Understanding pasture degradation processes is key for sustainable development in the Amazon region. Pasture degradation can be indexed by pasture nutritional status, which is impacted by environmental and human related factors. Most studies of the biogeochemistry of Amazonian pastures have been restricted to highly acidic soils with little focus on how management affects pasture biogeochemistry. We investigated soil physical and chemical properties and grass nutrients under different edaphic conditions and management practices in Rondônia state, in the southwestern Amazon region.

Human depopulation of rural mountain areas and the consequent abandonment of traditional land management are among the greatest driving forces behind changes in mountain ecosystems in Western Europe. Tree and shrub encroachment lead to an increase in landscape matrix uniformity and habitat fragmentation. For some animal species, this represents an unusual case of habitat loss caused by secondary succession. The animal species associated with this agro‐pastoral habitat may suffer from decreased connectivity as a consequence.

From the moment of its inception, human choice about how to treat the environment is a key part of ecological restoration. Because many, if not most, restoration projects require continual management once established, human choice remains a vital component of restoration projects for their entire life. But ecological restorationists often downplay the role of choice in restoration, partly because we see the choice to restore as obvious and inherently good and partly because we feel the restoration of more natural conditions for a habitat will lessen the impact of human choice over time.

Our knowledge of plant functional group effects on ecosystem processes is relatively well established, but we know much less on how changes in plant phenotypic composition affect ecosystem functioning (i.e., phenotypic functional composition). Understanding phenotypic functional composition (PFC) is relevant in plant communities strongly dominated by a few keystone species, since alteration of phenotypic composition of these species might be a mechanisms by which land management practices such as grazing impact on ecosystem functioning.

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been used for assessing the impact of land cover and land management changes on water resources for a wide range of scales and environmental conditions across the globe. However, originally designed for temperate regions, SWAT must be critically examined for its appropriate use in tropical watersheds. One major concern is the simulation of perennial tropical vegetation due to the absence of dormancy.

An empirical model of landowners’ conservation incentive program choice is developed in which information about landowners’ socio-economic and property characteristics and their attitudes, is combined with incentive program attributes. In a Choice survey landowners were presented with the choice of two incentive programs modelled as ‘bundles of attributes’ mimicking a voluntary choice scenario. Landowner behaviour and decision and the type of conditions and regulations they preferred were analyzed.

Hydrologic data from agricultural watersheds are necessary to identify long-term trends and to develop and validate hydrologic and water quality models. These types of data have been collected for 70 yr at the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed (NAEW) near Coshocton, OH. The NAEW has 19 small (0.5–3.0-ha), single-land-use watersheds for which surface runoff data have been collected year round on an event basis for various time periods since 1939. There are six large (17–123-ha), mixed-use watersheds with perennial streams where flow is measured continuously.

Land tenure relations have both social and environmental implications, ranging from potential power issues to land stewardship. Drawing upon survey data of landowners collected in the Great Lakes Basin of the U.S., this study builds upon existing research by examining absentee landlords of agricultural land—a vastly understudied but growing category of landowners.

The aim of this article is to analyze the effectiveness of land-use policy in Mexico City in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban zones of high ecological value. It is argued that Mexico City's land-use policy has been reactive and internally inconsistent, failing to take informal settlements into account, has not offered the poor access to housing with adequate services and greater security in terms of land tenure, and lacks the necessary financial resources and institutional capabilities for providing solutions to these problems.

In the conditions of the Republic of Belarus there were examined different formulations of a notion and term of 'land use', there was presented its content taking into account modern conditions. There was shown the notion and content of intra-farm land use planning of agricultural organizations; its content updated with the issues on ecologization of land use planning. There was suggested an energy approach to the economic estimation of taken project decisions made in land use planning.