Since 1982, the New Castle County Superior Court in Delaware has promoted mediation, which attempts to resolve filed conflicts prior to trial. This paper evaluates how spatial land-use conflicts channel through mediation and litigation. Data suggest that mediations fail because one of the key disputing parties does not play a direct role in mediation and litigation. The data then inform a predictive model of litigated outcomes in which disputants share in the responsibility for conflict.

The water shortage in the Yellow River, China, has been aggravated by rapid population growth and global climate changes. To identify the characteristics of streamflow change in the Yellow River, approximately 50 years of natural and observed streamflow data from 23 hydrological stations were examined. The Mann-Kendall and Pettitt tests were used to detect trends and abrupt change points.

The main tasks of the reclaimed and soil science have been formulated. It was noted that the radical and final reorientiring of the reclaimed and soil science as a whole in the country is necessary to working out the science methodology of support and effective functioning of the acting reclaimed complexes and systems. It is necessary to expand researches on microbiology, biochemistry and biophysics of agricultural lands with the purpose of the long-term strategy of the fertility, productivity and land immunity improvement.

The Hydrological Simulation Program - Fortran (HSPF), interfaced with the Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint (BASINS), was used to evaluate the impact of land use (as characterized by different land use/land cover (LU/LC) datasets) on hydrology and sediment components of the Luxapallila Creek watershed. The 1,770 km 2 watershed is located in Alabama and Mississippi. Simulation of the watershed processes were tested at the hillslope and at the watershed outlet for the period between 1985 and 2003.

The impact of different land use types on soil quality was evaluated by measuring several soil properties that are sensitive to stress or disturbance and by using two synthetic approaches, i.e. a numerical quality index and multivariate analysis.

Phytosociological attributes of plant species and associated environmental factors were measured in order to identify the environmental gradients of major plant communities in the Naran Valley, Himalayas. The valley occupies a distinctive geographical setting on the edge of the Western Himalaya near the Hindukush range and supports a high biodiversity; pastoralism is the main land use. There have been no previous quantitative ecological studies in this region.

Pastoralism is a highly traditional production system for livestock and livestock products. Under the surface of a seeming stability a variety of pressures of the modern time all seem to accumulate to put the sustainability of the pastoralist production system to the test. Population growth and growing demand for meat, put pressure on the natural resources used by pastoralists because the grazing lands that are saved from encroachment or conversion into arable lands, may be overexploited. Changing climatic conditions, such as frequent droughts, put even more pressure on the system.