Planned changes to land use in West Africa have been proposed to both combat desertification and to preserve biodiversity in the region, however, there is an urgent need for tools to assess the effects of these proposed changes on local and regional scale precipitation. We use a high-resolution, convection-permitting numerical weather prediction (NWP) model to study how the initiation and propagation of mesoscale convective systems (MCS) depends on the surface vegetation cover. The simulations covered a 4-day period during the West African monsoon in August 2006.

QUESTION: The decline and loss of perennial vegetation in dryland ecosystems due to global change pressures can alter ecosystem properties and initiate land degradation processes. We tracked changes of perennial vegetation using remote sensing to address the question of how prolonged drought and land‐use intensification have affected perennial vegetation cover across a desert region in the early 21st century? LOCATION: Mojave Desert, southeastern California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, USA.

Soil erosion is by far the greatest cause of land degradation and other environmental and socio‐economic problems in China. Although various conservation methods are widely utilized to reduce soil erosion and to sustain agricultural production, the cost‐effectiveness and selection of these methods are less known. Using our survey and ecological data, this study evaluated four soil and water conservation methods in Changting County, Southeast China. The results show that the disparity of conservation costs is much larger than that of ecological benefits.

This paper introduces this special issue of Aquatic Sciences. It outlines a multi-scale, hierarchical framework for developing process-based understanding of catchment to reach hydromorphology that can aid design and delivery of sustainable river management solutions. The framework was developed within the REFORM (REstoring rivers FOR effective catchment Management) project, funded by the European Union’s FP7 Programme. Specific aspects of this ‘REFORM framework’ and some applications are presented in other papers in this special issue.

Protected areas are intended to conserve biodiversity by restricting human activities within their boundaries. However, such restrictions are difficult to enforce fully in many tropical parks. Improving regulatory enforcement requires an understanding of prevailing challenges to detection and sanctioning activities. Drawing from empirical field research in 15 Colombian parks, I show that current enforcement efforts may be insufficient to deter most priority threats.

Agriculture is major sector in the economy of Central Asia. The sustainable use of agricultural land is therefore essential to economic growth, human well-being, social equity, and ecosystem services. However, salinization, erosion, and desertification cause severe land degradation which, in turn, degrade human health and ecosystem services. Here, we review the impact of agricultural land use in the five countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, during 2008–2013 in 362 articles.

Protected areas are usually conceived and managed as static entities, although this approach is increasingly viewed as unrealistic given climate change and ecosystem dynamics. The ways in which people use land and/or natural resources within and around protected areas can also shift and evolve temporally but this remains an under-acknowledged challenge for protected area managers. Here we investigate the factors driving a rapid rise in charcoal production within a new, multiple-use protected area in Madagascar, to inform appropriate management responses.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a vital role in determining the susceptibility to land degradation. The recommended procedure for the recovery of the characteristic poor soils of the Southern region of Portugal is the installation of grazed permanent pastures and increase of soil fertility.

Livestock grazing is the principal land use in arid central Asia, and range degradation is considered a serious problem within much of the high-elevation region of western China termed the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Rangeland degradation on the QTP is variously attributed to poor livestock management, historical-cultural factors, changing land tenure arrangements or socioeconomic systems, climate change, and damage from small mammals. Few studies have examined currently managed pastures using detailed data capable of isolating fine-scale livestock–vegetation interactions.

Bamboo-based agroforestry is a promising option for sustainable land management in India. Optimal management of bamboo-based mixed species production systems, however, requires an understanding of bamboo spacing, root activity and distribution of bamboo roots, and the soil nutrient capital of the site. We examined the performance of turmeric as an understorey crop in 7-year old bamboo (Dendrocalamus strictus (Roxb.) Nees) stands of varying spacing treatments (4 × 4, 6 × 6, 8 × 8, 10 × 10 and 12 × 12 m) at Kerala Agricultural University Campus, Thrissur, Kerala, India.

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) are considered effective market-based conservation approaches. Surprisingly, limited evidence is conceptualized from a gendered perspective despite widespread knowledge of men's and women's roles as resource users. This study unravels this puzzle by exploring the extent to which three schemes in Kenya integrate gender in design and implementation.

Quantitative assessment of the impacts of climate change on groundwater levels is important for sustainable groundwater use. This study examined the Tedori River alluvial fan in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, where paddy fields occupy 45 % of the total area. A regional groundwater flow model simulated future groundwater levels in response to 38 climate change projections generated for each of three GCMs, using three GHG emission scenarios with the ELPIS-JP datasets.