Watershed sediment yield reduction through soil conservation in a West-Central Oklahoma watershed
Soil conservation practices on the Fort Cobb Reservoir watershed in West-Central Oklahoma were limited before the 1950s. However, extensive soil conservation measures were implemented in the second half of the 20th century to protect agriculturally fertile but erosion-prone soils. Fortuitously, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected instantaneous suspended-sediment and discharge measurements on major tributaries within the watershed in 1943 –1948 and again in 2004 – 2007, called pre- and post-conservation periods respectively.
Conflicting rationalities, knowledge and values in scarred landscapes
Incorporating public or local preferences in landscape planning is often discussed with respect to the difficulties associated with accurate representation, stimulating interest and overcoming barriers to participation. Incorporating sectoral and professional preferences may also have the same degree of difficulty where conflicts can arise. Planning theory calls for inclusiveness and collaboration, ideally egalitarian, and analysis of the process often uses case study scenarios that may offer examples for practice and further research.
Estimates of technically available woody biomass feedstock from natural forests and willow biomass crops for two locations in New York State
A Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to estimate the technically available woody biomass from forests and willow biomass crops within a 40 km radius of Syracuse and Tupper Lake, NY. Land cover and land use data were used to identify the available land base and restrictions were applied for slope, parcel size and designated wetlands. Approximately 222,984 oven-dry tonnes (odt) of forest biomass are technically available annually around Syracuse, from 165,848 hectares (ha) of timberland.
Land Use Can Play Critical Role in Controlling Global Warming
Le paysage, enjeu et instrument de l'aménagement du territoire
Landscape: stake and tool for land use planning. For last decades, landscape has gradually become a stake of land use planning in Europe. The European Landscape Convention formalizes landscape as an issue of general interest and promotes a democratic landscape planning. However, landscape is rarely in practice the subject of pluridisciplinary and concerted approaches. So land use planning searches for a landscape concept able to gather together the various disciplinary and societal points of view. This federative concept can help it to build concerted policies of landscape planning.
Reserve selection with minimum contiguous area restrictions: An application to open space protection planning in suburban Chicago
Conservation efforts often require site or parcel selection strategies that lead to spatially cohesive reserves. Although habitat contiguity is thought to be conducive to the persistence of many sensitive species, availability of funding and suitable land may restrict the extent to which this spatial attribute can be pursued in land management or conservation. Using optimization modeling, we explore the economic and spatial tradeoffs of retaining or restoring grassland habitat in contiguous patches of various sizes near the Chicago metropolitan area.
Efficiency and effectiveness in representative reserve design in Canada: The contribution of existing protected areas
To be effective, reserve networks should represent all target species in protected areas that are large enough to ensure species persistence. Given limited resources to set aside protected areas for biodiversity conservation, and competing land uses, a prime consideration for the design of reserve networks is efficiency (the maximum biodiversity represented in a minimum number of sites). However, to be effective, networks may sacrifice efficiency.
A case study on determining effective active green space opportunities in upper northwest urban development area of Adana
This study aimed determining the effectiveness of active green space opportunities (parks, children's gardens, sport and playgrounds) in the Upper Northwest Urban Development Area of Adana. Existing active green spaces were obtained as green space values per capita and indexed at the neighborhood level. The effectiveness of active green space opportunities for each neighborhood were estimated by the distances between centers of neighborhoods and the threshold distance between any active green space and the furthest residential housing.
Wildlife collisions with aircraft: A missing component of land-use planning for airports
Projecting risks posed to aviation safety by wildlife populations is often overlooked in airport land-use planning. However, the growing dependency on civil aviation for global commerce can require increases in capacity at airports which affect land use, wildlife populations, and perspectives on aviation safety.
Accountability of experts in the Danish national park process
In 2002 the Danish Minister of Environment initiated a process to investigate the possibilities of establishing national parks in Denmark. For this purpose experts were mobilised to investigate the status and potentials of the areas in question. The national park process was extensive in scope and complex, and in theory such complexity is assumed to make it difficult for non-experts to understand all the relevant aspects of policy. This exclusion of non-experts may lead to scientification of politics.
Automatic greenhouse delineation from QuickBird and Ikonos satellite images
The area of production under greenhouses has been in rapid growth in recent years, and at present there are over 500,000ha scattered all over the world. Due to the vast amount of inputs (water, fertilizers, fuel, etc.) required, and outputs of various agricultural residues (vegetable waste, plastic sheeting, phytosanitary product containers, etc.), the impact of this type of production system to the environment is considerable in particular if pursued without a sound and sustainable territorial planning.