The objective of this paper is to present a way of complementing empirical results with farmers' perceptions in defining limiting biophysical land properties in a land suitability evaluation using the FAO framework methodology. The farmers' perceptions were identified using rapid and participatory rural appraisal (RRA/PRA) tools. The study catchment, having a semiarid continental climate and located on the Loess Plateau in northern China, covered an area of 3.5 km2. Most of the land users were dependent on subsistence agriculture.

The increasing problem of landlessness in Ethiopia has put pressure on regional governments to redistribute land. In 1997 and 1998, a major land redistribution was undertaken in the Amhara Region, reducing landlessness where implemented. While the impacts of such redistributions have been hotly debated, little empirical evidence exists concerning the actual impacts of redistribution.

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.

Remote sensing has been considered as an appropriate tool for temporal monitoring of some natural phenomena. Ardestan Region is prone to land degradation and masked by sand sheets, sand dunes, clay flats, desert pavement and different kinds of salt crust due to dry climate. To study the trends of land degradation in last three decades, four satellite data sets of Landsat MSS, Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+ and IRS acquired in 1976, 1990, 2001 and 2008, respectively were analyzed.

The island of Sri Lanka is free from serious natural hazards such as volcanic activity and earthquakes resulting from climatic extremes, but there are impacts of many natural disasters, such as landslides, floods and droughts, the intensity and frequency of which are increasing due to human interventions. Some areas of Sri Lanka are also periodically subject to cyclones that occur due to climatic conditions and geographical locations.Land degradation denotes all natural or anthropogenic processes that diminish or impair productivity of land.

Annual grain crops dominate agricultural landscapes and provide the majority of calories consumed by humanity. Perennial grain crops could potentially ameliorate the land degradation and off-site impacts associated with annual grain cropping. However, herbaceous perennial plants with constitutively high allocation to harvestable seeds are rare to absent in nature. Recent trade-off theory models suggest that rugged fitness landscapes may explain the absence of this form better than sink competition models.

Sediment transport in rivers is an indicator of soil eroded from various sediment sources, of which agricultural land can be a significant one, and the intensity of the phenomenon provides a measure of land degradation at a watershed level.

This article presents the results of evaluation of environmental management of natural - resource potential of Orenburgregion.

В данной статье приводятся результаты оценки показателей экологической эффективности управленияприродно-ресурсным потенциалом Оренбургской области.

The island of Sri Lanka is free from serious natural hazards such as volcanic activity and earthquakes resulting from climatic extremes, but there are impacts of many natural disasters, such as landslides, floods and droughts, the intensity and frequency of which are increasing due to human interventions. Some areas of Sri Lanka are also periodically subject to cyclones that occur due to climatic conditions and geographical locations.Land degradation denotes all natural or anthropogenic processes that diminish or impair productivity of land.

Apart from a decrease in total perennial plant cover, degradation of North-African arid lands is not easy to qualify. Yet, simple and comprehensive yardsticks are necessary to assess degradation. We assigned components of competitive ability (C), stress tolerance (S) and ruderality (R) to 15 common perennials of Presaharian Tunisia. We used for that purpose phyto-ecological studies, data about life-form, grazing value and demography and circumstantial data.

The LADA methodology (land degradation assessment in drylands) is first used to assess land degradation at the local level for test sites in Russia. The results of the tested methodology are in general positive and, at the same time, indicate the need to adapt it for the assessment of erosion processes, the detailing of mapping categories, and the use of the soil alkalinity indicator. The corresponding recommendations are suggested.

Shrub cover has increased in semi-arid regions worldwide. This change has generally been viewed as land degradation, due to shrub-induced declines in pastoral productivity. As a consequence, widespread management treatments to reduce shrub density have been applied in many pastoral areas. These treatments, however, often do not have long-term positive benefits for forage production.