This study addressed the integrated effects of season, slope aspect and land use on faunal population density, diversity and Soil Biological Quality (QBS-ar index) in the mid-hills of the central Nepal Himalaya. It also examined the relationship among these soil quality indicators. Faunal density and QBS-ar were significantly higher during the post-monsoon season when compared with the pre-monsoon season. Faunal population density during both the seasons was higher on the northern rather than southern slope aspects.

Although Indonesia has no shortage of land area that lost its forest cover before 1990 and has become the global leader in land-use based greenhouse gas emissions, the widespread expectation that the afforestation/reforestation approach to Clean Development Mechanisms (A/R CDM) could lead to sustainable development benefits has not so far materialized.

The security district of Hatay, Kilis, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Mardin and Sirnak province located along southern boundary lies between Turkey and Syria that comprised wide areas. It is considered to evaluate of cleaned mined land with a 300-400 m width and 510 m length. It was estimated that these lands were very productive and that can be used for organic or other types of agriculture .If these lands are cleaned and opened to agriculture, that can create jop opportunities to many families in agriculture.

Indonesia has set the target that by the year 2020 its emissions of greenhouse gases will be reduced by 26 per cent relative to business-as-usual conditions. This article analyses the effectiveness of a subsidy to the use of land in forestry as a means of achieving this goal. The analysis uses a general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy characterised by explicit treatment of land use, disaggregated by industry and by region.

Secondary forests and monoculture plantations are widespread in the tropics and are the two most common forms of reforestation. To assess the value of both systems for CO₂ mitigation, we performed a systematic analysis of the two systems comparing growth rates and potential to store carbon. The increasing involvement of these forest types in carbon trading makes a pertinent issue. We used a meta-analytical approach to evaluate relative rates of aboveground growth (biomass accumulation) in secondary forests and monoculture plantations, controlling for climate and site characteristics.

Urbanization alters watershed ecosystem functioning, including nutrient budgets and processes of nutrient retention. It is unknown, however, how variation in stormwater infrastructure design affects the delivery of water and materials from urban watersheds. In this study, we asked: (1) How does stormwater infrastructure design vary over time and space in an arid city (Phoenix, Arizona, USA)?, and (2) How does variation in infrastructure design affect fluxes of dissolved nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and organic carbon (DOC) from urban watershed ecosystems?

Cities are facing considerable challenges resulting from imminent climate change impacts. Urban planning to minimise adverse impacts of climate change at the city level can establish a climate-resilient city. Mitigation strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions would lead to a climate-friendly city. Integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation into sustainable city planning should not be merely added as a single level of sustainable city planning, but requires a wide range of multi-level cooperation.

This paper analyses the land use/cover dynamics of land degradation through the interpretation of aerial photographs (1958 and 1980) and 2006 SPOT-5 satellite image of the Gerado catchment. Other, non-visual data were gathered from personal interview and focus group discussions conducted in 2010 and 2011 with local elders, farmers and development (agricultural extension) agents. The results identified the presence of cultivated and rural settlement land, shrubland, woodland, bare land, grassland, urban built up area and forest.

The objectives of this Colorado study were to assess primary reasons ranchers choose to stay or sell the ranch, compare the motivations for ranching between a traditional agriculturally based county and a rapidly developing county, and assess whether factors such as length of tenure, fiscal dependency on ranching, and dependency on public lands play roles in decisions to sell. Personal interviews were conducted with 37 ranchers. While land use conversion occurs for a wide variety of reasons, lack of heirs and detrimental public policy were important reasons given for selling ranches.

Crop rotation is one of the important decisions made independently by numerous farm managers, and is a critical variable in models of crop growth and soil carbon. In Iowa and much of the Midwestern United States (US), the typical management decision is to rotate corn and soybean crops for a single field; therefore, the land-cover changes each year even though the total area of agricultural land-use remains the same. The price for corn increased from 2001 to 2010, which increased corn production in Iowa.

Although protected areas in Africa contain possibly the highest repositories of carbon and thus can play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration, they are threatened due to increasing levels of deforestation and forest degradation (DFD). However, little information is available on the on-site causes of DFD in these areas. This paper estimates the levels of DFD and identifies the drivers in the Ankasa Conservation Area (ACA) in Ghana as a case study. A survey was used to identify both direct and underlying factors that promote the DFD.

Research increasingly suggests that moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is essential to children's health. However, little is known about the extent to which and when different urban environments influence the extent to which children engage in MVPA. To this end, this study explores the relationship between children's MVPA and urban land use and land cover (LULC) for several temporal subdivisions of children's weekly routines (before school, after school and weekends).