Designing regenerative landscapes: Using spatial indicators to diagnose landscape reorganization under alternative policies and management

Abstract

Multifunctional arid and semi-arid landscapes are increasingly stressed by climate variability interacting with long-standing land use change and shifting land tenure systems, reshaping landscape structure, altering resilience and diminishing regenerative capacity. These dynamics create an urgent need for sustainability indicators that capture how alternative policy and management pathways reorganize spatial patterns linked to resilience and multifunctionality. We apply a spatially explicit scenario framework to evaluate configuration-based landscape indicators across contrasting land tenure regimes (group ranch governance versus privatization) and regenerative land management strategies in a multifunctional dryland landscape in southern Kenya. We quantify indicators of landscape heterogeneity, forest fragmentation, and functional adjacency (cropland-forest and rangeland-forest proximity) to diagnose how interventions reorganize spatial structure relevant to regenerative processes. Results show that land tenure regime alone exerts strong control over baseline configuration indicators, with group ranch governance associated with higher landscape heterogeneity and connectivity than privatization. Regenerative management strategies systematically improve configuration indicators; however, their magnitude and expression vary by tenure context. Strategies prioritizing small forest patch conservation and targeted water access yield the largest gains in adjacency-based and heterogeneity indicators, particularly under group ranch tenure, while bundled, multi-component interventions produce modest or offsetting effects. These findings demonstrate the utility of landscape configuration indicators as a decision-relevant lens for evaluating regenerative pathways and reveal that tenure context conditions the magnitude of indicator responses to spatial management strategies. The indicator-based framework supports tenure-sensitive planning and monitoring by treating configuration-based indicators as diagnostic signals of regenerative potential, rather than direct measures of regenerative outcomes.