The application of the ecosystem services (ES) concept in land use planning has great potential to enhance the awareness of planning actors on their interactions. At the same time it can contribute to improve the linkage between the role of land use patterns and the understanding of land system functioning and its contribution to human well-being. The concept should be developed in a way that can be applicable in socio-ecological systems where nature and society are capable of enhancing their roles mutually.

This article introduces a 2011 Master’s thesis that undertook two objectives. First, it assesses whether the Coastal First Nations, a coalition of First Nations on the coast of British Columbia, have acquired a share of governmental decision-making authority for three types of decisions: land use zones, ecosystem-based management (EBM) operating rules, and approval of operational plans.

Indicators are helpful tools for land use management; especially in the context of sustainable urban development, they are indispensable information bases for decision making, communication, and awareness rising. For Santiago de Chile, like many other large and dynamic cities, a high complexity of geographical conditions, social and land use pattern, diverging interests, and a high velocity of development are characteristic.

CONTEXT: Grasshoppers are a dominant herbivore assemblage globally and play an important role for ecosystem nutrient cycling. Yet, we lack a strong understanding of the relationship between grasshopper diversity and plant community composition at the landscape scale. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to test landscape scale relationships between plant and grasshopper communities. METHODS: We used a large-scale, replicated experiment at four sites, including grazed and protected pastures across a 350 km transect and 200–400 mm precipitation gradient in the steppes of Inner Mongolia, China.

Land use and crop production in the Khorezm region in western Uzbekistan, exemplarily for the irrigated low-lands of Central Asia, is adversely affected by the excessive, non-sustainable use of irrigation water on one hand, repeated droughts on the other hand, and by soil degradation by secondary salinization.

Previous studies of costs and benefits of forest conservation haven't considered the irreversible nature of forest clearing and the uncertainty associated with forest preservation benefits. The present study adapted a dynamic optimization framework to analyze optimal land use decisions. Results show that ignoring negative climate change effects on tea production and forest carbon storage values leads to excessive deforestation and lower optimal forest stock levels.

This paper mapped and valued key inter-related drylands ecosystem services of importance to pastoralists, crop farmers, the tourism industry, conservationists, and policy planners in the Ewaso Ng’iro basin, the largest of the five major basins in Kenya. We used an ecosystem services approach where only final benefits are valued to avoid double counting. The final benefits are ecosystem services or commodities which have an economic value.

Semi-natural grassland islands have a key role in slowing down biodiversity decline in intensively cultivated agricultural landscapes. Assemblages in such habitat patches are not only limited by local habitat quality, but are also influenced by the suitability and distribution of different habitat types in the surrounding landscape. If we want to preserve a functionally diverse Lepidoptera fauna, both local and landscape scale environmental effects, including land use and management, should be considered.

The objective of this paper is to provide a review on the latest developments on the main initiatives and approaches for the sustainability certification for biofuels and/or bioenergy. A large number of national and international initiatives lately experienced rapid development in the view of the biofuels and bioenergy targets announced in the European Union, United States and other countries worldwide.

Thorough land use planning in a slope land watershed requires careful consideration of both natural and social conditions. A modified "simple-accurate" method was used to estimate a land use potential value for each terrain unit of a slope land watershed in Taiwan. Soil loss estimates based on erosion modeling served as a guide for determining the most suitable land use type. The social feedback to the proposed land use planning was assessed through on-site interviews with the land users.