QUESTION: Increasing population pressure, socio‐economic development and associated natural resource use in savannas are resulting in large‐scale land cover changes, which can be mapped using remote sensing. Is a three‐dimensional (3D) woody vegetation structural classification applied to LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data better than a 2D analysis to investigate change in fine‐scale woody vegetation structure over 2 yrs in a protected area (PA) and a communal rangeland (CR)? LOCATION: Bushbuckridge Municipality and Sabi Sand Wildtuin, NE South Africa.

Plant communities of 57 field boundaries, in four regions of Finland, were sampled for this study focusing on factors affecting species diversity and community composition. All the boundaries were buffer strips established following the guidance of an Agri-Environmental Support Scheme. Data on edaphic factors, boundary management practices and spatial coordinates were used as explanatory variables in the data analyses using variation partitioning by Redundancy Analysis and univariate statistics.

Whether grazed semi-arid grassland can be regarded as a net-sink or net-source of aeolian dust is difficult to detect since deposition and emission processes are in gradual transition. In grassland, dust arrives from sources far away or is directly emitted and immediately part of the suspension load. The processes of dust emission or deposition can be mainly identified by vertical concentration measurements close to the ground and close to the sources.

In 2003 a research study looked at the position of smallholders; the survey was carried outusing questionnaires and interviews. The 613 farms included in the survey were situated in 3counties in the Southern Great Plain of Hungary and in 3 counties of the Western part of thecountry (Transdanubia). The results of the survey showed that there was a firm tendency ofconcentration among the Hungarian individual farms. Though their average size is about 3 ha,the number and area of farms over 50 ha size are rapidly growing and taking a significant partof the total individual agricultural area.

In 2000, after the international agreement on the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization decided to adopt a new set of basic forest and forest change definitions. The main change is that new definitions are no more related to land cover but to land use. The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol requires now that national forest related data must be based on land use concept.

Land resources are not fully exploited for agricultural production in Latvia. According to the Rural Support Service, in 2013 approximately 400 thousands ha of agricultural land were not declared for Single Area Payment Scheme. Increases in bioresources and food production in the world have become objective needs. Exploiting these land resources provides a possibility to increase agricultural output and economic efficiency in Latvia’s rural areas. Yet, agricultural growth in Latvia’s rural areas may not be in contradiction with sustainable development principles.

In this study from Khun Samun Watershed in northern Thailand we investigate land use and soil carbon relationships in 99 sloping upland soils that pertain to soil degradation/conservation and carbon storage/loss. Approximately 35% of the variability in total soil carbon could be explained by the available quantitative and semi-quantitative information, primarily clay content and CEC, and to a lesser degree by factors concerning land management.

Farming activities are major drivers of the landscape-related ecological patterning because of their multiple influences on both non-arable and arable landscape elements and mosaics. Uncertainties still remain about the way individual farmer decisions and the aggregation of their activities in space contribute to these mosaics at local landscape scales, therefore about possible levers of action in farms for ensuring sustainable landscapes. The general objective of the present study was to give an assessment of the way farms contribute to crop-mosaic patterning at local landscape scales.

Presented to USDA Economists Group, Washington, DC, March 11, 2009
Discusses land use conflicts between agriculture, conservation, development and energy.

Protected areas are established to conserve unique features and biodiversity of the nature. Accordingly, wherever has one of the natural, ecological and/or cultural values it should be considered a protected area. Kave-Deh No-hunting Area is located on extremely east of Tehran Province in an area of 94,961 ha. Due to rich and diverse land cover, distinctive wildlife species, and unique monuments the area was selected as a case study to examine the possibility of its promotion to the protected area using Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) Method.

1. China's Grain for Green Project is a rapid landscape-scale shift in ground cover and land use with significant implications for biodiversity. From 1998 to 2005, we carried out field studies to examine the landscape-level impacts of this project, and to provide a practical example of the successes and failures of a large-scale attempt to restore a vulnerable environment. 2. In a northern part of China's Shaanxi Province, our results indicated that the total vegetation cover in areas covered by this project increased from 29·7% in 1998 to 42·2% in 2005.

The most prominent factors inducing landscape change in the rural regions of south west Europe are depopulation and the associated socio-ecological modifications. The aim of this work was to assess the future implications of these processes on land use/land cover and biodiversity in northwest Iberia. To achieve our goal, we developed a virtual spatially explicit dynamic model to simulate regional socio-ecological dynamics.