Recent decades have seen a progressive degradation of soils owing to an intensification of farming practices (weeding and high trafficking), increasing use of pesticides and fertilizers, mainly nitrogen, resulting in a steady decline in soil organic matter, a key component to maintain soil fertility. The work has coupled the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of wheat cultivation in Central Italy to soil properties where the wheat was grown to identify the properties linked to within-field variability in productivity.

Drawing on qualitative research carried out in 2018 at two crossing points at the Guatemala-Mexico border, I focus my attention on individuals enabling movement and border crossing. These include money changers (cambistas or cambiadores), so-called tricyclists (tricilceros, people whose activity facilitates the transport of merchandise), motorcycle taxi drivers (locally called tuk tuks), rafters (balseros o camareros, in charge of the rafts that cross the border river), and, in general, people directly linked to movements in the region and across the border.

Urban blue-green spaces hold immense potential for supporting the sustainability and liveability of cities through the provision of urban ecosystem services (UES). However, research on UES in the Global South has not been reviewed as systematically as in the Global North. In Southeast Asia, the nature and extent of the biases, imbalances and gaps in UES research are unclear. We address this issue by conducting a systematic review of UES research in Southeast Asia over the last twenty years.