Urban planners are increasingly interested in agriculture around cities and have to decide whether to maintain or not areas of agricultural land use within and close to growing cities. There is therefore a need for researchers to design tools to guide public decision-making on land use. Various approaches, originating from different disciplines, may be adopted in this respect. We designed an interdisciplinary research program in order to test two related concepts: the “sustainability” and the “multi-functionality” of agriculture.

Bracken is often perceived as a widespread and increasing land management problem. The pollen record of a wide range of sites in Great Britain suggests that the current abundance of bracken is less than or, at worst, equivalent to maximum historical levels. Recently gathered data also suggest that bracken cover is declining. Results of risk assessments of land use change, and experimental and modelling investigations into the effects of climate change are synthesized.

Long-term monitoring of surface water quality has shown increasing concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) across a large part of the Northern Hemisphere. Several drivers have been implicated including climate change, land management change, nitrogen and sulphur deposition and CO2 enrichment.

Land-use/land-cover (LULC) change is an important climatic force, and is also affected by climate change. In the present study, we aimed to assess the regional scale impact of LULC on climate change using Jiangxi Province, China, as a case study. To obtain reliable climate trends, we applied the standard normal homogeneity test (SNHT) to surface air temperature and precipitation data for the period 1951–1999. We also compared the temperature trends computed from Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) datasets and from our analysis.

Soil microorganisms are responsible for organic matter decomposition processes that regulate soil carbon storage and mineralisation to CO₂. Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of drought events, with uncertain consequences for soil microbial communities. In this study we tested the hypothesis that agricultural management used to enhance soil carbon stocks would increase the stability of microbial community structure and activity in response to water-stress.

The structure of agricultural production and spatial patterns of agricultural land use in Europe are expected to face major changes over the next decades due to changes in global trade, technology, demography and policies. This paper presents a set of 25 scenarios comprising information on quantitative land use changes in Europe. The scenarios have been selected from studies with different foci, operating on both different spatial scales and different time horizons.

The future evolution of our agricultural landscapes and countryside is the subject of considerable debate and policy discussion, alongside which is an increasing emphasis on the inclusion of public consultation and participation within planning and decision making systems. However, communicating different proposed policy options in a manner that facilitates informed decisions from stakeholders can be far from straightforward. This is particularly true with more abstract and uncertain issues such as potential impacts of climate change.

An important proportion of Latin America’s forests are located in indigenous territories, and indigenous peoples are the beneficiaries of about 85% of the area for which local rights to land and forest have been recognized in Latin America since the 1980s. Nevertheless, many of these areas, whether or not rights have been recognized, are subject to threats from colonists, illegal loggers, mining and oil interests and others, whose practices endanger not only the forests but also indigenous people’s territory as a whole.

In developing countries, forests play an important role in supplying goods and services. These ecosystems are under many stresses due to unsustainable management practices, lack of clarity on tenure and access rights, and persistent pressure for land-use change. Climate change is exacerbating the impact of these stresses on both forest ecosystems and forest dependent people. What are the current forest coping strategies of different livelihoods? What is the role of forest ecosystems in increasing the resilience of rural communities?

Recently, extreme meteorological events have occurred frequently owing to climate change and its influence. Impacts of concentrated precipitation events include the damage caused by landslides. Many areas in Gangwondo (Korea) are located at high elevation and have large elevation differences; these areas are thus at high risk of landslides. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the landslide hazard of the province using representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios 4.5 and 8.5 and to compare results.

In Central Africa, important carbon stocks are stored in natural forest stands, while activities that modify the carbon storage occur in the forest landscape. Besides clean development mechanisms, the reduction of emission through deforestation and degradation (REDD) initiative is viewed as one way to mitigate climate change. Important forest habitat protection activities have already been implemented with the aim of conserving the biodiversity of the region in a sustainable manner.