Background: In South Africa, the idea that the township economy needs to be ‘revitalised’ has begun to gain significant political traction. The Gauteng provincial government has responded to this challenge by setting out a strategy that promises to channel resources and create opportunities for micro-enterprises. The paper responds to development interventions such as this through interrogating the nature of the challenges facing micro-enterprises that need to be overcome in South African townships.

Topography and relief variability play a key role in ecosystem functioning and structuring. However, the most commonly used concept to relate pattern to process in landscape ecology, the so-called patch-corridor-matrix model, perceives the landscape as a planimetric surface. As a consequence, landscape metrics, used as numerical descriptors of the spatial arrangement of landscape mosaics, generally do not allow for the examination of terrain characteristics and may even produce erroneous results, especially in mountainous areas.

Climate impact scenarios for agriculture usually consider yield development, landscape water balance, nutrient dynamics or the endangerment of habitats separately. Scenario results are further limited by roughly discriminated land use types at low spatial resolution or they are restricted to single sites and isolated crops. Here, we exemplify a well data based comprehensive sensitivity analysis of a drought endangered agrarian region in Northeast Germany using a 2050 climate scenario.

Spatial planning is connected with speculations in real estate market, which deepens the process of urban sprawl. Adequate land management supporting  free market – both investment decision of businesses and location decisions of households – is necessary if amorphous city growth is to be prevented. A change, or even information about change in the local plan determines decisions in the real estate market. On the basis of the studies conducted it can be said that the factor causing the greatest value increment is the possibility of development.

The “demanio trazzerale” (herd way regional property) in Sicily constitutes a significant quota of the territorial social capital, due to its historical and cultural origin.
A recent law draft considers its new and diverse potentiality to be assumed in the re-planning of the territory at inter-municipal scale, but some criticalities concern the calculation of the legitimization corresponding sale price.

Here we describe an economic development programme termed ARISE – an acronym for African Rural Initiatives for Sustainable Environments.

This study investigates today’s plant species richness and composition in cultivated and recently abandoned
arable land of Kosovo. Relationships between these aspects of vegetation and both environmental features
and agricultural management measures are studied at the regional and plot scale. In 2006, 432 vegetation relevés
with a standard plot size of 25 m² were recorded in cultivated fields. In 2007, data collection focussed on 41 plots
in arable fields that had been abandoned the year before. With respect to the environment, data analysis accounts

In the ten years 1903-1913 Arrigo Serpieri delivered the lessons of rural economy and evaluation in the Technical Superior Institute of Milano, following his teacher Vittorio Niccoli.

Peninsula effects - decreasing richness with increasing distance along peninsula lobes - have been identified for
many taxa on large peninsulas. Peninsula effects are caused by differences in colonization and extinction predicted
by island biogeography or by environmental gradients along the peninsula. We compared species-area regressions
for cove patches (i.e., mainland) to regressions for lobe patches (i.e., on peninsula tips) for wet meadow birds
along a highly interdigitated shoreline (northern Lake Huron, USA). We conducted analysis both with and without

The relationships between patterns and processes lie at the core of modern landscape ecology. These dependences
can be quantified by using indices related to the patch-corridor-matrix model. This model conceptualizes
landscapes as planar mosaics consisting of discrete patches. On the other hand, relief variability is a key factor for
many ecological processes, and therefore these processes can be better modeled by integrating information concerning
the third dimension of landscapes. This can be done by generating a triangle mesh which approximates

Background: To address the structural food deficit and top down extension system that persisted for decades, the government of Ethiopia has introduced a new extension system, called Participatory Demonstration and Training Extension Systems, which serves more than 80% of the total population. As the program was streamlined to fit the different agro-climatic condition of the country, the extension approach practiced in the Tigray region (research area) was called Integrated Household Extension Program.

With the rapid change of the social environment, Mainland China has become a new economic market due to the great domestic demand caused by its enormous population and the increasing economic growth rate. Taiwanese businesses have gradually turned to develop in China under the pressure of increasing domestic wages and land costs for expanding factories as well as the enhancement of environmental protection.