Understanding factors that drive the choice of breeding habitats for birds is important for species management and conservation. We addressed this question in the case of the European Roller Coracias garrulus, an endangered species listed in Annex I of the European Union directive for bird conservation. For secondary hole-nesting birds, such as rollers, the breeding micro- and macrohabitat selection may rely on the location of the nest hole in a tree and its immediate surrounding environment as well as the larger scale foraging habitat.

This contribution discusses assets and limits of the local/territorial level as a core level to improve the sustainability of agriculture. The focus is on the issue of rural landscape maintenance through farming. Some possible institutional solutions to overcome the difficulties of family farms are examined. New institutional settings such as the "local group", constituting an interface for the negotiation among different local stakeholders, seem to effectively facilitate the stipulation of local contracts for landscape management.

Land suitability evaluation can assist in the efficient use of land resources at a regional level. This is an important issue because of the pressures that an increasing population and economic growth have put on limited land resources. Matter-element theory, which was first put forward by the Chinese mathematician Cai Wen, has shown potential for solving incompatibility problems.

Soil erosion is one of the major threats to the conservation of soil and water resources in the Danjiangkou Reservoir region (DRR), China. In order to describe the areas with high soil erosion risk (SER) and to develop adequate erosion prevention measures, SER in the DRR was assessed by integrating the CORINE model with GIS and RS.

Increasing numbers of horses are being kept for sports and leisure purposes in peri-urban areas throughout the Western world. This expansion of the equestrian sector represents a multifunctional transition, with new production of rural goods and services and increasing influence on land use. In Sweden, the number of horses has increased from 70,000 to approximately 300,000 over the last 30 years. This increase is putting pressure on the traditional Right of Public Access, an old custom allowing the public to walk, cycle or ride on private or state-owned property.

In a river, the flow directly affects the physical and chemical properties of its water, with further consequences for aquatic biota. Land use practices and vegetation cover play a significant role in the water cycle. The wide-spread perception of forest cover, in terms of hydrology is that forests may reduce water runoff: although in rare instances the contrary has been reported. Water runoff varies seasonally and depends on the forest tree species. By no means can it be considered constant over large expanses of area or for various rainfall patterns.

Ecosystem services (ESs) are gaining ground in urban policy as a key to attaining sustainable cities. However, strategic and land-use planners need operational and accessible tools to better understand the consequences of policy and planning measures. Based on a study of the City of Stockholm and its surrounding region, we argue that spatially explicit land-use mapping is a good base for modeling and visualizing the supply of urban ESs provided by different patterns of Service Providing Units.

Land degradation is a process negatively affecting environmental sustainability and requires permanent monitoring for understanding its nonlinear trajectories of change over time and space. Environmental sustainability is linked to a theoretical definition of dynamic balance among various components contributing to the ecosystem quality and functioning.

Research was conducted in northern Namibia to document and investigate the value of local knowledge connected with soil and land management, in particular with respect to the cultivation of grain legumes. Participatory approaches were used to describe and map the indigenous land unit (ILU) classification system in four villages. Soil and crop analyses indicated good correspondence between conventional productivity assessments and farmers' more qualitative descriptions of the ILUs.

CONTEXT: Insect species of different trophic level will respond differently to landscape configuration. OBJECTIVE: In this context we explore the way landscape structure affects the distribution and abundance of the whitefly Siphoninus phillyreae and its predator Clitostethus arcuatus in olive orchards. METHODS: Adult individuals of these two species were collected using sticky traps placed in 12 olive host patches in Argentina. Host patches were detected and quantified using Landsat 5 TM images. Different landscape metrics were estimated for the study area land covers.

Phytodiversity is affected both by natural and anthropogenic factors and in Island ecosystems these impacts can devastate or reduce diversity, if the native vegetation is lost. In addition to rich species richness and diversity, Island systems are the sites of high endemism and any threat to these ecosystems will consequently lead to loss and extinction of species.

This article presents an investigation of relationships between organic farming and landscape composition in Denmark. Landscape composition was analysed in terms of density of uncultivated landscape elements (I), number of land uses per hectare (II), diversity of land use (III) and mean field size (IV). Two analytical approaches were used. The first was based on an examination of the national agricultural registers for 1998, 2001 and 2004.