This paper explores the role of the global food system as the principal driver of accelerating biodiversity loss. It explains how food production is degrading or destroying natural habitats and contributing to species extinction. The paper outlines the challenges and trade-offs involved in redesigning food systems to restore biodiversity and/or prevent further biodiversity loss, and presents recommendations for action. The paper introduces three ‘levers’ for reducing pressures on land and creating a more sustainable food system.

Environment statistics enumerate various aspects of the environment and human interactions with it. The scope of environment statistics encompasses all dimensions of the environment, be it Earth, Water or Air, the biotic and abiotiv matter found within the natural environment, and various concerns arising out of impacts of human footprints on it. The objective of environment statistics is to provide information about the environment, its changes over time and across locations, and the main factors that influence them.

Energy transition strategies in Germany have led to an expansion of energy crop cultivation in landscape, with silage maize as most valuable feedstock. The changes in the traditional cropping systems, with increasing shares of maize, raised concerns about the sustainability of agricultural feedstock production regarding threats to soil health. However, spatially explicit data about silage maize cultivation are missing; thus, implications for soil cannot be estimated in a precise way. With this study, we firstly aimed to track the fields cultivated with maize based on remote sensing data.

In the tropics, the domestic water supply depends principally on ecosystem services, including the regulation and purification of water by humid, dense tropical forests. The Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (YBR) landscape is situated within such forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Surprisingly, given its proximity to the Congo River, the YBR is confronted with water issues. As part of its ecosystem function, the landscape is expected to reduce deterioration of water quality.

Highly dynamic peri-urban areas, particularly in the Global South, face many challenges including a lack of infrastructure, ownership conflicts, land degradation, and sustainable food production. This study aims to assess spatial land use characteristics and processes in peri-urban areas using the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A mixed-method approach was applied, consisting of expert interviews and spatial data analysis, on a local scale along an urban–rural gradient.

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are regarded as one of the key drivers of ecosystem services degradation, especially in mountain regions where they may provide various ecosystem services to local livelihoods and surrounding areas. Additionally, ecosystems and habitats extend across political boundaries, causing more difficulties for ecosystem conservation.

Implementation of the Grain for Green program (GGP) intensifies land use/cover change (LUCC) in the loess hilly-gully region. Clarifying the response of LUCC to the GGP and its driving forces are basic premises to implement the GGP more effectively for alleviating soil erosion in this region. This study analyzed the spatio-temporal characteristics of conversion of cultivated land to forest land and grassland in two study periods of 2000–2010 and 2010–2018.

Protected areas are places that provide diverse ecosystem services, including cultural ecosystem services. At the same time, the development and unbalanced use of natural resources in protected areas often create environmental threats and social conflicts. This study estimates the economic value of environmental consequences derived from the construction of an airport in a national park in Korea.

The present study focuses on identifying and describing the possible proximate and underlying causes of deforestation and its factors using the combination of two techniques: (1) specialized consultation and (2) spatial logistic regression modeling. These techniques were implemented to characterize the deforestation process qualitatively and quantitatively, and then to graphically represent the deforestation process from a temporal and spatial point of view. The study area is the North Pacific Basin, Mexico, from 2002 to 2014.

Cultivated land use layout adjustment (CLULA) based on crop planting suitability is the refinement and deepening of land use transformation, which is of great significance for optimizing the allocation of cultivated land resources and ensuring food security. At present, people rarely consider the land suitability of crops when using cultivated land, resulting in an imbalance between crop distribution and resource conditions such as water, heat, and soil, and adversely affects the ecological security and utilization efficiency of cultivated land.

Urban centers are expanding rapidly due to quickly-increasing population which results in microclimate change due to lack of urban planning. Factors like degradation of green areas, trees, and vegetation are defining a new regime of urban environment giving rise to a lack of drinking water and lowering water tables. Consequently, unplanned urban sprawl with all its varied facets is having adverse impacts on the environment. Rapid variations in some of its climatic factors in the immediate vicinity are alarming and need to redress at war footings.

Nowadays, China is the world’s second largest economy and largest carbon emitter. This paper calculates the carbon emission intensity and the carbon emissions per capita of land use in 30 provinces at the national level in China from 2006 to 2016. A spatial correlation model is used to explore its spatiotemporal features. The results show that (1) China’s land use carbon emissions continued to grow from 2006 to 2016. The spatial heterogeneity of carbon emission intensity of land use initially decreased and then increased during this period.