Groundwater vulnerability assessment is an important task in water resources and land management. The most sophisticated among the vulnerability assessment techniques is the GIS-based DRASTIC model. However, despite its popularity, it is marred with excessive subjectivity glitches; little research has been conducted to address the shortcomings associated with this method. This study investigates various issues regarding the application of the GIS-based DRASTIC model through a critical review of relevant literatures.

Although local variation in territorial predator density is often correlated with habitat quality, the causal mechanism underlying this frequently observed association is poorly understood and could stem from facultative adjustment in either group size or territory size. To test between these alternative hypotheses, we used a novel statistical framework to construct a winter population‐level utilization distribution for wolves (Canis lupus) in northern Ontario, which we then linked to a suite of environmental variables to determine factors influencing wolf space use.

The question of how smallholders of the Amazon estuary, locally known as cabolcos , have adapted their land use systems to produce resources during booms and busts is analyzed in this article. We draw upon more than 50 years of census data and more than 30 years of remotely sensed land-cover data to reconstruct these dynamics from World War II to the present.

Context Primates are one of the most charismatic and widely studied vertebrate groups. However, the study of new world primates in green patches within urban areas has been neglected. Such primates have been viewed as a source of human–animal conflict; however, their ecological importance to urban ecosystems and their role in human well being is poorly understood. Aims To increase understanding of both ecological and socioeconomical factors affecting the distribution, density and group sizes of urban marmosets in a large Brazilian city (Belo Horizonte).

Context Reptiles, especially snakes, can cause a fear reaction in the public and are, therefore, a good model to examine human–wildlife conflicts. Human city dwellers often respond to the presence of snakes or other reptiles by calling out the responsible agency for animal control, which has to mediate the situation. Aims To determine how the temporal and spatial occurrence of human–reptile conflicts were associated with environmental conditions and socio-economic factors in a large Brazilian city (Belo Horizonte).

Regional faunas are structured by historical, spatial and environmental factors. We studied large‐scale variation in four ecologically different beetle groups (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae, Carabidae, Hydrophiloidea, Cerambycidae) along climate, land cover and geographical gradients, examined faunal breakpoints in relation to environmental variables, and investigated the best fit pattern of assemblage variation (i.e. randomness, checkerboards, nestedness, evenly spaced, Gleasonian, Clementsian).

Many arid and semi‐arid landscapes around the world are affected by a shift from grassland to shrubland vegetation, presumably induced by climate warming, increasing atmospheric CO₂concentrations, and/or changing land use. This major change in vegetation cover is likely sustained by positive feedbacks with the physical environment. Recent research has focused on a feedback with microclimate, whereby cold intolerant shrubs increase the minimum nocturnal temperatures in their surroundings.

The distribution of invasive plants across a landscape is largely governed by disturbance invoking anthropogenic land-use practices and propagule pressure. However, spatial variability associated with anthropogenic disturbances and propagule pressure is seldom used to develop distribution models of invasive plants. This study makes use of large-scale survey data to develop a spatially explicit predictive model for the invasive wetland plant—purple loosestrife.

CONTEXT: The loss of landscape heterogeneity is causing declines of farmland biodiversity around the world. Traditional farmland regions are often highly heterogeneous and harbor high biodiversity, but are under threat of land cover homogenization due to changing agricultural practices. One species potentially affected by landscape homogenization is the Corncrake (Crex crex), which is threatened in Western Europe but remains widespread in the traditional farmland regions of Eastern Europe.

CONTEXT: Insect species of different trophic level will respond differently to landscape configuration. OBJECTIVE: In this context we explore the way landscape structure affects the distribution and abundance of the whitefly Siphoninus phillyreae and its predator Clitostethus arcuatus in olive orchards. METHODS: Adult individuals of these two species were collected using sticky traps placed in 12 olive host patches in Argentina. Host patches were detected and quantified using Landsat 5 TM images. Different landscape metrics were estimated for the study area land covers.

In any watershed, many factors influence land use/cover change (LUCC). The nonlinear relationships between these factors and LUCC are very complicated and make it difficult to build a model that is capable of accurately simulating the range of physical processes. The aim of this study was: (1) to simplify the structure of a simulation model and improve its simulation speed, and (2) evaluate the impact of land use/cover change on surface runoff and evapotranspiration.

AIM: To evaluate trend analysis of earth observation (EO) dense time series as a new way of describing and mapping changes in ecosystem functioning at regional to global scales. Spatio‐temporal patterns of change covering 1982–2011 are discussed in the context of changes in land use and land cover (LULCC). LOCATION: Global.