The erosion of soil from subsistence agricultures on lands with steep slopes and shallow soil is poorly documented, particularly in Brazil. This paper details the hydrological and soil loss responses to traditional agriculture (shifting agriculture) of a steeply sloped sector (32° incline) classified by FAO has having Regosol soil. This sector is in Guarapuava, Brazil and is covered by a shallow, clayed soil that originates from basalt rock. All measurements were carried out between May 2003 and April 2004.

The central and eastern United States is an important food and timber production region and could potentially be a large-scale carbon sink. These characteristics are functions of the human management of the landscape and favorable soil and climate conditions. Large-scale assessments of carbon uptake and trends in net primary productivity (NPP) have been previously reported for this region using satellite observations, but they cannot quantify the contributions from changes in management and technology independently from climate effects.

A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of soil bunds stabilized with vetiver grass (V. zizanioides) and tree lucerne (C. palmensis) on selected soil physical and chemical properties, bund height, inter-terrace slope and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) yield in Absela site, Banja Shikudad District, Awi administrative Zone of the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) located in the Blue Nile Basin.

If tropical farmers cannot be provided with sustainable land‐use systems, which address their subsistence needs and keep them gainfully employed, tropical forests will continue to disappear. We looked at the ability of economic land‐use diversification – with reforestation of tropical “wastelands” as a key activity – to halt deforestation at the farm level.

We investigate the impacts of coffee and cotton production on land management and land degradation in Uganda, based on a survey of 851 households and soil measurements in six major agro-ecological zones, using matching and multivariate regression methods. The impacts of cash crop production vary by agro-ecological zones and cropping system. In coffee producing zones, use of organic inputs is most common on plots growing coffee with other crops (mainly bananas), and least common on mono-cropped coffee.

Based on soil characteristics, watertable level, mineral composition of plant biomass, morphological/reproductive traits and carbon discrimination values, a new concept for the classification of halophytes was developed. Six main groups of halophytes have been described within the desert flora of Central Asia. Significant changes on chemical contents of ions: Cl⁻, SO₄ ²⁻, HCO₃ ⁻, Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺among 23 studied halophytic forage species were revealed.

This study aims to document various community efforts in land rehabilitation and assess their potential. Data were captured using interviews and focus group with 150 community members. A public participation index was used to establish the extent of community efforts in land rehabilitation. The study revealed that in the absence of proper management and dune stabilisation, large areas covered with mobile sand dunes continue to be a threat to grazing lands in northern Kenya. In recognition of this threat, the people of North Horr have launched several initiatives to contain the problem.

Recent increase in atmospheric concentration of CO₂ and decrease in land-based sink capacity are attributed to numerous anthropogenic activities including increase in severity and extent of soil degradation and desertification. There is a strong link between desertification and global warming with positive feedback of mutual reinforcement. The biophysical process is also driven by social, economic, political, and cultural factors such as overgrazing by local Bedouin population.

Soil erosion and contamination are two main desertification indices or land degradation agents in agricultural areas. Global climate change consequence is a priority to predict global environmental change impacts on these degradation risks. This agro-ecological approach can be especially useful when formulating soil specific agricultural practices based on the spatial variability of soils and related resources to reverse environmental degradation.

Launched in 1994, the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn Programme is a multidisciplinary collaborative research effort aimed at addressing the issue of deforestation. This article analyzes the genesis and the history of this research effort and the causes of its successes and failures. I will show that despite the genuine commitment of the ASB Programme to achieve comprehensive analysis linking the social and the biophysical realms, its conclusions and recommendations were biased in favor of biophysical models whose adoption by farmers remained low.

Charismatic groups of animals and plants often are proposed as sentinels of environmental status and trends. Nevertheless, many claims that a certain taxonomic group can provide more-general information on environmental quality are not evaluated critically. To address several of the many definitions of indicator species, we used butterflies to explore in some detail the attributes that affect implementation of indicators generically.