Latin American subtropical dry ecosystems have experienced significant human impact for more than a century, mainly in the form of extensive livestock grazing, forest products extraction, and agriculture expansion. We assessed the regional-scale effect of land use and land cover (LULC) on patterns of richness distribution of trees, birds, amphibians, and mammals in the Northern Argentine Dry Chaco (NADC) over c. 19 million hectares. Using species distribution models in a hierarchical framework, we modeled the distributions of 138 species.

Patterns of land-use and land-cover change are usually grouped into one of two categories defined by the dominant trend: (1) deforestation resulting from expanding agriculture and (2) forest expansion, usually related to the abandonment of marginal lands. At regional scale, however, both processes can occur simultaneously even in the absence of net change. Given the focus on net change, such redistribution of agricultural and natural and seminatural lands has been generally overlooked.

Forest use in Sweden may be seen as constituting an essentially conflicted area, in which a number of actors position themselves. Based on a review of policy documents, this study reviews discourses on forest amongst major organisational actors between 2001 and 2011, with the aim of discussing the ways in which discourse may have changed following increasing criticism of the previously dominating production paradigm during the period. The study also discusses the ways in which forest discourses at present may also exclude areas that are relevant to forest planning.

For centuries, pastoralists have influenced savanna ecology through their construction of settlements, traditional movement patterns in search of forage, water and safety for their livestock. Construction of settlements initiates localised changes in the vegetation due to clearance of vegetation at construction and collection of construction materials. During the occupation period a lot of dung is deposited in and around settlements. When pastoral families abandon settlements and move away, they leave behind mud huts and livestock corrals surrounded by fences.

This study uses a series of Landsat images to map the main land-cover types on the Mediterranean island of Lesvos, Greece. We compare a single-year maximum likelihood classification (MLC) with a multi-temporal maximum likelihood classification (MTMLC) approach, with time-series class labels modelled using a first-order hidden Markov model comprising continuous and discrete variables. A rigorous validation scheme shows statistically significant higher accuracy figures for the multi-temporal approach.

The paper analyses the land use behaviour of Scottish land managers and the factors influencing it in the current context of the EU rural land use policies. The analysis employs a frequently used behavioural economics method, namely structural equation modelling (SEM). Central to the empirical analysis in this paper is a cross-section database containing data collected in May to June 2009 through telephone interviews of 600 land managers in Scotland.

Despite the fact that urban farming is widespread in many African cities there is not yet a clearly defined view on how to deal with these activities in urban planning and management. On the basis of field interviews in the rapidly expanding metropolitan area of Kampala (Uganda) three different urban farming types were identified: subsistence farming, garden farming and commercial farming. These three urban farming types have their own spatial organisation logic and each interact in a specific way with urban expansion.

In many developed countries, abandoned (derelict or underused) industrial areas often occupy important parts of the cities. This raises issues about the possibilities of reusing these areas as well as on the conservation of industrial heritage they often entail. Conjoint Analysis (CA) can shed light on these issues as it can elicit the preferences of inhabitants for different scenarios of reuse. So far, only a limited number of applications of CA have been made on this topic.

The area of degraded forests in Vietnam is substantial, currently about 3.1 million ha of which about 1.7 million ha (55� %) were granted to individual farms for reforestation. However, the result of farmers’ reforestation efforts is limited. We aimed to examine the financial return, technical efficiency, and factors determining reforestation with a native tree species (Canarium album) by farms. Our results showed that reforestation with C. album is less financially profitable than that with an exotic tree species (Acacia mangium) as the alternative land use option.

Landscape management could contribute to sustainable pest control. Landscape composition, in particular, could either directly impact a pest abundance by affecting its dispersal, mortality or reproduction, or indirectly by affecting its natural enemies. We performed an analysis of the scientific literature to assess how the proportion of different land covers at the landscape level is related to the abundance of pests or to their control by natural enemies. Of 72 independent case studies, 45 reported an effect of landscape composition.

Although the importance of science, in both desertification control and other types of environmental governance, has been emphasized by many studies, little is known about how science influences institutional changes. Based on a method combining surveys, interviews, observation, and a meta-analysis of the literature, this study explored the roles of science in institutional changes associated with desertification control in northern China.