Generally, sustainability dimension is related to a context, timing and scale. Although the context of sustainability can be various – either general or more specific, the timing is oriented to the long-term, but the scale has a global nature. The main purpose of the paper is to assess analytically the sustainable development concept.

Smart growth is an approach to urban planning that provides a framework for making community development decisions. Despite its growing use, it is not known whether smart growth can impact physical activity. This review utilizes existing built environment research on factors that have been used in smart growth planning to determine whether they are associated with physical activity or body mass.

The Coteaux de Gascogne region, an upland area in south-western France, is a site where studies related to the future of landscapes and the sustainability of natural resource management are well documented. The local agricultural system is induced by a “house centred” society with the particularity of passing on the inheritance and farm estate identically from one generation to the next. This system generates a mosaic landscape made up of field crops, grasslands and woodlots.

Farming sustainability is primordial to long-term socioeconomic development. This study assesses rice farming sustainability in Bangladesh by developing a composite indicator (CI) under the four pillars of sustainability and examines the main determining factors. The assemblage of top-down and bottom-up approaches were applied to generate an essential set of indicators and data were collected through a household survey from 15 villages of three major rice growing ecosystems.

Expanding human population and economic growth have led to large-scale conversion of natural habitat to human-dominated landscapes with consequent large-scale declines in biodiversity. Conserving biodiversity, while at the same time meeting expanding human needs, is an issue of utmost importance. In this paper we develop a spatially explicit landscape-level model for analyzing the biological and economic consequences of alternative land-use patterns.

The intent of this paper is to place the concepts of exposure, vulnerability, resilience and risk in the context of the consequences of global change for the sustainable development of small island developing states (SIDS). Many such states face a number of global climate change risks, such as an increase in the proportion of more intense storms, along with other global change threats that include energy security and costs.

Study of land use/cover change and its driving forces is one of the most significant fields in global environmental change research. Karst land is a type of important and unique terrain on the Earth's surface because of its extensive distribution, impressive landforms, and high ecological fragility. Recently, more and more researchers have realized that irrational land use practices are leading to a series of alarming environmental issues including rocky desertification in karst areas.

This paper attempts to provide an interdisciplinary concept of the bio-economy in the context of environmental changes in the Polish agriculture. Various definitions of bio-economy have been presented and its place in the sustainable development theory has been described. The aim of this paper is to present the environmental changes in Polish agriculture in the context of the bio-economy. For this purpose uses the information published by the Central Statistical Office and Eurostat. To showcase and presentation methods were used descriptive and tabular.

The conservation of Himalayan forests is big concern in view of global agenda. Many studies in this endeavor reported that the rate of forests degradation is posing a severe threat to the landscape and existing biodiversity in the Himalayas.

Site selection is a key factor in any aquaculture operation, because it affects both success and sustainability. It can, moreover, solve conflicts between different activities, making rational use of the land. This study was conducted to identify suitable sites for development of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) farming in Sitakunda Upazila (sub-district), Bangladesh, using GIS-based multi-criteria evaluation of water and soil quality, topography, infrastructure and socio-economic factors.

The coastal zone comprises only 3% of the earth's surface, but contains a disproportionately high amount of its assets. Tidal areas include all those coastal areas where the tidal processes are capable of affecting man's activity or of being influenced by man. Tidal areas differ greatly depending on their location, geophysical conditions, climate, tidal range and cultural differences. Throughout the world, tidal areas have been and are being developed. These developments will continue as food production will need to be doubled in the next 25 years.