Land area planted to row crops has expanded globally with increased demand for food and biofuels. Agricultural expansion in the Dakota Prairie Pothole Region (DPPR), USA affects a variety of agricultural and non-agricultural land-use types, including grasslands and wetlands that provide critical…
A growing trend towards increased urbanization emphasizes the role of suburban parks in wildlife conservation. Spatial planning aimed at maintaining biological diversity and functionality must consider how changes at landscape and more local scales will influence the biotic structure of urban…
Large areas of public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and located in arid regions of the southwestern United States are being considered for the development of utility-scale solar energy facilities. Land-disturbing activities in these desert, alluvium-filled valleys have the…
Under discussion is the FAO algorithm modified to estimate the suita-bility of lands and soils for agricultural purposes using the definite LUI index (land unit index). The latter is calculated by rating of soil indices taken into complete account and accepted by FAO, USDA (USA) and the Ministry…
A key goal in land management is to prevent ecosystem shifts that affect human well-being. Like other types of sagebrush shrublands, large areas dominated by the common but little-studied mountain silver sagebrush may have shifted to a less productive shrub-dominated alternate state under heavy…
Although human influence across rural landscapes is often discussed, interactions between the native, natural systems and human activities are challenging to measure explicitly. We assessed the distribution of introduced, invasive species as related to anthropogenic infrastructure and…
Urban areas contribute disproportional nitrogen (N) loads to downstream aquatic ecosystems resulting in potential hypoxic ‘dead’ zones. Riparian areas along streams and rivers reduce inorganic N concentrations through denitrification, an anaerobic microbial process. Our study objective was to…
Delmarva Bays are depressional wetlands that are elliptical in shape with sandy rims, and occur mainly in the central portion of the Delmarva Peninsula within the Mid- Atlantic United States. Situated in a region with abundant agriculture, Delmarva Bays and other wetlands may enhance water…
Anthropogenic forces that alter the physical landscape are known to cause significant soil erosion, which has negative impact on surface water bodies, such as rivers, lakes/reservoirs, and coastal zones, and thus sediment control has become one of the central aspects of catchment management…
Given that many wildlife management agencies consider hunting to be central to wildlife conservation, a growing body of research describes ethical hunting using characterization framing (created by outsiders). This article describes an identity frame (created by insiders) of ethical hunting in…
Modeling the suitability of land to support specific land uses is an important and common GIS application. Three classic models, specifically pass/fail screening, graduated screening and weighted linear combination, are examined within a more general framework defined by fuzzy logic theory. The…
We studied nest site land cover associations, and reproductive success of two Buteo species of conservation concern on the southern Great Plains, USA. The study area was in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, where land use is dominated by row crop agriculture, livestock grazing, and Conservation Reserve…