Forest carbon sequestration offset protocols have been employed for more than 20 years with limited success in slowing deforestation and increasing forest carbon trading volume. Direct measurement of forest carbon flux improves quantification for trading but has not been applied to forest carbon research projects with more than 600 site installations worldwide.

The stabling of livestock farming implies changes in both local ecosystems (regeneration of forest stands via reduced grazing) and those located thousands of kilometers away (deforestation to produce grain for feeding livestock). Despite their importance, these externalities are poorly known. Here we evaluated how the intensification and confinement of livestock in Spain has affected forest surface changes there and in South America, the largest provider of soybeans for animal feed to the European Union.

Geomorphological research in the Fann Mountains of the Pamir-Alay has indicated that subnival processes are occurring. Contemporary subnival sediments indicate that complex relationships occur between the snow patches, subnival waters, and ground. Underneath a semi-permanent snow patch, snow melts slowly from the direction of the ground, resulting in a hollow that is filled with sediments produced by wash-down from the river terraces. The energy of subnival waters washes away and displaces sediments present underneath the snow patch, but also causes them to be redeposited.