Urbanization is viewed as endangering more critical habitats of global value and is more ubiquitous than any other human activity affecting biodiversity, climate, water and nutrient cycles at multiple scales. Spatial and landscape planning can help create alternative urban patterns protecting ecosystems and thus supporting the provision of needed services they provide. While many approaches exist to make the values of nature explicit, new tools are needed to interpret the vast quantity of information in an integrated assessment to support planning.

The following article contains analysis of role played by the Agency of Agricultural Estates (in Polish: Agencja Nieruchomosci Rolnych – ANR) in the process of forming local development in rural areas. The Agency is in possession of the Resources of Agricultural Estates of National Treasury (in Polish: Zasoby Nieruchomosci Rolnych Skarbu Panstwa - ZNRSP). Due to wide-scale possibilities of acting, it has right to influence the estate market, housing economy, and development possibilities of rural municipalities.

This study analyzes urban expansion and the peri-urban land tenure security situation in Amhara National Regional State of Ethiopia, taking Bahir Dar and Debre Markos as case studies. To detect the extent of urban expansion, data from Landsat satellite images were analyzed using ERDAS IMAGINE, ENVI, and ArcGIS segmentation, classification, and mapping tools. The land tenure security situation was assessed through interviews with local farmers.

This study examines the socio-economic and financial performances of irrigation projects under the Ogun-Oshun River Basin and Rural Development Authority (O-ORBRDA) in Nigeria. Primary data on the farming activities of the project farmers during the 2001/02 seasons and the projects' records for the period of 1995/96 to 2001/02 were summarised into socio-economic and financial performance indicators. In the Sepeteri Project, a revenue recovery level of 96% was estimated. The project is not financially viable as only 29% of its recurrent expenditure is covered.

In many cities worldwide, urbanization is leading to the rapid and extensive fragmentation of native vegetation into small and scattered urban remnants. We investigated the effects of fragmentation on plant species richness and abundance in 30 remnant Banksia woodlands in the rapidly expanding city of Perth, located in the southwestern Australian global biodiversity hotspot.

The premise of this paper is that the key to effective water resources management is understanding that the water cycle and land management are inextricably linked: that every land use decision is a water use decision. Gains in agricultural water productivity, therefore, will only be obtained alongside improvements in land use management. Expected increases in food demands by 2050 insist that agricultural production - and agricultural water use - must increase.

Increasing numbers of horses are being kept for sports and leisure purposes in peri-urban areas throughout the Western world. This expansion of the equestrian sector represents a multifunctional transition, with new production of rural goods and services and increasing influence on land use. In Sweden, the number of horses has increased from 70,000 to approximately 300,000 over the last 30 years. This increase is putting pressure on the traditional Right of Public Access, an old custom allowing the public to walk, cycle or ride on private or state-owned property.

Increased urbanization in many societies is having a negative impact on vitality of rural areas. To maintain the vitality of these areas governments have employed a variety of policies, some of which are designed to facilitate innovation and enhance landowner innovativeness. However, little research has investigated the antecedents to landowner innovativeness and whether innovativeness positively impacts economic performance in this setting.

This study examined access of rural women to forest resources and its impact on rural household welfare in North Central Nigeria. Three states out of 6 states in the study area were purposively selected to cover 3 ethnic groups. A state was selected to cover at least one ethnic group. 4 villages were randomly selected in each state to make a total of 12 sample villages. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire from 20 randomly selected rural women in each sample village to make a total of 240 respondents.

This paper aims to contribute to the debates on communal rangelands and analyses the gendered dimension of land rights and land access in the rural areas of Namaqualand. The actual gender relations within rural communities and the emergence of strategies that are being pursued in communal land processes are obscured and often ignored in policies about communal rangelands, which overemphasise ‘the ecological and economic impact’ and the balancing of these dimensions.

Domestic cats are suspected to have an impact on wild populations of birds and small mammals, but published reports of predation on bats are either rare or anecdotal. We based our study on 1012 records of bats admitted at four wildlife rescue centres in peninsular Italy in 2009–2011.