Abstract: A principal contributor to soil erosion and nonpoint source pollution, agricultural activities have a major influence on the environmental quality of a watershed. Impact of agricultural activities on the quality of water resources can be minimized by implementing suitable agriculture land-use types. Currently, land uses are designed (location, type, and operational schedule) based on field study results, and do not involve a science-based approach to ensure their efficiency under particular regional, climatic, geological, and economical conditions.

Urban habitats, particularly wastelands and brownfields, maintain rich biodiversity and offer habitat for many species, even rare and endangered taxa. However, such habitats are also under socio-economic pressures due to redevelopment for housing and industrial uses. In order to maintain urban biodiversity, it is currently unknown how much open area must be preserved and whether conservation is possible without complete exclusion from economic development.

A implantação do ordenamento territorial do Alto Acre é etapa fundamental para o planejamento da ocupação dos espaços e direcionamento de atividades em busca do desenvolvimento regional. Este trabalho teve como objetivo criar um referencial teórico para a implantação do ordenamento territorial da região do Alto Acre.

In human-impacted rivers, nutrient pollution has the potential to disrupt biodiversity organisation and ecosystem functioning, prompting calls for effective monitoring and management. Pollutants, together with natural variations, can modify the isotopic signature of aquatic organisms. Accordingly, we explored the potential of isotopic variations as an indicator of drainage basin influences on river food webs. We assessed stable N and C isotopes within six food webs along a river affected by multiple pollution sources.

Remote sensing is considered the most effective tool for estimating evapotranspiration (ET) over large spatial scales. Global terrestrial ET estimates over vegetated land surfaces are now operationally produced at 1-km spatial resolution using data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the MOD16 algorithm. To evaluate the accuracy of this product, ground-based measurements of energy fluxes obtained from eddy covariance sites installed in tropical biomes and from a hydrological model (MGB-IPH) were used to validate MOD16 products at local and regional scales.

Forest transition — i.e., the shift from decreasing to expanding forest cover — in the northern mountains of Vietnam was analyzed at the local scale in four villages from the 1970s to 2007–2008 to understand feedbacks from local environmental degradation on land uses, the conditions under which such feedbacks occur, and their possible roles in the transition. Remote sensing data were combined with field surveys including interviews, group discussions, mental and participatory mapping, observations and secondary sources.

This paper examines the preservation of farmland through purchasable development rights. In a comparison of the estimated costs and benefits associated with the development of open space from 1982 to 1992, we show that these programs may provide a net benefit to society. An econometric model is employed to address the question of what factors explain both the creation of these programs and the magnitude of farmland preservation.

Coastal dunes and sand areas are reported to be among the habitats most invaded by alien species in Europe. Landscape pattern could be a significant driver in invasion processes in parallel with land-use legacy. Fragmentation of natural habitats combined with the availability of propagules from the surrounding matrix may enhance the invisibility of ecological communities.

Since mean nitrate concentration along single river channels increases significantly with percent arable land use upstream of sampling points and autumn/early winter flushes in nitrate concentration are widespread, it is generally concluded that farmers contribute most of the nitrate. For the River Derwent in North Yorkshire, the correlation between nitrate concentration and percent arable land use is much poorer when tributary data are included in the equation, because of greater variations in dilution by water draining upland areas and in other N input sources.

Water, forage and predation constrain ungulate distributions in savannas. To understand these constraints, we characterized distributions of 15 herbivore species from water, locations of peak density and degree of clustering around the peaks using zero-inflated count data models and mapping census data collected in the Mara reserve and the adjoining pastoral ranches in Kenya during a wet and dry year.