Forest dynamics, such as deforestation, reforestation and afforestation, could be caused by the natural and human-induced disturbances. Traditional methods rarely quantify the history of such disturbances along a continuous temporal trajectory; yet, such disturbance history often determines system course and evolution. We adopted a retrospective perspective to study system history by implementing a newly proposed entropy index.

Due to resettlements, construction of new infrastructure, and new land reclamation the rapid agricultural changes in the Three Georges Area (TGA) in Central China are expected to force the degradation of the cultivated terraced landscape. Consequently, increased soil erosion can hamper a sustainable land management in the mountainous TGA. This paper presents the model framework TerraCE (Terrace Condition Erosion) for determining the causes for different terrace conditions and terrace degradation based on field surveys and spatial data mining.

Soil erosion is a key driver of land degradation and heavily affects sustainable land management in various environments worldwide. An appropriate quantification of rates of soil erosion and a localization of hotspots are therefore critical, as sediment loss has been demonstrated to have drastic consequences on soil productivity and fertility.

Testate amoebae that inhabit peat are sensitive indicators of water table position. In this study, we used testate amoebae in sediments from a mire in the western Alps (Lac du Thyl) to: (1) reconstruct the hydrology of the site over the last 7,000 years, (2) determine how hydrological changes affected testate amoebae diversity and (3) infer past trophic state shifts. The study site is located in one of the driest valleys of the Alps and is thus very sensitive to hydrological changes.

Making the assumption that property rights might determine whether farmers adopt particular strategies, this study aims at modelling farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change by focusing on their property rights – declined as institutional arrangements on land and rights on land – as well as their socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The case study took place in northern Benin (West Africa). In this zone, 308 farmers producing maize and adapting to climate change were randomly sampled.

Understanding pasture degradation processes is the key for sustainable land management in the tropical mountain rainforest region of the South Ecuadorian Andes. We estimated the stocks of total carbon and nutrients, microbial biomass and different P fractions along a gradient of land-uses that is typical of the eastern escarpment of the Cordillera Real i.e., old-growth evergreen lower montane forest, active pastures (17 and 50 years-old), abandoned pastures 10 and 20 years old with bracken fern or successional vegetation.

Demands are increasing for scientific research to be explicitly and demonstrably policy relevant. Research funders are requiring greater returns on their investments and scientists are expected to demonstrate clearly how their research can inform policy and regulation to deliver positive consequences for societal, economic and environmental wellbeing.

Mediterranean croplands are seasonally dry agroecosystems with low soil organic carbon (SOC) content and high risk of land degradation and desertification. The increase in SOC is of special interest in these systems, as it can help to build resilience for climate change adaptation while contributing to mitigate global warming through the sequestration of atmospheric carbon (C). We compared SOC change and C sequestration under a number of recommended management practices (RMPs) with neighboring conventional plots under Mediterranean climate (174 data sets from 79 references).

During recent decades, forests have expanded into new areas throughout the whole of Norway. The processes explained as causing the forest expansion have focused mainly on climate or land use changes. To enable a spatially explicit separation of the effects following these two main drivers behind forest expansion, the authors set out to model the potential for natural forest regeneration following land use abandonment, given the present climatic conditions.

In Ethiopia, farmers’ adoption and continued use of introduced land management technologies have not been widespread to reduce soil erosion and soil fertility depletion to an acceptable level. An important set of factors in farmers’ use of improved agricultural technologies is generally known to be their possession of livelihood assets. This study examines the influence of ownership of livelihood assets in farmers’ decisions to use cattle manure as land improvement technology, which is currently being promoted by Ethiopia’s agricultural extension system.

Understanding historical and present gully development is essential when addressing the causes and consequences of land degradation, especially in vulnerable dryland environments. For Northern Ethiopia, several studies exist on the severity of gully erosion, yet few have quantified gully development. In this study, gully network and volume development were quantified over the period 1963–2010 for an area of 123km², representing the regional variability in environmental characteristics. Gully networks were mapped from small-scale aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images.

For many of the world’s lakes, particularly those in remote regions, an assessment of the basin’s sensitivity to climate change is limited by the availability of appropriate hydrologic data. A regional steady-state lake water balance model was developed that uses simple, yet easily estimated or obtained, data to generate an aridity index (potential evapotranspiration to precipitation ratio) to predict changes in lake basin area to lake surface area ratio, a non-dimensional lake-basin property that can be easily obtained from digital maps.