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.

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is increasingly being promoted as a cost-effective means of adaptation to climate change. However, in spite of considerable international press, there is still little evidence to substantiate this claim. This study proposes a method through which the cost-effectiveness of EbA strategies can be evaluated against alternative adaptation options, and contributes to South African literature on the subject.

Land reform has traditionally had two objectives: equity and productivity. Food insecurity and the need for agriculture to contribute to development emphasise the need to maintain and improve productivity while improving equitability. Land must foster production and agriculture must attract good human material.

This paper elaborates and visualizes processes recorded in a recent regional and multi-site study of elevational
treeline dynamics during the period 1915 to 2007 in the Swedish Scandes. The purpose is to give a concrete face of
the landscape transformation which is associated with the recorded treeline shifts. The main focus is on stand-level
structure of past and present treelines and the advance zones, where climate change elicited responses by Betula pubescens

This paper tracks the evolution of the area covered by the dehesa in Sierra Morena from the mid 20th
century to the present day, in an attempt to identify those areas in which traditional land uses still hold
sway and others in which new land uses are appearing in relation to emerging business activities. These
new uses have brought about an important transformation in the landscape of the dehesa, which in some
areas is being replaced by other more profitable forms of land use, in particular with olive groves. In

In this paper a heuristic evaluation of irrigation water is carried out using the hedonic pricing method of sales comparison approach – SCA. A comparison between irrigated and rain-fed farmland is performed. Due to the incomplete information on the land market, the analysis is based on survey conducted on a group of 118 farmers. The assessment of irrigation water value and the supply guarantee is carried out on the farmland area of the Reclamation and Irrigation board of Capitanata (Apulia region).

The definition and the subsequent development of eco-industrial parks (EIPs) have been deeply based on the application of industrial ecology theory, which pays specific attention to metabolic exchanges within industrial processes to address a deep reduction of limited resource consumption and a minimization of waste production in the framework of a sustainable development approach.

Traffic congestion has been a major problem in many cities in Indonesia, thus requiring abetter transport policy. Many developed countries, including the United Kingdom, has beenimplementing the integrated transport policy to replace traditional transport policy that focuson only building roads to anticipate traffic demand. This paper provides a highlight on theimplementation of integrated transport policy in the United Kingdom. Some key issues thatcan be learnt by the Indonesian government from their experience are discussed.

This study provides a wind farm valuation/planning model, for territorial wind energy policies at a provincial scale. With reference to the case of territory of Syracuse, the pattern identifies the best layout of the plants under different conditions. The pattern, based on the integration of spatial-GIS and numeric calculation, provides a wide range of scenarios able to define a trade off energy/information function characterising the decision pattern of a whole land-energy policy.

Landscapes provide a broad range of services to society. To date, however, only few regional to continental scale
studies assess the capacity of landscapes to provide these services under changing environmental conditions. This
is required if the maintenance of current landscape multifunctionality remains a long-term goal. The presented
mini review highlights and promotes the concept of landscape functions, defined as the capacity or potential of
landscapes to provide services. Ultimately, spatially explicit landscape-function assessments may provide baseline

Relating spatial patterns to ecological processes is one of the central goals of landscape ecology. The patch-corridor-matrix
model and landscape metrics have been the predominant approach to describe the spatial arrangement
of discrete elements (“patches”) for the last two decades. However, the widely used approach of using landscape
metrics for characterizing categorical map patterns is connected with a number of problems. We aim at stimulating
further developments in the field of the analysis of spatio-temporal landscape patterns by providing both a critical

In the latest Apulian programs for rural development a newer attention was put on forestry sector, in order to better hinder the global changes due to the peculiar sectorial ability. Three different instruments has been set to improve the forest value, to increase the forestry land and to boost the multifunctional rule of forestry. Aim of this work is to stress the difference between the proposed indicators in regional programs and some other characterized by a different level of realization, understanding, reliability and communication.