The study set out to understand drivers of Land-Use Land Cover (LULC) changes in dry-land areas and investigate factors helping mitigate the adverse impacts of climate anomalies on LULC changes. By employing a mixed-methods design, it combined LULC data with socioeconomic and climatic data, to analyze the pattern of LULC changes and its socioeconomic and climatic driving forces along with moderating factors. It was found that rangeland decreased by 764 km2 (13% of total area) between 1986 and 2015.

This study has examined the process of urban space development in Krakow (southern Poland) using two developments as an example. The planning documents were analysed and spatial data obtained from the CAPAP (Centre for Spatial Analysis of Public Administration) project were processed. The data source for analysis comprised 2D outlines of certain buildings from the topographic object database (BDOT10k), elevation data from lidar aerial laser scanning at a density of 12 points per square meter and a numerical terrain model (NMT) with a one-meter mesh grid.

Coconut palm wood is commonly regarded as a sustainable building material. Nonetheless, its adoption as a green building material by the construction industry is limited, particularly in West Africa. This paper analyses the impediments to the effective adoption of coconut palm wood in residential building construction.

This study presents methods for finding and utilizing demand-oriented data to meet public demands for creating sustainable and inclusive regulation policies. It attempted to analyze these methods scientifically, by collecting information on public demands. The results confirmed that there is a demand for policy that utilizes consensus in the regulation standards of newly emerging services. They also indicated that the legal system should be in alignment with the priorities associated with the setting of standards for regulation-related policies.

India has committed to reduce emissions with a goal to increase renewable energy production to 175 gigawatts (GW) by 2022. Achieving this objective will involve rapidly increasing the deployment of solar and wind energy, while at the same time addressing the related challenges of the financing requirements, environment impacts, and power grid integration. Developing energy on lands degraded by human activities rather than placing new infrastructure within natural habitats or areas of high production agriculture would reduce cumulative impacts and minimize land use conflicts.

Changes in the frequency or intensity of rainfall due to climate always affect the conservation of soil resources, which leads to land degradation. The importance of assessing past and future climate differences plays an important role in future planning in relation to climate change.

The plant–microbe–soil nexus is critical in maintaining biogeochemical balance of the biosphere. However, soil loss and land degradation are occurring at alarmingly high rates, with soil loss exceeding soil formation rates. This necessitates evaluating marginal soils for their capacity to support and sustain plant growth. In a greenhouse study, we evaluated the capacity of marginal incipient basaltic parent material to support native plant growth and the associated variation in soil microbial community dynamics.

Land degradation is perceived worldwide as a key process of resource depletion, representing a paradigmatic issue in national and supra-national political agendas for the 21st century in both advanced and emerging economies. Trying to delineate a ‘new lexicon of land degradation’, the present study contributes to a holistic thinking of driving forces in local communities and regional contexts through a refined analysis and discussion of (apparent and latent) factors of land degradation.

A gigantic project named Gully Land Consolidation (GLC) was launched in the hill-gully region of the Chinese Loess Plateau in 2011 to cope with land degradation and create new farmlands for cultivation. However, as a particular kind of remolded loess, the newly created and backfilled farmland may bring new engineering and environmental problems because the soil structure was disturbed and destroyed. In this study, current situations and characteristics of GLC are introduced.

Despite its contributions to the development of the country, the mining sector in Sierra Leone, has been attributed to a multitude of impacts on the environment. This article focuses on assessing the environmental impacts of mining in mining edge communities in Sierra Leone. A survey of 360 people from three mining edge communities (Sierra Rutile Limited (SRL), Bonthe district; Octea Mining Company (OMC), Kono district and Sierra Leone Mining Company (SLM), Port Loko district) was conducted.

The study set out to understand drivers of Land-Use Land Cover (LULC) changes in dry-land areas and investigate factors helping mitigate the adverse impacts of climate anomalies on LULC changes. By employing a mixed-methods design, it combined LULC data with socioeconomic and climatic data, to analyze the pattern of LULC changes and its socioeconomic and climatic driving forces along with moderating factors. It was found that rangeland decreased by 764 km2 (13% of total area) between 1986 and 2015.

Agroforestry is often discussed as a strategy that can be used both for the adaptation to and the mitigation of climate change effects. The climate of southern Africa is predicted to be severely affected by such changes. With agriculture noted as the continent’s largest economic sector, issues such as food security and land degradation are in the forefront. In the light of such concerns we review the current literature to investigate if agroforestry systems (AFS) are a suitable response to the challenges besetting traditional agricultural caused by a changing climate.