After the downfall of the socialist economic system in 1990, Albania underwent an agriculture reform in 1992. After the reform execution, all agricultural land was redistributed among village residents. The subsequent land segmentation lead to extreme agriculture production implications.Gjocaj Commune is located in the centre of Albania at the Peqin District part of the Elbasan Region, which is a typical agricultural area, very close to Tirana and not far from the Adriatic seashore.

Hainan, the largest tropical island in China, belongs to the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. The Changhua watershed is a center of endemism for plants and birds and the cradle of Hainan’s main rivers. However, this area has experienced recent and ongoing deforestation and habitat fragmentation. To quantify habitat loss and fragmentation of natural forests, as well as the land-cover changes in the Changhua watershed, we analyzed Landsat images obtained in 1988, 1995, and 2005.

Geospatial information of small mangrove islands in the Philippines is usually lacking. Such information is vital to monitor mangrove cover change and craft plans for their sustainable management. This study was conducted to provide some land use information about Banacon Island in Bohol province. The island is renowned for its vast mangrove plantations, community-initiated reforestation, and double reef system. To determine the different forest land uses therein, the study employed a maximum likelihood classification method using two Landsat images of different periods.

The concept of nature as capital is gaining visibility in policies and practices in both the public and private sectors. This change is due to an improved ability to assess and value ecosystem services, as well as to a growing recognition of the potential of an ecosystem services approach to make tradeoffs in decision making more transparent, inform efficient use of resources, enhance resilience and sustainability, and avoid unintended negative consequences of policy actions.

The analysis of evaluable information on degradation and dangerous natural processes at the agricultural lands on Asian territory of the Russian Federation (according to the data of 1991-2015) was done. The natural processes negatively affecting the soil (available land) are divided into groups according to their hazard extent: a) processes oriented to destroy the soils and lands, b) processes changing the soil cover pattern and leading to degradation of soils and decreasing their fertility

In this paper, responses of germination physiology of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) seeds to drought stress in karst water environment and non-karst (allogenic) water environment were studied to explore the adaptability of pigeon pea to karst environment.

This study developed three scenarios of future land use/land cover on a local level for the Kyung-An River Basin and its vicinity in South Korea at a 30-m resolution based on the two scenario families of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report Emissions Scenarios (SRES): A2 and B1, as well as a business-as-usual scenario. The IPCC SRES A2 and B1 were used to define future local development patterns and associated land use change.

Dutch peatlands have been subsiding due to peat decomposition, shrinkage and compression, since their reclamation in the 11th century. Currently, subsidence amounts to 1–2 cm/year. Water management in these areas is complex and costly, greenhouse gases are being emitted, and surface water quality is relatively poor. Regional and local authorities and landowners responsible for peatland management have recognized these problems. In addition, the Netherlands Royal Meteorological Institute predicts higher temperatures and drier summers, which both are expected to enhance peat decomposition.

Vulnerability to climate change impacts is defined by three dimensions of human–environmental systems, such as exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Climate change affects various aspects of human–environmental interactions, such as water stress, food security, human health, and well-being at multiple spatial and temporal scales. However, the existing protocols of vulnerability assessment fail to incorporate the multitude of scales associated with climate change processes.

The objective of this study was to determine the impact of livestock grazing management systems on soil and vegetation dynamics under different environmental conditions of Botswana. Soil and vegetation were randomly sampled along transects located in three ranches and adjacent communal grazing land in 2009 and 2010. Our results showed that grazing management systems did not consistently affect soil texture, organic carbon, pH and bulk density.

Land degradation in the Little Karoo is extensive. Overstocking of breeding ostriches on natural veld has been among the main causes of this. The National Department of Agriculture has set a general stocking rate of 60 ha LSU ⁻¹ as a guideline for livestock on natural veld in the Little Karoo, which equates to 22.8 ha ostrich ⁻¹.

Progress in combating aeolian desertification (land degradation resulting from wind erosion) has been achieved in an agro‐pastoral ecotone of northern China since the mid‐1980s. This paper reviews three common measures used to combat and control aeolian desertification in such regions. In addition, it introduces a case study on the recovery of a degraded semi‐arid ecosystem to provide regional lessons and support theoretical and practical approaches to desertification prevention and reversal on a global scale.