In Tigray, Ethiopia, land degradation is a dominant environmental problem and hence the regional government has undertaken restoration measures on degraded soils since 1991. The present study was aimed to assess the impact of land uses and soil management practices on soil properties, and consequently on soil quality of degraded soils. The catchments selected were Maileba and Gum Selassa, and land uses included cultivated (CL), grazing (GL), plantation (PA) and area exclosure (AE). Replicated soil samples were collected from topsoil and profiles of four land-use types in both catchments.

Land-use emissions accompanying biomass loss, change in soil organic carbon (ΔSOC) and decomposing wood-products, were comparable with fossil fuel emissions in the late 20th century. We examine the rates, magnitudes and uncertainties for major carbon (C) fluxes for rangelands due to commercial grazing and climate change in Australia. Total net C emission from biomass over 369Mha of rangeland to-date was 0.73 (±0.40)Pg, with 83% of that from the potentially forested 53% of the rangelands. A higher emission estimate is likely from a higher resolution analysis.

Cork oak stands are a part of the agroforestry ecosystem in Portugal, characterized by a low crown cover from cork oak trees, managed towards cork production, and sometimes in combination with grazing. In recent years, European Union policies gave impetus to a large area of new cork oak plantations, which have been established mainly for cork production purposes, and consequently with higher stand density than traditional agroforestry systems.

Many rangeland streams and associated fisheries have suffered from livestock grazing as a cost of upland-forage utilization. Due to damage from intensive usage, restoration of damaged streams is now a common land-management objective. The Squaw Valley Ranch of Elko County, Nevada, US, in cooperation with the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Barrick Gold Corp., is attempting to improve those portions of the Rock Creek watershed negatively affected by past ranch operations.

Overgrazing is a primary agent to cause and aggravate desertification in the Horqin Sandy Grassland of northern China that has reduced the capacity of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage in the region. Grazing exclosure practice is recommended to control the desertification by vegetation restoration. How the restoration improves the C and N storage needs to be answered to the policy makers for their future land use planning and decisions.

Spatial dynamics of carbon fluxes in dryland montane ecosystems are complicated and may be influenced by topographic conditions and land tenure. Here we employ a modified version of the Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach (CASA) ecosystem model to estimate annual net primary production (NPP) at a fine spatial resolution (30m) in pinyon–juniper (P–J) woodlands of the Colorado Plateau. NPP estimated by CASA was generally comparable to validation data from a statistical NPP model and field observations.

The density and diversity of woody plant species were studied within grazing, cultivation and charcoal production land-use areas in a multiple-use savanna woodland, central Uganda, using 75 plots with an area of 0.1 ha (Whittaker plots). Plant density was significantly higher under charcoal production (7131 ± 755 plants/ha) and cultivation (6612 ± 665 plants/ha) compared with the grazing lands (4152 ± 525 plants/ha).

The Inner Mongolian grassland steppe is the most important grazing land in China in terms of cow milk, mutton, and cashmere production. However, intensive livestock grazing has severely degraded the steppe grassland. A sophisticated grazing management is therefore essential for an economically viable use of the grassland without amplifying its desertification.

Driven principally by government regulation and societal expectations, mining companies around the world are seeking to mitigate the environmental impacts of mining through mined land rehabilitation programs. The ultimate goal of rehabilitation is to establish an acceptable and sustainable post-mining land use. Mining companies worldwide face the challenge of specifying just what a sustainable post-mining land use will be.

Extreme climatic events like the 2003 summer heatwave and inappropriate land management can threaten the existence of rare plants. We studied the response of Eryngium alpinum, a vulnerable species, to this extreme climatic event and different agricultural practices. A demographic study was conducted in seven field sites between 2001 and 2010. Stage-specific vital rates were used to parameterize matrix population models and perform stochastic projections to calculate population growth rates and estimate extinction probabilities.

After the rangeland law has been implemented, the areas used for field have been started to be converted to rangelands. A forage mixture of alfalfa, birdsfoot trefoil, perennial ryegrass, and smooth brome was sown in the rangeland of Hacıpehlivan village, Biga, Çanakkale in 2004 fall.

Historical domestic livestock grazing in sensitive landscapes has commonly been regarded as a major cause of land degradation in Iceland. Shieling areas, where milking livestock were taken to pasture for the summer, represented one element of grazing management and in this paper we consider the extent to which historical shieling-based grazing pressure contributed to land degradation.