Development of accurate classification methods for rapidly changing catchments like that of Lake Basaka is fundamental to better understanding the catchment dynamics, which were not addressed in previous studies. Thus, the aim of this study was to map the decadal land use/cover (LUC) regimes of the Lake Basaka catchment, utilizing time series of LANDSAT images and to analyse the changes that occurred at different time periods. Both unsupervised and supervised image classification systems were utilized in Earth Resources Data Analysis System (ERDAS) Imagine (9.1).

Urbanisation is an important driver of biodiversity loss, also contributing to habitat loss and fragmentation of grasslands at the urban-rural interface. While urban green spaces are known to include many grassland habitats, it is uncertain to what extent urban land use types harbour grasslands of special conservation interest and whether patch characteristics and connectivity of these differ from grasslands on agricultural land.

A hypothetical market for renting and converting forested land into row cropping for biofuel production revealed that nearly half of the 1060 non-industrial landowners sampled in Florida are willing to accept payments for land type conversion and the resulting supply function is inelastic and positive.

Different studies have shown that the effect of land use conversion on soil nutrients and soil organic carbon (SOC) is variable, which indicates that more investigations that focus on different specific geographical locations and land use types are required. The objectives of this study were (1) to evaluate the effect of grazing land (GL) conversion into Grevillea robusta plantation and exclosure (EX) on soil nutrients and soil organic carbon (SOC) and (2) to examine the impact of soil organic matter (SOM) on soil nutrients.

The cold regions hydrological model (CRHM) platform, a physically based hydrological model using a modular and object-oriented structure, has been applied for simulating the redistribution of snow by wind, snowmelt, infiltration, evapo-transpiration, soil moisture balance, surface depression storage and run-off routing. Land use and land cover classification is a preprocessing procedure to provide the required parameters for CRHM. Per-pixel-based and object-oriented classifications are the two major classification approaches currently in practice.

BACKGROUND: Recent evidence indicates that some populations of European corn borer (ECB), Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner), have declined to historic lows owing to widespread adoption of Bt corn hybrids. To understand current ECB populations in Pennsylvania field corn, the authors assessed larval damage in Bt and non‐Bt corn hybrids at 29 sites over 3 years. The influence of Bt adoption rates, land cover types and moth activity on levels of ECB damage was also considered.

Indonesia has turned its alleged role as global leader of land-based carbon emissions into a role as a global trailblazer exploring modalities for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). REDD+ readiness is largely about improving forest governance, but this itself is a multilayered concept. This article analyses how the processes and practices of REDD+ readiness are leading to various forest governance reforms in Indonesia.

Trade liberalization has greatly accelerated the volume of traded agricultural products in past decades. As land resources become more limited in some countries, international trade plays an important role in compensating for land scarcity in these countries. This paper aims to measure and locate the virtual land use hidden in China's imports and exports, for both primary crops and processed products, from 1986 to 2009.

SUMMARYThis paper analyses the differences between forestland tenure systems in Canada and the US. Evolution of the two systems is primarily explained by variation of scarcity and land productivity. In early colonial times, Canada's economy was tightly linked to the fur trade with Indian people, while New England's economy was based more on agriculture with more intensive land use.

China is the most populated country in the world with slightly more than half of the population is still living in rural areas. In the past couple of decades, rapid urbanization and industrialization have significantly changed the land use/land cover (LULC) pattern in rural areas, particularly those around the big cities in eastern China. Shandong Peninsula, a traditional agriculture area, also has witnessed rapid urbanization and industrialization.