A Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to estimate the technically available woody biomass from forests and willow biomass crops within a 40 km radius of Syracuse and Tupper Lake, NY. Land cover and land use data were used to identify the available land base and restrictions were applied for slope, parcel size and designated wetlands. Approximately 222,984 oven-dry tonnes (odt) of forest biomass are technically available annually around Syracuse, from 165,848 hectares (ha) of timberland.

Urban construction land suitability evaluation (UCLSE) is a complex system engineering and the basis for rational use of the limited urban land resources in China. It has an important practical value on urban construction land use planning and management from the angle of methodology. As a widely used technique, traditional multi-criteria evaluation based on GIS (MCE-GIS), is not suitable for UCLSE. This study develops an improved MCE-GIS method which could be more suitable for UCLSE based on urban complex ecological system theory and the summary of the shortcomings of traditional MCE-GIS.

Carbon stocks were assessed in three archetypal forest ecosystems in the province of Salta, Argentina, namely Yungas, Chaco, and shrublands located around Chaco. Over a total area of about 7000 m2, detailed measurements of woody biomass were conducted using structural information such as diameter at breast height (dbh), total height, and stem height. At the same time, the wet weight of herbaceous, shrubs, and litter was registered within that area. Soil samples were also collected to determine parameters such as bulk density and organic carbon.

The paper seeks to shed new light on both the dynamics and possibilities for resolving complex land use conflicts by examining the development of the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) Agreement in British Columbia, Canada. This agreement signalled a major policy change in the region by increasing the protection of old growth forests from 9% to 33% of the total planning area and by promoting more environmentally friendly logging practices though the establishment of ecosystem-based management. It also gave rise to new land use planning relationships between the Province and First Nations.

Failure to recognize land administration systems as infrastructure creates potential funding and maintenance problems. Wider economic, social, and environmental benefits of effective land administration are consequently put at risk. Land administration must be recognized as critical, public good infrastructure. An evaluation method for testing land administration as an infrastructure is developed and applied. The method utilizes tools for defining and classifying infrastructure, public goods, and critical infrastructures.

The Rio Mannu River Basin (Sardinia, Italy) is undergoing a process of agricultural intensification. Like many Mediterranean areas, this basin is characterized by water shortages and diffuse pollution from agricultural sources. Hence the objective of this study was to develop possible land use and land management scenarios that could constitute an alternative to the current watershed management.

We present a remote sensing based approach for assessing ecosystem state or intactness to inform land use management and conservation planning. Using segmented multispectral medium resolution satellite imagery, parameters related to the image objects’ spectral brightness and heterogeneity, and compactness are used to derive a scoring system of 0 to 10 for the ecosystem intactness, with 0 being completely degraded and 10 being pristine.

The provision of ecosystem services at the landscape level can be significantly influenced by land management practices. Within an agriculturally dominated case study area in Saxony, Germany, a more detailed land use classification, which includes differentiated information on agricultural management practices, was utilized within the raster-based planning support tool GISCAME. “Management” refers to typical, regional crop rotations and soil tillage practices.

Agroforestry is an integrated self-sustainable land use management system that is not only capable of producing food from marginal agricultural land but also capable of maintaining and improving the quality of environment. It plays a vital role in achieving integrated rural and urban development. But reliable data on area under agroforestry is not available as methodology for estimation of area under agroforestry is not yet standardized. In this paper, we propose to use remote sensing techniques for estimation of area under agroforestry using high resolution satellite data.

Soil organic matter (SOM) is a key property determining soil functions and a major form of carbon stored in soil. Understanding the spatial and temporal variability of SOM and the driving forces responsible for spatial and temporal changes is important to assess regional soil quality and carbon sequestration potential and, particularly, to establish better practices for land use and management. We evaluated the spatio‐temporal change in SOM content from 1979–1982 to 2006 and its driving forces in Jiangsu Province, East China, using geostatistics.