The fragmentation of construction land due to decentralised urban development, disorderly mixed land use, and large-scale transportation infrastructure poses a threat to urban integrity. There is a need to quantify the fragmentation level in a consistent way for inclusion in planning-related decisions. In the context of China's urban sprawl, this study develops a quantitative and intuitive index approach that planners can use to analyse multiple fragmentation features of construction land within urban areas.

Bioenergy is a renewable form of potential alternative to traditional fossil fuels that has come to the forefront as a result of recent concerns over high price of fuels, national security, and climate change. Nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners form the dominant forest ownership group in the southern United States. These forests often tend to have large quantities of small diameter trees. Use of logging residues and non-marketable small diameter trees for bioenergy production can create economic opportunities for NIPF landowners.

Many ongoing processes in today's landscapes impact our environment considerably. Thus, it is enormously important to gather information on qualitative characteristics of our landscapes in order to effectively counteract the negative developments. Structural functionality as proxy for the assessment of habitat quality and species patterns has already proven potential to successfully describe ecological values.

The Hani terrace landscape located in the mountainous areas of Southwestern China has a history of 1300 years and is a classic example of human–environment harmony. This study investigates the spatial distribution and pattern characteristics of land cover in the landscape using geographical information system and remote-sensing techniques. With the synthetic consideration of both physical and cultural factors, the ecological stability of the landscape was discussed.

This paper discusses participatory processes in wildland fire management (WFM). Participation is an essential element of both the European Sustainable Development (SD) Strategy and the White Paper on Governance. Governance and SD have thus become an interconnected challenge to be applied to WFM (as a sub-area in forest policy), amongst other policies. An overspread weakness in WFM is lack of real participation of stakeholders. Absence of (or deficient) participation can seriously impair contribution of this group to WFM in high-risk areas and runs counter governance and the SDS.

Ecological security evaluation is an important way to identify the need for improvement in a watershed and to assess the degree of regional sustainable development. Using a driver–pressure–state–exposure–response model, a comprehensive system of ecological security indicators was developed, and it was demonstrated in a case study of the main ecological problems facing the Qinghai Lake Basin.

This study analyzes land use dynamics, land fragmentation, variation of ecosystem service value (ESV), and the underlying driving forces in the context of rapid urbanization in Taizhou city, China. An integrated approach utilizing geographic information system and remote sensing was used to analyze land use/land cover change, spatiotemporal patterns of land fragmentation and variation of ESV over the period of 1995–2010.

This paper describes the spatiotemporal changes pertaining to land use land cover (LULC) and the driving forces behind these changes in Doodhganga watershed of Jhelum Basin. An integrated approach utilizing remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) was used to extract information pertaining to LULC change. Multi-date LULC maps were generated by analyzing remotely sensed images of three dates which include LandSat TM 1992, LandSat ETM+ 2001 and IRS LISS-III 2005.

Conversion of native prairie land for agricultural production has resulted in significant loss and redistribution of soil organic matter (SOM) in the soil profile ultimately leading to declining soil fertility in a low-productivity semiarid agroecosystem. Improved understanding of such losses can lead to development of sustainable land management practices that maintain soil fertility and enhance soil quality. This study was conducted to determine whether conservation practices impact soil profile carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) accumulation in central High Plains.

To assess sustainability of rural management in the Changjiang River basin, human behavioral (food consumption, lifestyle pattern, and human waste disposal) impact on nitrogen flow was quantitatively evaluated. A survey of day-to-day activities was conducted in two representative counties: Taoyuan and Taihe. Daily nitrogen intake from food per capita and potential nitrogen load from human waste on the environment were calculated. The former in Taoyuan and Taihe was 17.0 and 16.0gN, respectively.

In European mountain areas, shrub encroachment resulting from farmland abandonment is most often managed by mechanical operations such as roller chopping or controlled burning, which have proved to be ineffective and unsustainable. Recent agroecological findings highlight the potential impact of grazing on long-term shrub dynamics. We thus explored the potential contribution of livestock farms to the management of shrub encroachment.

Urbanization increases impervious area, generates pollution and transforms the configuration, composition and context of land covers and thus has direct or indirect impacts on aquatic systems. Detecting land use-water quality relationships is of significance for both urban sustainable development and environmental risk management.