Agriculture is the mainstay of rural populations, especially in the developing world. Increasing population and the demand for food, fodder and fuelwood have threatened the sustainability of the land resources. Without understanding farmers' perceptions on land-related issues, sustainable management of land resources is impossible because they have intimate knowledge of their land. Besides technical solutions to land-related problems, socio-economic appraisal also plays an important role for solutions to these problems.

Wildfires increased dramatically in frequency and extent in the European Mediterranean region from the 1960s, aided by a general warming and drying trend, but driven primarily by socio-economic changes, including rural depopulation, land abandonment and afforestation with flammable species. Published research into post-wildfire hydrology and soil erosion, beginning during the 1980s in Spain, has been followed by studies in other European Mediterranean countries together with Israel and has now attained a sufficiently large critical mass to warrant a major review.

Fire regimes depend on climate, vegetation structure and human influences. Climate determines the water content in fuel and, in the longer term, the amount of biomass. Humans alter fire regimes through increased ignition frequency and by hindering the spread of fire through fire suppression and fuel fragmentation. Here, we present FIRE LADY (FIre REgime and LAndscape DYnamics), a spatially explicit fire regime model that takes into account daily weather data, topography, vegetation growth, fire behaviour, fire suppression and land use changes.

China's Horquin area in the northern farming–pastoral transition zone is undergoing rapid land degradation and rangeland modification that is impacting far broader areas as the source of material for dust storms. Multi-temporal Landsat images of the Horquin core area were used to generate a time series of land use covering about a 30-year period, 1975–2003. We show that the physical environment in Horquin deteriorated between 1975 and 2000, although this situation was more controlled after 2000.

Forest fire is regarded as one of the most significant factors leading to land degradation. While evaluating fire hazard or producing fire risk zone maps, quantitative analyses using historic fire data is often required, and during all these modeling and multi-criteria analysis processes, the fire event itself is taken as the dependent variable. However, there are two main problematic issues in analyzing historic fire data.

This article presents a system dynamics (SD) method to examine the problem of forest degradation. The model developed takes a system-oriented view of forest management, embracing both social and biophysical factors affecting deforestation. Social factors examined are socio-economic variables or elements that influence behaviour and decision-making choices at the household level. Biophysical factors are four sub-components that are considered major land uses namely, the paddy field component, rattan plantations, coffee plantations and forest stands.

With an increasing population and rapid development of the economy and society of the Yellow River Basin region, the Yellow River is at crisis point. The discrepancy between supply and demand of water resources is a key issue. In 2000–2006, the mean annual discharge of the Yellow River entering the delta was 13.2 billion m³, a reduction of 18.6 billion m³ compared with the 1980s, and 9 billion m³ less than in the 1990s. The water requirements of various sectors are increasing. Large amounts of water essential to maintain the health of the delta ecosystem have been diverted for other users.

This work compares the effects of neoliberal and post-neoliberal land-use policies on forest cover along the Corredor Bioceánico of southeastern Bolivia to determine if rates of agriculturally driven forest clearance have changed since the Morales’ administration came to office in 2005. Satellite image analysis, supported by semi-structured interviews with farmers and representatives of key institutions, shows that deforestation for commercial agriculture in Santa Cruz continues and has increased in certain “hotspots”.

Southwestern Nigeria is replete with soils that have high gravel contents within the subsoils. Most of these soils are being opened up for cultivation as other land uses (roads and housing) are competing for agricultural lands. It is imperative that these soils be properly studied and managed to prevent serious land degradation, which may over the long term militate against food production in most rural communities.

Land degradation affects an estimated 24% of the global land area. While predominantly discussed as an environmental problem, degraded lands have recently been reconsidered as an untapped resource for production industries like agriculture and forestry. Here, we investigate the biodiversity potential of degraded land compared to both used and undisturbed land. First, we find that “degraded lands” and related terms cover a wide variety of socio-ecological settings and that a standardized terminology is clearly needed.

Biodiversity is vital to several important ecosystem services that ensure sustainability of food production. In organic agriculture, land management practices that promote biodiversity and soil quality are emphasized and the goal is to maintain a sustainable agricultural system. Soil quality or soil health is the foundation for all agriculture and natural plant communities and a primary indicator of sustainable land management. Soil quality is affected by farm management and land use decisions.

In an era of global climate change, the agricultural sector faces the challenge of increasing the production of safe and nutritious food supplies to meet a growing world population while safeguarding the environment. Farmers will adapt their agricultural practices to a changing climate to safeguard against loss of production and to take advantage of any positive climatic conditions.