Urban structure, land use, and land cover analysis are among of the primary problems of urban planning. The paper analyses the structure of land cover in Kraków and Budapest, cities with similar past. The investigation involved 41 districts (18 districts in Kraków and 23 districts in Budapest). The authors attempted to apply a methodology to develop an approach to seek out similarities between the investigated units. Cluster analyses and GIS methods were employed to analyse land cover data provided by the European Environment Agency in the form of the Urban Atlas.

Over the last 20 years, Uganda has emerged as a testing ground for the various modes of carbon forestry used in Africa. Carbon forestry initiatives in Uganda raise questions of justice, given that people with comparatively negligible carbon footprints are affected by land use changes initiated by the desire of wealthy people, firms, and countries to reduce their more extensive carbon footprints.

The main aims of this study are to highlight the differences and the similarities between the European model of agricultural and rural development, and the state of play in the Romanian agricultural sector. Statistically speaking, the agricultural sector's indicators of the past two decades place Romania outside the family picture of the EU countries, with very slight resemblances, and very strong discrepancies between their economic, technical, and institutional characteristics.

Land degradation occurs in all kinds of landscapes over the world, but the drivers of land degradation vary from region to region. Identifying these drivers at the appropriate spatial scale is an essential prerequisite for developing and implementing appropriate area-specific policies. In this study, we investigate nine different driving factors in three categories: human disturbance, water condition, and urbanisation.

Land as an essential resource is becoming increasingly scarce due to population growth. In the case of the Kenyan coast, population pressure causes land cover changes in the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is an important habitat for endangered species. Forest and bushland have been changed to agricultural land in order to provide livelihood for the rural population who are highly dependent on small-scale farming. Unclear land rights and misbalanced access to land cause uncontrolled expansion and insecure livelihoods.

In this paper we draw on in-depth research to explore inter-professional working in rural land and livestock management and introduce the novel concept of inter-professional expertise.

Data compatibility and system interoperability are fundamental for crosswalks and collaboration between domains. The most frequently used references for information sharing are time and location. In order to understand the requirements, fundamental processes, and core information concepts of a domain, a comprehensive, but standardised documentation is needed. In spatial data infrastructures models presented in Unified Modelling Language (UML) are widely used to facilitate the uptake of standards and valorise best practices of various communities.

Environmental policies and regulations have been instrumental in influencing deforestation rates around the world. Understanding how these policies change stakeholder behaviours is critical for determining policy impact. In Queensland, Australia, changes in native vegetation management policy seem to have influenced land clearing behaviour of landholders. Periods of peak clearing rates have been associated with periods preceding the introduction of stricter legislation. However, the characteristics of clearing patterns during the last two decades are poorly understood.

Starting point for the research underlying this paper was the question why there were low rates of planning approval for Community Energy (CE) onshore windfarms in England, despite an overall supportive policy position. In order to get an indication for possible reasons, results of an in-depth review of one community driven project are provided; the Valley Wind Cooperative (VWC) in Kirklees, West Yorkshire. Importantly, a disconnect between policy and practice is observed. Views and associated perceptions of experts of certain disciplines, including e.g.

The survival of farms requires innovative adaptation and investment to take advantage of the characteristics of the peri-urban environment. In Ontario, Canada, the Provincial Government passed in 2005 the Greenbelt Act that delimits Ontario’s Greenbelt—an area of 1.8 million acres where land is protected from development around the metropolitan region of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This paper presents research on farm-level analysis of farmers’ investment decision-making aiming at understanding the impact of Ontario’s Greenbelt on farm investment.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been proposed as a model for sustainable urban and regional development beyond the troubled heritage of modernistic planning. Key to TOD is mixed use and reduced dependence on private cars. However, functionalistic land-use divides persist in the principles of TOD, such as the division between leisure and work and between permanent residences and second homes. These divides relate to, and are emphasised by, a strong focus on urban qualities within the TOD discourse, while discussions on landscape amenities are set aside.

Russia’s region of Chernozem and Kastanozem soils in Western-Siberia, where this study focused on the Kulunda steppe, has great potential as a carbon sink, particularly if the current widespread practice of burning crop residue can be replaced with conservation tillage practices that will return the residue to the soil. Environmentally-oriented land use policy measures have been introduced that could accomplish that goal. But these measures are quite recent, and face obstacles in the prevailing post-socialist institutional environment and in cultural norms.