Qingdao is one of the essential growth poles in the process of new-type urbanization in Shandong Province. The study on the relationship between urban expansion and driving factors in this area is representative. This paper examined urban expansion from the perspective of non-urban to urban conversion, detailing an empirical investigation into the spatiotemporal variations and impact factors of urban expansion in Qingdao.

The changes in water quality caused by grassing of arable land followed by the reduction in the use of fertilisers after 1989 are demonstrated on an example of two tile-drained subcatchments in spring areas in the Sumava Mountains. The original water quality monitoring was performed in the mid-1980s, at the time when the area was used as tile-drained arable land. The monitoring was renewed in 2004 under different, i.e. extensive, land use conditions.

A way of negotiation for decisions about land use planning and environmental management."Gond thinking" in matters of environmental management and land use planning requires an appropriate mix of the integrative approach of decision makers and of the analytical approach of scientiste. This gond thinking should also meet the challenges of negotiation between institutions, enterprises and pressure groupe which all claim the statue of peers.

The Abbotsford‐Sumas Aquifer is arguably the most studied case in Canada of groundwater nitrate contamination associated with agricultural production. Underlying some of the most productive agricultural land in Canada, this highly vulnerable trans‐boundary aquifer provides a unique case study on the opportunities and challenges of addressing water quality issues. A groundwater monitoring program initiated in the early 1990s has been important in tracking spatial and temporal variation in groundwater nitrate concentration.

In this study, we have considered the relationship between the spatial configuration of land use and water quality in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. Using land use types, landscape metrics, and long-term water quality data, as well as statistical and spatial analysis, we determined that most water quality parameters were negatively correlated with non-wood forest and urban areas but were strongly positively correlated with the proportion of forest area.

Including a diverse set of stakeholders in collaborative land use planning processes is facilitated by data and maps that communicate and inform an array of possible planning options and potential scenarios of future land use change. In northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has engaged stakeholders and the DRC Government to lead a participatory zoning process in the Maringa–Lopori–Wamba (MLW) Landscape.

Using data on long-term monitoring of water quality, mass budgets, and empirical models, we quantified chloride (Cl) leaching from major diffuse and point sources in a large central European catchment (upper Vltava river, Czech Republic) over a 110-year period (1900–2010), with the major aim to evaluate the influence of historical changes in land use and management practices on Cl leaching from agricultural land.

In the conditions of the Republic of Belarus there was presents an organization of agricultural use of lands contaminated by radioactive elements. There were shown theoretical bases of the main problems forming the components of a complex project of intra-farm land usage.

Biodiversity is vital to several important ecosystem services that ensure sustainability of food production. In organic agriculture, land management practices that promote biodiversity and soil quality are emphasized and the goal is to maintain a sustainable agricultural system. Soil quality or soil health is the foundation for all agriculture and natural plant communities and a primary indicator of sustainable land management. Soil quality is affected by farm management and land use decisions.

Changes in land use and management practices to store and sequester carbon are becoming integral to global efforts that both address climate change and alleviate poverty. Knowledge and evidence gaps nevertheless abound. This paper analyses the most pressing deficiencies in understanding carbon storage in both soils and above ground biomass and the related social and economic challenges associated with carbon sequestration projects.

The carbon budget that was derived from forest land use has been extensively explored in most regions/countries of the Northern Hemisphere but is poorly documented in Central Asia. In this study, we proposed a localized bookkeeping model and estimated the sources and sinks of carbon from forest land use and managements between 1961 and 2010 in two arid regions of Central Asia, e.g., Kazakhstan and Xinjiang, China. The results indicate that the forest land use in these two regions acted as a carbon sink, with a total carbon sequestration of 43.27Tg and 20.74Tg respectively.