Collaborative planning processes have been criticized for inefficiency, but attempts to improve them in planning of urban nature have been limited by lack of usable evaluation methodologies. This paper presents a framework for evaluating and designing collaborative processes in strategic planning of land use and nature areas. A framework with four key perspectives and their success criteria was developed with the help of literature and data from interviews and focus groups in two case areas in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland.

Greenhouses are a typical example of peri-urban land-use, a phenomenon that many planning systems find difficult to address as it mixes agricultural identity with urban appearance. Despite its urban appearance, greenhouse development often manages to evade urban containment policies. But a ban on greenhouse development might well result in under-utilisation of the economic value of the sector and its potential for sustainability. Specific knowledge of the urban and rural character of greenhouses is essential for the implementation of planning strategies.

Studies to assess the relationship between agriculture production and biodiversity conservation usually focus on one gradient ranging from a natural reference land cover type (typically forest) to an intensive productive land use. However, many semi-arid ecoregions such as the dry Chaco are characterized by a mosaic of different land covers, including natural grasslands and woody vegetation with different degrees of transformation, frequently aimed at meat production.

Understanding the spatial distribution and variability of soil texture is essential for land use planning and other activities related to agricultural management and environmental protection. This study was conducted to evaluate Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) remote sensing data as auxiliary variables for spatial estimation of surface soil texture using a limited number of soil samples taken from a site located in the city of PingduShandong ProvinceChina.

Scenic value has long been recognized as an important feature in land use planning and management. In the US, several states have included scenic value provisions in their coastal zone legislation and required that reviews of project proposals consider scenic or aesthetic effects. In Rhode Island, all permitting decisions must take into account the effect of a proposed activity in the coastal zone, such as a new dock or expanded aquaculture facility, on scenic or aesthetic value. However, there is limited guidance for how the terms scenic value or aesthetic value should be interpreted.

In our research we investigated the optimal utilization of land resources for agricultural production in Tabriz County, Iran. A GIS-based Multi Criteria Decision Making land suitability analysis was performed. Hereby, several suitability factors including soils, climatic conditions, and water availability were evaluated, based on expert knowledge from stakeholders at various levels. An Analytical Hierarchical Process was used to rank the various suitability factors and the resulting weights were used to construct the suitability map layers.

China is a developing country plagued by a long-term and large-scale desertification, which causes serious environmental problems. At the same time, China also has a long history of fighting desertification, especially in the recent decades. Thus, we think China's experience and lessons may be very important and useful for other developing countries to promote the degradation mitigation and life improvement.

Increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration is expected to impact agricultural systems through a direct effect on leaf gas exchange and also due to effects on the global availability of good-quality water as a result of climate warming. Thus, the planning of land use for agriculture requires new tools to identify the capability of current cultivars to adapt to growth restrictions under new ambient conditions.

Urban construction land suitability evaluation (UCLSE) is a complex system engineering and the basis for rational use of the limited urban land resources in China. It has an important practical value on urban construction land use planning and management from the angle of methodology. As a widely used technique, traditional multi-criteria evaluation based on GIS (MCE-GIS), is not suitable for UCLSE. This study develops an improved MCE-GIS method which could be more suitable for UCLSE based on urban complex ecological system theory and the summary of the shortcomings of traditional MCE-GIS.

The paper seeks to shed new light on both the dynamics and possibilities for resolving complex land use conflicts by examining the development of the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) Agreement in British Columbia, Canada. This agreement signalled a major policy change in the region by increasing the protection of old growth forests from 9% to 33% of the total planning area and by promoting more environmentally friendly logging practices though the establishment of ecosystem-based management. It also gave rise to new land use planning relationships between the Province and First Nations.

Failure to recognize land administration systems as infrastructure creates potential funding and maintenance problems. Wider economic, social, and environmental benefits of effective land administration are consequently put at risk. Land administration must be recognized as critical, public good infrastructure. An evaluation method for testing land administration as an infrastructure is developed and applied. The method utilizes tools for defining and classifying infrastructure, public goods, and critical infrastructures.

We present a remote sensing based approach for assessing ecosystem state or intactness to inform land use management and conservation planning. Using segmented multispectral medium resolution satellite imagery, parameters related to the image objects’ spectral brightness and heterogeneity, and compactness are used to derive a scoring system of 0 to 10 for the ecosystem intactness, with 0 being completely degraded and 10 being pristine.