Urbanization increases impervious area, generates pollution and transforms the configuration, composition and context of land covers and thus has direct or indirect impacts on aquatic systems. Detecting land use-water quality relationships is of significance for both urban sustainable development and environmental risk management.

There is an ongoing debate on the effect different property regimes have on the use of natural resources and land conversion (i.e., deforestation or reforestation). Much of the discussion has been centered on the two main forms of tenure regime: common-pool system and private property. Case studies around the world have provided evidence on whether one is more effective at preventing deforestation than the other, but there is not a clear pattern. Part of the problem is that evidence comes from theoretical models or isolated case studies instead of comparative studies across large areas.

Landscape management could contribute to sustainable pest control. Landscape composition, in particular, could either directly impact a pest abundance by affecting its dispersal, mortality or reproduction, or indirectly by affecting its natural enemies. We performed an analysis of the scientific literature to assess how the proportion of different land covers at the landscape level is related to the abundance of pests or to their control by natural enemies. Of 72 independent case studies, 45 reported an effect of landscape composition.