Background: In South Africa, the idea that the township economy needs to be ‘revitalised’ has begun to gain significant political traction. The Gauteng provincial government has responded to this challenge by setting out a strategy that promises to channel resources and create opportunities for micro-enterprises. The paper responds to development interventions such as this through interrogating the nature of the challenges facing micro-enterprises that need to be overcome in South African townships.

Topography and relief variability play a key role in ecosystem functioning and structuring. However, the most commonly used concept to relate pattern to process in landscape ecology, the so-called patch-corridor-matrix model, perceives the landscape as a planimetric surface. As a consequence, landscape metrics, used as numerical descriptors of the spatial arrangement of landscape mosaics, generally do not allow for the examination of terrain characteristics and may even produce erroneous results, especially in mountainous areas.

Climate impact scenarios for agriculture usually consider yield development, landscape water balance, nutrient dynamics or the endangerment of habitats separately. Scenario results are further limited by roughly discriminated land use types at low spatial resolution or they are restricted to single sites and isolated crops. Here, we exemplify a well data based comprehensive sensitivity analysis of a drought endangered agrarian region in Northeast Germany using a 2050 climate scenario.

Spatial planning is connected with speculations in real estate market, which deepens the process of urban sprawl. Adequate land management supporting  free market – both investment decision of businesses and location decisions of households – is necessary if amorphous city growth is to be prevented. A change, or even information about change in the local plan determines decisions in the real estate market. On the basis of the studies conducted it can be said that the factor causing the greatest value increment is the possibility of development.

Neste estudo foram analisados os programas de fomento florestal das empresas do segmento de celulose. O objetivo é identificar a participação do fomento florestal no suprimento de madeira e as dimensões definidas nos contratos desses programas. Para o estudo utilizou-se o referencial teórico da nova economia institucional, particularmente a teoria dos contratos incompletos de longo prazo e dos custos de transação. Utilizou-se a abordagem qualitativa da pesquisa exploratória e descritiva.

The high variety of ecosystem service categorisation systems, assessment frameworks, indicators,
quantification methods and spatial localisation approaches allows scientists and decision makers to harness
experience, data, methods and tools. On the other hand, this variety of concepts and disagreements among
scientists hamper an integration of ecosystem services into contemporary environmental management and
decision making. In this article, the current state of the art of ecosystem service science regarding spatial

Appendix. Detailed description of materials
and methods

This article presents the architecture, features, and operating mode of a DSS (Decision Support System) aiming to assist entrepreneurs and managers in the process of location decision making. The research assembled concepts derived from theory, findings of empirical studies, together with open GIS (Geographical Information System) software and data, and modelled them into a DSS software tool, according to an original methodology and design.

Mountain timber lines are relevant in the context of land abandonment and climate change. For Switzerland,
GIS-compliant delimitations of the tree line and the forest line are still lacking. Recent high-resolution landcover
information offers new possibilities for GIS-based approaches. In a Swiss-wide study, an analysis based
on slope zones was combined with a moving-window analysis to assess tree and forest line altitude, using
topographic data. The tree and the forest lines were delimited at the upper altitude reached by a tree or closed

Wild herbivorous mammals may damage treeline vegetation an cause soil erosion at a local scale. In many high
mountain areas of Europe and North America, large numbers of red deer have become a threat to the maintenance
of high-elevation forests and attempts to restore the climatic treeline. In northern Fennoscandia, overgrazing by
reindeer in combination with mass outbreaks of the autumnal moth are influencing treeline dynamics. Moose are
also increasingly involved damaging treeline forest. In the Alps, the re-introduction of ibex is causing local damage

Landslide is one of the most challenging disasters on the earth, which is believed to cause other natural catastrophic incidents. Normally, in studying landslide we investigate different influencing factors such as gender land, atmospheric rainfall, gradients’ change, earthquake, volcanic eruption, subterranean water vibration, and human causes in the form of different models. These facts are blamed as the main share in appearing this phenomenon.

The general trend of climatically-driven treeline advance is modified by regional, local and temporal variations. Treelines will not advance in a closed front parallel to the shift of any isotherm to higher elevations and more northern latitudes. The effects of varying topography on site conditions and the after-effects of historical disturbances by natural and anthropogenic factors may override the effects of slightly higher average temperatures. Moreover, the varying treeline-forming species respond in different ways to a changing climate.