Genetically modified (GM) crops have single or multiple genes introduced to obtain crop characteristics that cannot be obtained through conventional breeding. Pollen mediated gene flow from GM to non-GM crops causes some crops planted as non-GM to become GM, and this imposes economic losses on farmers who planted a non-GM crop but then have to sell the harvest on a GM market. The economic losses that result when both crops are grown together depend on the institutional arrangements and the type of property rights in place.

Assessment of the progress of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the safeguarding of ecosystems from the perverse negative impacts caused by Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) requires the development of spatiotemporally robust and sensitive indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem health. Recently, it has been proposed that tree-community composition based on count-plot surveys could serve as a robust, sensitive, and cost-effective indicator for forest intactness in Bornean logged-over rain forests.

Present decisions about urbanization of peri-urban (PU) areas may contribute to the capacity of cities to mitigate future climate change. Comprehensive mitigative responses to PU development should require integration of urban form and food production to realise potential trade-offs. Despite this, few studies examine greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of future urban development combined with impacts on PU food production.

Assessment and reporting of changes in vegetation condition at site and landscape scales is critical for land managers, policy makers and planers at local, regional and national scales. Land management, reflecting individual and collective values, is used to show historic changes in ecosystem structure, composition and function (regenerative capacity). We address the issue of how the resilience of plant communities changes over time as a result of land management regimes.

The objective of this background paper is to provide a succinct description of the land tenure situation in Cambodia and, on that basis, discuss the needs smallholder farmers have for land, projected up to the year 2030.

The limited amount of studies addressing the long‐term effectiveness of restoration actions to combat land degradation is a constraint for current landscape restoration planning and implementation. Remote sensing data provide a unique opportunity for gathering information on the spatial and temporal variability of restoration processes and may contribute to fill this knowledge gap.

The flow–sediment relationship is important to understand the soil erosion and land degradation processes in severe eroded areas. This study researches on variations of streamflow, sediment load, and flow–sediment relationship on multi‐temporal scales (annual, flood season and, monthly scales) in a highly erodible catchment of Chinese Loess Plateau.

The exact roles of landscape fragmentation on sandy desertification are still not fully understood, especially with the impact of different land use types in spatial dimension. Taking patch size and shape into consideration, this paper selected the Ratio of Patch Size and the Fractal Dimension Index to establish a model that reveals the association between the area of bare sand land and the fragmentation of different land use types adjacent to bare sand land.

BACKGROUND: Soil organic carbon (SOC) is fundamental for mitigating climate change as well as improving soil fertility. Databases of SOC obtained from soil surveys in 1981 and 2011 were used to assess SOC change (0–20 cm) in croplands of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China. Three counties (Lindian, Hailun and Baoqing) were selected as typical croplands representing major soil types and land use types in the region. RESULTS: The changes in SOC density (SOCD) between 1981 and 2001 were −6.6, −14.7 and 5.7 Mg C ha⁻¹ in Lindian, Hailun and Baoqing Counties respectively.

Detailed observations of natural and anthropogenic disturbance events that impact forest structure and the distribution of carbon are essential to estimate changes in terrestrial carbon pools and the associated emissions and removals of greenhouse gasses. Recent advances in remote sensing approaches have resulted in annual and decadal estimates of land-cover change derived from observations using broad-scale moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m–1 km imagery.

Monitoring changes in the terrestrial carbon cycle and vegetation health can only be undertaken over large areas and on a regular basis using ecological indicators derived from satellite-based sensors. Climate conditions in Mediterranean ecosystems have undergone, and are projected to undergo, significant change in the future with marked impacts on forest and shrubland vegetation. In the southwest of Australia (SWAU), endemic tree species have experienced significant declines in health and mortality since the early 1990s primarily due to these climatic changes.

As in many other developing countries, cities in Bangladesh have witnessed rapid urbanization, resulting in increasing amounts of land being taken over and therefore land cover changing at a faster rate. Until now, however, few efforts have been made to document the impact of land use and land cover changes on the climate, environment, and ecosystem of the country because of a lack of geospatial data and time-series information.