With the growth of the biofuel complex, the concept of ‘marginal land’ has emerged as a term commonly associated with the promotion of agrofuels. Remote sensing and other data are used to globally characterize land as marginal based on predominantly biophysical features that render it ‘non-competitive’ for the purpose of commercial food agriculture.

Remotely sensed datasets are increasingly being used to model habitat suitability for a variety of taxa. We review habitat suitability models (HSMs) developed for both plants and animals that include remote sensing predictor variables to determine how these variables could affect model projections. For models focused on plant species habitat, we find several instances of unintentional bias in HSMs of vegetation due to the inclusion of remote sensing variables.

This paper examines how tourism as a form of land use and economic development is a critical site of struggle over the meaning of neoliberalism, landscape and land rights in northern Tanzania. I examine two tourism arrangements in Loliondo: joint ventures between expatriate-owned ecotourism companies and predominately Maasai villages; and the leasing of a hunting concession on village lands by the central government to a powerful foreign investor from the United Arab Emirates.

Sediment profiles from the floodplain of Morava River in the Czech Republic have been collected from exposed river banks (4–6m long sections) and cores (2–4m deep) and investigated using a set of geochemical proxies validated by granulometry and conventional geochemical analysis, outlined in our previous paper. The work was conducted to evaluate the increase in sedimentation rate during Medieval and modern time periods.

The ESAs (Environmentally sensitive areas) procedure was recently developed in the framework of MEDALUS European project to identify desertification-sensitive areas and used in many Mediterranean countries (Greece, Portugal, Italy, Egypt). The identification of areas sensitive to desertification by using the ESAs model was carried out in the Tusciano River basin (261� km²) located in southern Italy (Campania region).

A scientific approach to urban planning is required to ensure environmental protection and ecological sustainability. This paper presents a range of urban land-use scenarios and their implications for urban development and economic demand in the Old Town of Lijiang. Using geographic information system (GIS) and questionnaire analysis, three future urban planning scenarios were created based on data and storylines for the Lijiang region. In all scenarios, urban growth arises from population increase due to tourism and economic change.

Employing the histogram matching approach, the sediment regime alteration of the upper Yangtze River was assessed and its possible causes and environmental influences were discussed. Daily sediment load and flow data from 1950 to 2008 were collected from Yichang hydrometric station. The annual sediment load series was segmented by heuristic segmentation algorithm in 1986 and 2003, and the multi-year mean values of the three phases were 5.28� ×� 10⁸, 3.89� ×� 10⁸ and 0.57� ×� 10⁸� t, respectively.

Policy frameworks for protected areas, such as the EU habitats directive, ensure that environmental monitoring takes place to assess the condition of these sites. However, this monitoring rarely extends to the wider countryside, and there is no obligation for private landowners to detect trends in habitat condition. Using the diffusion of innovations model as an analytical framework we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews to consider the uptake of habitat impact assessment methods throughout a community involved in private land use pursuits in Scotland.

Property rights are a central topic in conservation debates, but their influence on environmental outcomes is rarely carefully assessed. This study compared land use, tree planting practices and arboreal vegetation on government, estate private, smallholder private and communal “family” lands in Saint Lucia. The influence of tenure was apparent, but overall not a strong predictor of either farmer practices or vegetation characteristics. Higher abundance of planted trees on smallholder private lands was offset by greater abundance of natural forest trees on estate and family lands.

Estuaries provide vital habitat to a wide variety of fish species, so understanding how human activities impact estuarine habitats has important implications for management and conservation of fish stocks. We used nationwide datasets on anthropogenic disturbance to perform a quantitative assessment of habitat stressors in US estuaries. Habitat stressors were characterized by four categories of indicator datasets: (1) land cover/land use, (2) alteration of river flows, (3) pollution sources, and (4) eutrophication.

Population is a key indicator of socioeconomic development, urban planning and environmental protection, particularly for developing countries like China. But, census data for any given area are neither always available nor adequately reflect the internal differences of population. The authors tried to overcome this problem by spatializing the population across China through utilizing integer night-time imagery (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System, DMSP/OLS) and land-use data.

The rapid development of the Vietnamese coffee industry caused widespread deforestation, land degradation, desertification, and soil and water degradation in the late 1990s. However, little is known about the impact of intensification of coffee farming on arthropod diversity in Vietnamese coffee agroecosystems.