Impact of dynamic land use and land cover changes on the livelihood of local communities and ecosystem services is a major concern. This is particularly evident in most dryland agricultural systems in South Asia. We study land use/land cover (LULC) changes over the last two decades in a watershed (9589 ha) located in semi-arid eco-region in South India (Anantapuram district) using Landsat and IRS imagery. We captured additional data through field observations and focused group discussions.

Soil samples in 349  sampling plots were obtained within the LUCAS project in 2009; from these, 205 soil samples were collected in agricultural lands (grasslands, arable lands, grasslands overgrown by trees and shrubs), and 133 soil samples were obtained in forests (deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests), as well as 7 soil samples–in scrublands.

Although advances in remote sensing have enhanced mapping and monitoring of irrigated areas, producing accurate cropping information through satellite image classification remains elusive due to the complexity of landscapes, changes in reflectance of different land-covers, the remote sensing data selected, and image processing methods used, among others. This study extracted agricultural fields in the former homelands of Venda and Gazankulu in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

In recent years, wild boars (Sus scrofa) have caused growing damage to farm crops in a hilly and mountainous area of the Tohoku region. In particular, in designated evacuation zones following the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, there are growing concerns about the expanding range of wild boars and the resulting degradation of farmland.