Rural environmental protection has received increasing attention in recent years. The economic development and population growth of rural areas results in many problems, such as environmental pollution, land degradation, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, income loss, and public health risks. Although much progress has been made, many major challenges to rural environmental management remain to be addressed. The question of how to deal with these problems through sustainable approaches has become an urgent issue in rural areas.

Agroforestry is often discussed as a strategy that can be used both for the adaptation to and the mitigation of climate change effects. The climate of southern Africa is predicted to be severely affected by such changes. With agriculture noted as the continent’s largest economic sector, issues such as food security and land degradation are in the forefront. In the light of such concerns we review the current literature to investigate if agroforestry systems (AFS) are a suitable response to the challenges besetting traditional agricultural caused by a changing climate.

Soil salinity is a major threat to land productivity, water resources and agriculture in coastal areas and arid and semi-arid regions of the world. This has a significantly negative effect on the land and causes desertification. Monitoring salt accumulation in the soil is crucial for the prevention of land degradation in such environments. This study attempted to estimate and map soil salinity in Jaffna Peninsula, a semi-arid region of Sri Lanka.

The measurement of sustainability in terms of social, economic, and ecological indicators significantly influences the achievement of sustainable development goals. This paper presents a sustainable livelihood security index (SLSI) by selecting 20 indicators and positions them within the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of sustainable development for the Indian west coast. These indicators were first normalized and, using estimated weights, indices were computed.

Poor soil fertility and land degradation limit crop production among smallholder farmers. The practice of agroforestry with leguminous trees has proven to be sustainable as it bolsters nutrient supply through nitrogen fixation and nutrient cycling. The beneficiation of agroforestry species could add even more value by using tree based waste materials as mulch or vermicomposting. A study was conducted to investigate the impact of vermicomposting on chemical and biological characteristics of three agroforestry species; Chamaecytisus tagasaste, Vachellia karroo and Moringa oleifera.

Agroforestry systems have been promoted as a solution to address trade-offs between environmental conservation efforts and the need for increased agricultural productivity on smallholder farms in Brazil. However, the impact of land use change from degraded pasture to agroforestry on soil properties remains unclear.

Land degradation affects a significant portion of the Earth’s ice-free land area and several countries have embraced the challenge of restoring large parts of their degraded lands. Success in these efforts depends on various factors, including the amount of resources invested, the technical capacity available and the degree of involvement of stakeholders. Burkina Faso has committed to restoring 5 Mha of degraded land by 2030.

The municipality of Bergen in Norway aims to densify fifty per cent of new housing within the city’s central parts. The Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation ordered and financed an investigation to be carried out by the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and the consulting firm Asplan Viak to give research-based input to the densification strategy debate in Bergen. This article demonstrates how the Space Syntax method can be applied to urban densification strategies in urban planning and policy making.

The sustainable management of natural resources under climate change conditions is a critical research issue. Among the many approaches emerged in recent times, the so-called ‘nexus approach’ is gaining traction in academic and policy circles. The nexus approach presupposes the analysis of bio-physical, socio-economic and policy interlinkages among sectors (e.g., water, energy, food) for the identification of integrated solutions and the support of policy decisions. Ultimately, the nexus approach aims to identify synergies and trade-offs among the nexus dimensions.

As an effective land policy that can invigorate rural construction areas and balance urban and rural development, land tickets not only concretely embody the land resource-asset-capitalization process, but also bring economic benefits to the farmers concerned. However, from the perspective of resource-asset-capitalization, the specific environmental impacts and economic costs of the process in land tickets and the changes in the values of ecosystem services need to be considered.

The spatial zoning of cultivated land is a core aspect of territorial spatial planning and an important basis for implementing differentiated cultivated land protection policies. To provide theoretical guidance for the future direction of the protection and utilization of cultivated land in Shandong Province, this paper built a theoretical framework for the spatial zoning of cultivated land based on the trinity of quantity, quality, and ecology and formed an indicator system for the spatial zoning of cultivated land based on these three elements.

Assessing the effects of different land use scenarios on subsequent changes in ecosystem service has great implications for sustainable land management.