 2100 were modeled using ArcGIS 10.8 software. SSP585/2100 will create hot (84%) areas, according to DI, and warm (29%) areas, according to ETv. The spatial results of the research are discussed, and some strategies are produced in terms of urban planning, design, and engineering.

Incorporating biodiversity responses to land use change scenarios for preventing emerging zoonotic diseases in areas of unknown host-pathogen interactions.

The need to reconcile food production, the safeguarding of nature, and the protection of public health is imperative in a world of continuing global change, particularly in the context of risks of emerging zoonotic disease (EZD). In this paper, we explored potential land use strategies to reduce EZD risks using a landscape approach. We focused on strategies for cases where the dynamics of pathogen transmission among species were poorly known and the ideas of "land-use induced spillover" and "landscape immunity" could be used very broadly. We first modeled three different land-use change scenarios in a region of transition between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspots. The land-use strategies used to build our scenarios reflected different proportions of native vegetation cover, as a proxy of habitat availability. We then evaluated the effects of the proportion of native vegetation cover on the occupancy probability of a group of mammal species and analyzed how the different land-use scenarios might affect the distribution of species in the landscape and thus the risk of EZD. We demonstrate that these approaches can help identify potential future EZD risks, and can thus be used as decision-making tools by stakeholders, with direct implications for improving both environmental and socio-economic outcomes.

From data to decisions: Empowering brownfield redevelopment with a novel decision support system.

This research evaluates a novel decision support system (DSS) for planning brownfield redevelopment. The DSS is implemented within a web-based geographical information system that contains the spatial data informing three modules comprising land use suitability, economic viability, and ground risk. Using multi-criteria decision analysis, an evaluation was conducted on 31,942 ha of post-industrial land and around Liverpool, UK. The representativeness and credibility of the DSS outputs were evaluated through user trials with fifteen land-use planning and development stakeholders from the Liverpool City Region Comined Authority. The DSS was used to explore land use planning scenarios and it could be used to support decision making. Our research reveals that the DSS has the potential to positively inform the identification of brownfield redevelopment opportunities by offering a reliable, carefully curated, and user-driven digital evidence base. This expedites the traditionally manual process of conducting assessments of land suitability and viability. This research has important implications for assessing the impact of current and future planning policy and the potential for the use of digital tools for land use planning and sustainability in the UK and globally.

Evaluation of forest treatment planning considering multiple objectives.

Various tools and techniques are used by environmental managers and planning agencies to make land use decisions that balance different and often competing goals. Multiple goals, or objectives, are generally challenging to address because there is likely no single optimal solution, but rather a range of possible Pareto (or tradeoff) solutions. Considerable attention has focused on software and approaches that rely on heuristic methods to generate solutions for land use planning problems with multiple objectives. While fast and accessible, there remain uncertainties about the quality of solutions obtained by these heuristic methods and whether they are indeed meeting the needs of environmental managers. This paper explores forest treatment planning for wildfire risk mitigation seeking to balance multiple objectives when the spatial pattern of treatment is restricted. Solution quality of one widely employed forest planning tool is evaluated (using measures of completeness, inferiority, and maximum gap) under a range of geographic settings and problem sizes. The findings indicate that obtained solutions are suboptimal, and fail to represent the full spectrum of tradeoffs possible.

Pedestrians and the Built Environment during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Changing Relationships by the Pandemic Phases in Salt Lake County, Utah, U.S.A.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered people's travel behavior, in particular outdoor activities, including walking. Their behavior changes may have prolonged effects after the pandemic, and such changes vary by the context and are related to the characteristics of the built environment. But empirical studies about the relationships between pedestrians and the built environment during the pandemic are lacking. This study explores how COVID-19 and related travel restrictions have affected the relationship between pedestrian traffic volume and the built environment. We estimate daily pedestrian volumes for all signalized intersections in Salt Lake County, Utah, U.S.A., from pedestrian push-button log data between January 2019 and October 2020. Multilevel spatial filtering models show that the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the relationship between pedestrian traffic volume and the built environment. During the pandemic, the higher the number of COVID-19 cases, the less (or more negative) the effects of density, street connectivity, and destination accessibility on pedestrian volume being observed. The exception is access to urban parks, as it became more significant in increasing pedestrian activities during the pandemic. The models also highlight the negative impacts of the pandemic in economically disadvantaged areas. Our findings could help urban and transportation planners find effective interventions to promote active transportation and physical activity amid the global pandemic.

A social method to address the interplay between protected areas and land use policies.

During the last decade, several authors have supported the need to integrate protected areas (PAs) with land use planning (LUP) policies to improve nature conservation and promote sustainable and just cities and territories. However, this process presents multiple challenges in different parts of the world. This article introduces and develops a method of analysis for the articulation between protected areas (PAs) and land use planning (LUP) policies from the perspective of social sciences. This combines a diagnostic first stage of content analysis of land use plans at a provincial/regional/statal scale, with a second stage of an in-depth political analysis in some study cases at municipal scale. The first stage involve the spatial identification of all the municipal districts of a selected study area with provincial, national or international PAs and land use plans. Seven questions guide the analysis of those plans in terms of the degree and quality of PAs nominal articulation. This information, in addition to previous normative data, allows for the development of a formula for the comparative analysis and mapping of the institutional vulnerability and risk of those municipal districts. In the second stage, a synchronous substantive (content) and institutional (network of stakeholders) analysis of land use policies in selected municipal cases is carried out. To this end, interviews, surveys, media analysis and public documents are conducted. Thus, this method combined different focus scales and quali-quantitative techniques to advance the knowledge of key variables intended for improving political coordination in the promotion of nature conservation. This model was tested in the case of the province of Buenos Aires (Argentina).•A social sciences' method for studying land use planning and protected areas coordination is introduced.•The method combines two stages and scales: diagnostic content analysis of land use plans in a provincial/regional/statal scale plus an in-depth political analysis in study cases at a municipal scale.•This method is useful for estimating normative vulnerability and risk, identifying key political variables for coordination, and making public policy recommendations according to the current conservation paradigm.

Fuzzy-based models' performance on qualitative and quantitative land suitability evaluation for cotton cultivation in Sarayan County, South Khorasan Province, Iran.

Using appropriate models in the land use planning process will help increase the accuracy and precision of decisions made by designers. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare fuzzy-based models (fuzzy set theory, fuzzy-AHP, and fuzzy-ANP) to evaluate the suitability of cotton cultivation in Sarayan region (located in eastern Iran). Twenty-eight land units were selected. Weighted arithmetic means of characteristics were performed in representative soil profiles of each unit. Landform-related characteristics were directly entered into the land suitability evaluation modeling. The land index was calculated using three selective qualitative land suitability model guidelines. Qualitative and quantitative land suitability was estimated. The validity of models was determined by r2, RMSE, GMER, and MAPE indicators between predicted and actual production. Soil texture, pH, calcium carbonate equivalent, drainage, organic matter, salinity and sodicity, slope, and gypsum are the most important, respectively. Also, the fuzzy-ANP method is more efficient than other models due to its higher r2 (0.98) and lower RMSE (4.31) and MAPE (0.56) and GMER (0.99) closer to 1. The value of cotton production using fuzzy, fuzzy-AHP, and fuzzy-ANP methods was calculated as 1085 to 4235, 1235 to 4318, and 1391 to 4452 tons per hectare, respectively. The high efficiency of the fuzzy-ANP model is due to the characteristics of the lands used in the evaluation process that are not independent of each other and this model considers them. Examining these models in different weather conditions and combining with the other computational intelligence methods in future experiments are recommended.

Research and development of field theory-based three-dimensional risk assessment. Part II: Regional overall risk.

For three-dimensional (3D) risk assessments, the scalar fields of risk can be clarified so that the risk value at any point in 3D space can be obtained. Notably, the 3D risk function can be used to calculate the surface integral to reveal the overall risk level in a certain area. As a result, a novel field theory-based 3D risk assessment method called the regional overall risk assessment (RORA) is proposed in this study. The regional overall risk (ROR) is introduced to describe the overall risk level of the assessed area. The corresponding definition and algorithm of the ROR are determined. The selection rule of the surfaces, which are used to create the surface integrals and compute the ROR, is also provided and discussed. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the RORA, the 3D risk caused by biomass gasification stations is utilized to conduct a case study. For the assessed area (Huangtukan Village and Yanjia Village), values of ROR are 29.5787 and 39.3858, respectively. The results represent accurate overall risk levels of the assessed areas and can provide effective guidance for risk prevention in the assessed areas, including land-use planning and safety planning. Moreover, the validity and availability of the proposed RORA is verified by a sensitivity analysis. The prospects and limitations of the RORA are also analyzed and discussed in this work.

A socio-ecological and geospatial approach for evaluation of ecosystem services to communities of the Eastern Himalayan Region, India.

Mountains are one of the most ecological functional areas and provide wide range of ecosystem services (ESs) to the adjoining people. However, the mountainous ESs are highly vulnerable due to land use and land cover (LULC) change and climate change. Therefore, evaluations of the nexus between ESs and mountainous communities are essentially required for policy purpose. This study aims to assess ESs by analyzing LULC focusing in three ecosystems (forest, agriculture, and home garden) from urban and peri-urban areas for last 3 decades, applying participatory and geospatial approaches for a mountainous city in Eastern Himalayan Region (EHR), India. The findings showed that a substantial loss in ESs has occurred during the period. Moreover, there were substantial variations of ecosystem importance and dependency between urban and peri-urban areas with highest importance of provisioning ESs in peri-urban areas and cultural ESs in urban areas. Moreover, among the three ecosystems, forests were strongly supporting the peri-urban areas communities. The result demonstrated that the communities are highly dependent on various ESs for their livelihoods, but the changes of LULC had substantial impact on the loss of ESs. Therefore, implementation of effective land uses planning strategies and measures for ecological security and livelihood sustainability is to be managed with people participation in mountainous areas.

Land-Use Planning Serves as a Critical Tool for Improving Resources and Environmental Carrying Capacity: A Review of Evaluation Methods and Application.

Research on resources and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) has been expanding since the early 20th century, and RECC has become a global concern and criterion for measuring regional sustainable development. Land-use planning (LUP) serves as a key tool of socioeconomic-ecological coordinated development and is deeply associated with RECC. In China, the newly established spatial planning system of 2019 identifies RECC assessment as the basis for spatial planning. However, after systematically reviewing the research history, conceptual evolution, and evaluation methods of RECC, we found that the existing approach of RECC has not addressed the impacts of stakeholders' behavior on RECC, in other words, the governance perspective has not been sufficiently discussed. Further, research on the interaction between RECC and LUP has been far from sufficient, hampering our deep understanding of the roles of LUP in improving RECC. In order to fill this gap, a new framework is proposed to explain the formation mechanism of RECC combining the governance considerations based on the social-ecological system (SES) framework, which has made contributions to enrich the research perspective of RECC and its theoretical and methods system. In addition, the interaction path between RECC and LUP is constructed according to the new RECC framework and a policy toolbox for improving RECC, which will provide a comprehensive and systematic practical application path for improving RECC and promoting regional socioeconomic-ecological coordinated sustainable development. The conclusion part discusses the future research topics and limitations for RECC and LUP.

Exploring frame conflicts in the development of a new mineral resource policy in Austria using Q-methodology.

Mineral resource policy deals not only with industrial and trade aspects but is nowadays also increasingly concerned with topics such as environmental protection and social development. The tensions associated with strongly divergent opinions among various stakeholder groups cast it as a 'wicked problem'. The process of redeveloping the 'Austrian Mineral Resources Strategy' allows for examination of the different frames and identification of potential frame conflicts in consultation processes at the national level. Using Q-methodology, this paper reveals four frames represented in the Austrian policy design process and unravels conflicts between economy-focused and integrated policy framings. The predominance of the first frame indicates a narrow sectoral approach favouring domestic mineral extraction and economic growth over other means (e.g. international distributional conflicts of benefits and burdens). The article also demonstrates the suitability of Q-methodology as a tool to investigate frames and to improve their understanding in policy design processes.

Coupling optimization with territorial LCA to support agricultural land-use planning.

The life cycle assessment framework was adapted to the territorial level (the "territorial LCA") to assess the environmental impacts and services of land-use planning scenarios. Given the various geographical conditions of the territory, the potential alternatives of land-use scenarios could be enormous. To prevent the iterative process of proposing and comparing alternative scenarios, this work aims to move one step further to automatically generate optimal planning scenarios by linking the novel territorial LCA with multi-objective optimization (MOO). A fuzzy optimization approach is adopted to deal with the trade-offs among objectives and to generate optimized scenarios, minimizing the environmental damages and maximizing the satisfaction level of the desired land-use functions subjected to constraints such as area availability and demand. Geographical Information System (GIS) is employed to manipulate geographic datasets for spatial assessment. An illustrative case study tests the novel integrated method (the territorial LCA, MOO, and GIS) on its ability to propose optimal land-use planning for bioenergy production in a region in Belgium. The study results reveal the competition of land uses for different energy products, the trade-offs among impact categories, and potential impacts on other territories if implementing optimal land planning for the territory under study. The optimization outcomes can help decision-making on the optimal locations for different crop types (i.e., miscanthus, willow, and maize in the case study) and utilizations (i.e., electricity, heat, biogas, and bioethanol in this study) complying with the objectives and constraints. This integrated tool holds the potential to assist policymakers when deciding on how to use the territory facing the global context of increasing demands for multiple uses of bio-based products, such as for food, feed, fuel, fiber, and chemicals. Limitations of the current method and its potential for real-world applications are discussed, such as expanding the scope to include life cycle sustainability assessment and taking farmers' behavior and crop rotation into account.

Mapping ecosystem services for ecological planning and management: a case from a tropical planning region, Eastern India.

Burdwan City experienced an important urbanization trend inducing dramatic land use/land cover (LULC) changes over the past 28 years. However, their effects on ecosystem services value (ESV) remain unknown. The prime objective of this study is to analyze the spatial heterogeneity of ESV in the Burdwan Planning Area (BPA) from 1990 to 2018. Ecosystem service value (ESV) was estimated using the benefits transfer method, and the contribution of LULC was also computed using contribution rate (CR). The dynamics of LULC were also calculated from the change intensity index and single LULC dynamics. The sensitivity of ESVs to LULC using an elasticity indicator between 1990 and 2018 was performed. The results showed that during the entire study period, built-up are and open lands or sand bars increased 362.34% and 42.40%; water bodies, vegetation, and agricultural lands decreased by 33.24%, 7.20%, and 13.66%, respectively, from 1990 to 2018. In case of ESV, total ESVs were US $95.26 (1990), US $95.85 (2000), US $95.42 (2010), and US $91.38 (2018) million. There was a reduction of the total ESV of US $3.88 million between 1990 and 2018. A substantial spatial heterogeneity of ESV between rural and urban landscapes was reported due to variations of ecological landscapes. The main driver of ESs value loss was a rapid conversion of natural land cover (vegetation, water bodies) into semi-natural or artificial landscapes, i.e., urban settlement. Being a planning region, assessing the impact of LULC dynamics on the ESVs is necessary for sustainable urban development and effective urban environmental management.

The Effect of Land-Use Categories on Traffic Noise Annoyance.

Land-use categories are often used to define the exposure limits of national environmental noise policies. Often different guideline values for noise are applied for purely residential areas versus residential areas with mixed-use. Mixed-use includes living plus limited activities through crafts, commerce, trade, agriculture, and forestry activities. This differentiation especially when rating noise from road, railway, and air traffic might be argued by different expectations and therefore noise annoyance in those two categories while scientific evidence is missing. It should be tested on empirically derived data. Surveys from two studies in the state of Tyrol in urban and rural areas were retrospectively matched with spatial data to analyze the potential different influences on noise effects. Using non-parametric tests, the correlation between land-use category on self-reported noise sensitivity and noise annoyance was investigated. Exposure-response for the two analyzed land-use categories showed no significant impact on noise sensitivity and exposure-response relationships for the three traffic noise sources. Including only noise annoyance, there is not sufficient evidence to define different noise policies for those two land-use categories.