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Displaying 226 - 230 of 1195Historical landscape dynamics of Inner Mongolia: patterns, drivers, and impacts
CONTEXT: Understanding the causes and consequences of land use and land cover change in drylands is crucial for global sustainability. Inner Mongolia consists of arid and semiarid ecosystems of global importance. OBJECTIVES: Our main goal was twofold: to review the patterns and drivers of land use and land cover change in Inner Mongolia, and to discuss ecological impacts and strategies for promoting landscape and regional sustainability. METHODS: We took an interdisciplinary and retrospective approach, based on historical records and remote sensing data.
Vegetation coverage change in the EU: patterns inside and outside Natura 2000 protected areas
EU conservation policy is primarily based on the Natura 2000 network of protected areas (PAs). We analyzed the land-cover changes between 2000 and 2006 inside 25,703 Natura 2000 sites in 24 EU Member States, and compared them with those observed outside the PAs. At the EU level, ‘Artificial surfaces’ and ‘Agricultural areas’ exhibit lower rates of transformation within PAs than outside. ‘Forests and semi-natural areas’ marginally increased inside PAs, while they marginally decreased outside.
Landscape level patterns of grasshopper communities in Inner Mongolia: interactive effects of livestock grazing and a precipitation gradient
CONTEXT: Grasshoppers are a dominant herbivore assemblage globally and play an important role for ecosystem nutrient cycling. Yet, we lack a strong understanding of the relationship between grasshopper diversity and plant community composition at the landscape scale. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to test landscape scale relationships between plant and grasshopper communities. METHODS: We used a large-scale, replicated experiment at four sites, including grazed and protected pastures across a 350 km transect and 200–400 mm precipitation gradient in the steppes of Inner Mongolia, China.
Carbon management in dryland agricultural systems. A review
Dryland areas cover about 41 % of the Earth’s surface and sustain over 2 billion inhabitants. Soil carbon (C) in dryland areas is of crucial importance to maintain soil quality and productivity and a range of ecosystem services. Soil mismanagement has led to a significant loss of carbon in these areas, which in many of them entailed several land degradation processes such as soil erosion, reduction in crop productivity, lower soil water holding capacity, a decline in soil biodiversity, and, ultimately, desertification, hunger and poverty in developing countries.
Determinants of food security under changing land-use systems among pastoral and agro-pastoral households in eastern Ethiopia
A number of previous studies have emphasized the determinants of land-use change, as well as the management of communal lands in the pastoral systems, without assessing the effects of such changes on pastoralists/agro-pastoralists’ food security. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to assess the determinants of food security under changing land use and land management systems—from communal to private investment—using household survey data collected from pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. The data were analyzed using ordinary least-square econometric analysis.