CONTEXT: In addition to biodiversity conservation, California rangelands generate multiple ecosystem services including livestock production, drinking and irrigation water, and carbon sequestration. California rangeland ecosystems have experienced substantial conversion to residential land use and more intensive agriculture.

Knowing the influence of land use/land cover changes on the hydrological behavior of a subwatershed is essential to land use planning. The Alto Paraguaçu Watershed is a major producer of fruits and vegetables, and currently the largest producer of English potato in the north/northeast of Brazil. The water availability in the region can be considered the limiting factor to the expansion of agricultural frontiers.

In Mongolia, nomadic herders have successfully been grazing livestock for more than a millennium. However, in recent years, concerns have increased that changes in management and higher livestock stocking rates may negatively affect vegetation and increase soil erosion, overland flow and sediment load of rivers. In addition, ambitious agricultural policies increase the intensity of agricultural land use thus enforcing a conversion of grassland to agricultural land which is far more susceptible to erosion.

CONTEXT: We studied the influence of human activities and climate change on water quantity and quality. Human activities included methods of agricultural policy, i.e. land use and management practices. OBJECTIVES: Finland started to follow EU’s agricultural policy in 1995. In this study our main objective was to find out whether the original targets of the Finnish Agri-Environmental Programme (FAEP) were achieved. METHODS: We analyzed trends in discharge, water quality and climate parameters in 37 years long time-series in two catchments.

Increasingly, the characteristics of nitrogen (N) loading have been recognized to be critical for the maintenance and restoration of water quality in agricultural watersheds, in response to the spread of water eutrophication. This paper estimates N loading and investigates its influencing factors in ten small watersheds variously dominated by forest and agricultural land use types in the subtropics of China, over an observation period of 23–29 months.

Accurate estimates of annual nutrient loads are required to evaluate trends in water quality following changes in land use or management and to calibrate and validate water quality models. While much emphasis has been placed on understanding the uncertainty of watershed-scale nutrient load estimates in naturally drained systems, few studies have focused on artificially drained landscapes in the Midwestern US and Canada.

This study combines statistical methods and a Markov model to analyze interregional differences in land use in Beijing since 2003 and to predict land use changes for 2015 and 2019. First, the paper proposes a new concept, land use flow, which counts the change in area from the beginning to the end of the period of interest, to analyze changing land use patterns using statistical records from 2003 to 2011. Second, based on land use data between 2003, 2007 and 2011, this paper applied a Markov model to the prediction of Beijing land use in 2015 and 2019.

In Wageningen heeft de planologie van meet af aan haar plaats tussen de technische wetenschappen moeten vinden en hervinden. Naast aansprekende resultaten, zoals de lagenbenadering die in Wageningen is ontwikkeld, heeft dat geleid tot permanent theoretiseren van de complexe wederzijdse inwerking tussen menselijk handelen en bodem, water en klimaat. Groene planologie en het landschap als centraal onderzoeksobject bepalen de huidige positie en theorievorming van de planologie.

This paper examines approaches to self or custom-build in the Netherlands and the UK to offer comparative insights into self- and custom-built housing contexts and cultures, and specifically, the relationships with local and strategic planning arrangements. The paper reviews arguments for self-build as a means to address housing shortages and examines the evidence of completions in practice. It positions the discussion in light of arguments that self-build can become a mainstream source of housing provision.

Ecosystem accounting is a new area of environmental economic accounting that aims to measure ecosystem services in a way that is in line with national accounts. The key characteristics of ecosystem accounting include the extension of the valuation boundary of the System of National Accounts, allowing the inclusion of a broader set of ecosystem services types such regulating services and cultural services. Consistent with the principles of national account, ecosystem accounting focuses on assessment of the contribution of ecosystem in generating benefits for human well-being.

InnovatieNetwerk heeft in samenwerking met partijen uit de samenleving het concept ‘Tijdelijke Natuur’ ontwikkeld. Dit heeft ertoe geleid dat tot op heden dertig grondeigenaren op 2.000 ha tijdelijke natuur hebben laten ontstaan. Het concept houdt in dat op gronden die wachten op realisatie van bestemmingen zoals bedrijvigheid of wonen, natuur voor een beperkt aantal jaren een kans krijgt zich te ontwikkelen. Dit levert winst op voor mens én natuur.

Eind dit jaar zal de definitieve versie van de Beleidsnota Noordzee 2016-2021 worden vastgesteld. Ook op de Noordzee geldt inmiddels het uitgangspunt van meervoudig ruimtegebruik. Dat wil dan zeggen dat er zoveel mogelijk naar functiecombinaties wordt gestreefd. De nota introduceert daartoe een afwegingskader van vijf toetsen. Juridisch klopt zoiets niet: het is als het ronde vierkant of de vierkante cirkel, want weging is totaal wat anders dan toetsing en sluiten elkaar rechtsdogmatisch uit