Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals.
All knowledge begins as uncommon—unrecognized, undervalued, and sometimes unaccepted. But with the right perspective, the uncommon can become the exceptional.
That’s why Elsevier is dedicated to making uncommon knowledge, common—through validation, integration, and connection. Between our carefully-curated information databases, smart social networks, intelligent search tools, and thousands of scholarly books and journals, we have a great responsibility and relentless passion for making information actionable.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 1531 - 1535 of 1605Agricultural landscape change in China's Yangtze Delta, 1942-2002: A case study
Over the past 60 years, China's ancient agricultural village landscapes have been transformed by unprecedented changes in rural policy, population and agricultural technology. The village landscapes of China's Yangtze Plain are among the most ancient, densely populated and intensively managed in the world and have undergone extremely rapid development in recent decades, causing the wholesale transformation of traditional village landscape structure, primarily at fine spatial scales (
multi-site study to classify semi-natural grassland types
Calibration and validation of simulation models describing herbage growth or feed quality of semi-natural grasslands is a complex task for agronomists without investing effort into botanical surveys. To facilitate such modelling efforts, a limited number of grassland types were identified using a functional classification of species. These grassland types were characterized by three descriptors required to model herbage growth or feed quality: the abundance-weighted mean leaf dry matter content across grass species, the relative abundance of grasses, and an estimate of species richness.
Watershed land use and aquatic ecosystem response: Ecohydrologic approach to conservation policy
Land use activities change the natural functions of a watershed impacting the flow of water and water quality, and impair aquatic ecosystems. Optimal allocation of land use depends on attributes related to terrestrial and aquatic environments. A dynamic model that links land use, overland flow, suspended sediment, and an aquatic species is used to evaluate alternate land use policies. The dwarf wedge mussel that is classified as endangered in the region is used as an indicator species of aquatic health in a watershed in Massachusetts.
Modifying land management in order to improve efficiency of rainwater use in the African highlands
Water scarcity and drought in Africa are often in the news. The widespread tendency to relate farmers' notion of drought to changes in the occurrence of dry spells is misguided: several recent studies have yielded little evidence of an increase in the length and/or frequency of such spells. The farmers' concept of drought is contextual and an indirect result of land degradation. Plant production suffers because water is not available due to deteriorated physical properties of soil. Farmers' perception of drought refers to the Green Water Use Efficiency (GWUE), i.e.
Valuing diversity and spatial pattern of open space plots in urban neighborhoods
This study evaluates how urban residents value variety, spatial configuration, and patterns of open space in their neighborhoods. Quantitative matrices that were borrowed from landscape ecology were first used to measure the variety and spatial arrangement of open space plots and landuses around houses. Amenity values of those measures were then evaluated in a hedonic regression that was corrected for identification problem caused by the endogeneity of landuse variables.