Where rights over natural resources are contested, the effectiveness of conservation may be undermined and it can be difficult to estimate the welfare impacts of conservation restrictions on local people. In particular, researchers face the dilemma of estimating respondents’ Willingness To Pay (WTP) for rights to resources, or their Willingness To Accept (WTA) compensation for foregoing these rights.

This research develops the novel concept of an economic ecosystem service sustainability index from the perspective of total income theory, and presents its empirical application at the spatial unit scale of the agroforestry farm. This paper compares the results accrued from applying the refined standard System of National Accounts (rSNA) and the authors’ Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS).

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of irrigation delivery services and agricultural extension services on crop choice in southern Tajikistan. This analysis is motivated by the government’s recent efforts to address the country’s severe malnutrition problem by supporting changes in irrigation service delivery and agronomy to increase diversity in agricultural production and consumption, in an environment where the cultivation of cotton had, until recently, been mandatory.

There is growing interest in the role that natural capital plays in underpinning ecosystem services. Yet, there remain differences and inconsistencies in the conceptualisation of capital and ecosystem services and the role that humans play in their delivery. Using worked examples in a stocks and flows systems approach, we show that both natural capital (NC) and human-derived (produced, human, social, cultural, financial) capital (HDC) are necessary to create ecosystem services at many levels. HDC plays a role at three stages of ecosystem service delivery.

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) affects the climate through both biogeochemical (BGC) and biophysical (BPH) mechanisms. While BGC effects are assessed at global scale and are at the heart of climate treaties such as the Paris Agreement, BPH effects are totally absent despite their increasingly recognized impact, especially at local scale. This stems from the complexity in characterizing their climate impacts both at local and global scale, which makes it impractical to offer clear advices for the development of climate policies.

Grasslands are among the most endangered ecosystems in the world. They supply vital resources for society, support an abundance of wildlife species, and store rich carbon reserves beneath their surfaces. Despite this, only a fraction of original grasslands in the United States now remains, and their rate of conversion to cropland has recently reaccelerated. This paper discusses opportunities that are immediately available to reduce the loss of U.S. native grasslands (i.e., prairie) and advance toward collective goals in grassland conservation.

The use of tree-based fallowing as a sustainable land management system may serve as an important developmental pathway out of poverty across drought-prone watersheds in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia. This study employs a financial analysis technique, the computation of net present values, to explore the financial viability of farmers’ investments in an intercropping farming system known as taungya. The analysis employs scenarios that include different farming systems, such as A. decurrens (J.C. Wendl.) Willd. cum teff (Eragrostis tef) intercropping, A.

Does ownership status of agricultural land determine farmers’ soil use behaviour? Why (not)? We investigate this old question using multiple methods and data. We apply econometric analysis to plot-level data to determine whether planting decisions differ between rented and owned plots. In addition, we analyse interviews with Austrian farmers with the aim of explaining (a lack of) differences. We find a very small influence of tenancy on crop choice in the quantitative part of the study, and qualify these findings in the qualitative part.

Land use and management influence the magnitude of soil loss. Among the different soil erosion risk factors, the cover-management factor (C-factor) is the one that policy makers and farmers can most readily influence in order to help reduce soil loss rates. The present study proposes a methodology for estimating the C-factor in the European Union (EU), using pan-European datasets (such as CORINE Land Cover), biophysical attributes derived from remote sensing, and statistical data on agricultural crops and practices.

In the face of increasing socio-economic and climatic pressures in growing cities, it is rational for managers to consider multiple approaches for securing water availability. One often disregarded option is the promotion of reforestation in source regions supplying important quantities of atmospheric moisture transported over long distances through aerial rivers, affecting water resources of a city via precipitation and runoff (‘smart reforestation’). Here we present a case demonstrating smart reforestation’s potential as a water management option.

A series of approaches have been proposed for natural resource management and biodiversity conservation in recent decades. In the important forestry sector, two of the most dominant policy paradigms have been multi-purpose forestry and sustainable forest management. The Convention on Biological Diversity, amongst other transnational commitments, added the ecosystem approach and its related idea of ecosystem services to this succession which is increasingly becoming the basis for natural resource management, including in the United Kingdom (UK).

Identifying trajectories of agricultural development that enable substantial increases in food production is of prime importance for food security and human development in Sub-Saharan Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular. To ensure long-term welfare for people and landscapes, it is imperative that such agricultural transformations sustain and enhance the natural resource base upon which agriculture depends.