Land, Volume 9, Issue 6

The Re-Greening of the West African Sahel has attracted great interdisciplinary interest since it was originally detected in the mid-2000s. Studies have investigated vegetation patterns at regional scales using a time series of coarse resolution remo...

The ongoing global deforestation resulting from anthropogenic activities such as unsustainable agriculture and surface mining threatens biodiversity and decreases both soil carbon and above-ground biomass stocks. In this study, we assessed soil prope...

Given the diversity of active institutions and stakeholders in a landscape, and the difficulties in ensuring inclusive decision-making, evaluating landscape governance can help surface and address underlying issues. In the context of two protected ar...

Poor households in urban informal settlements face a big challenge in accessing clean energy for cooking, heating, and lighting. We use Kenya’s Mathare informal settlement as a landscape site to better understand how cross-sector collaboration...

The paper aims to explore the process of land conversion for tourism development in Vietnam, under the present ambiguous and insecure property rights system. Four case studies in different geographical areas were selected to analyse land conversion a...

Agroecological farming has long been described as more fulfilling than conventional agriculture, in terms of farmers’ labour and sense of autonomy. These assumptions must be reconsidered with adequate theoretical perspectives and with the empir...

In the early 1990s, with the Leader Initiative, the European Commission intended to apply a new development model in order to encourage the economic diversification of the rural world. The expectations raised by the first Leader Initiative motivated...

Drought has detrimental impacts on crop and livestock farming systems worldwide, but less attention has been given to outdoor livestock systems, particularly in humid temperate regions. This research evaluated how an intense drought in 2018 impacted...

Sandification has become a major obstacle to China’s regional farmland protection, economic development, and ecological civilization construction. It is urgent to adopt advanced ideas and practical actions to reverse the sandy land. Structural...

Considering settlement characteristics and population dynamics together over multiple spatio-temporal scales, the present study analyzes the spatial distribution of sparse settlements and population surrounding a large city in Southern Europe (Athens...

In recent decades, Russia has experienced substantial transformations in agricultural land tenure. Post-Soviet reforms have shaped land distribution patterns but the impacts of these on agricultural use of land remain under-investigated. On a regiona...

In this paper we point out the basic soil parameters characterizing current arable land, permanent grassland, vineyards, and orchards in Slovakia. While the area of permanent land use types is more or less stable, there is a noticeable decrease in th...

Agriculture in subarctic regions is limited by a short and cold growing season. With warming in the region, the number of growing days and, consequently, the potential for agricultural intensification and expansion may increase. However, subarctic so...

Land consolidation is an effective solution for the hindrances in agricultural production and rural development caused by land fragmentation. In the Red River Delta of Vietnam, where land is still highly fragmented, the application of land consolidat...

Landscape provides many services for human wellbeing through its mosaic of ecosystems. Although different landscape spatial structures limit some access to these services for local residents, their demand for landscape benefits creates a crucial comp...

Ecosystem services in oil palm plantations owned by smallholders in four villages in the Riau Province, Indonesia were identified and valued. Nine provisioning, three regulating and maintenance, one cultural ecosystem service, and a single ecosystem...

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has become a significant focus of research in today’s era of climate change, and a key consideration for the next generation of urban planning focused on green and livable cities. UHI has traditionally been me...

Landscape heterogeneity generates significant influences on economic activity. Present-day publications in landscape planning focus more and more on a participatory approach and a communication process. By contrast, we focus on nature-based criteria...

This paper was aimed at estimating the forest aboveground biomass (AGB) in the Central Kalimantan tropical peatland forest, Indonesia, using polarimetric parameters extracted from RadarSAT-2 images. Six consecutive acquisitions of RadarSAT-2 full pol...

This paper focuses on a three-year rural landscape strategy-making process, which was driven by a Danish municipality and involved a large number of stakeholders. The project was part of an action research program aimed at developing new approaches t...

This study investigates the spatial expansion process, the de facto land use change, and their endogenous driving forces in the village of Fengzhuang since the 1990s. Fengzhuang is a specialized village in Hebei, North China, in which above 80% of ru...

As technical and technological progress takes place, there is dissonance between teaching good engineering and technological techniques and respect for the landscape. Engineering students are educated to act as initiators and performers of activities...

Ecotourism has been promoted in many regions of Indonesia as a viable platform for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+) by providing incentives to local communities for their forest conservation...

Typically, peri-urban areas are havens and vulnerable receptors of customary land rights (CLRs) disputes due to the intrusion of urban activities or an uncoordinated mix of both. Although it is a dictum that CLRs cause setbacks to socioeconomic and s...

As the dominant area in regional competitions, the urban agglomeration has experienced a dramatic urban land evolution, which has had a significant impact on regional socio-economic development and ecological environment. Conventional simulation mode...

Landscape modification associated with agricultural intensification has brought considerable challenges for the sustainable development of New Zealand hill country farms. Addressing these challenges requires an appropriate approach to support farmers...

Many cities lack complex spatial databases that can answer the question “What does a given green space offer?” This complicates the lives of inhabitants, planners, and local authorities. One of the ways to obtain a complex picture of urba...

Integrated landscape approaches have been identified as key to addressing competing social, ecological, economic, and political contexts and needs in landscapes as a means to improve and preserve agrobiodiversity. Despite the consistent calls to inte...

Discussions on food security in the Global North have raised questions about the capacity of peri-urban organic agriculture to provide sufficient healthy food for the urban market. Dealing with food security requires more attention to how to protect...

Inequalities in land rights exist globally, both in formal and customary settings. This is because land rights are either strong or weak, and held by various categories of people. The weaker variants of the inequalities tend to stifle tenure security...

With the widespread use of three-dimensional (3D) geographic information technologies, studies for 3D digital representation of property units in cadasters have increased in recent years. In Turkey, a project named 3D City Models and Cadasters was in...

The Mediterranean Basin is at the same time a region of stark social and ecological contrasts and a global biodiversity hotspot, where complex local evolving land use and land cover patterns compose the region’s landscapes. In this context, we...

This article presents an analysis of the complexities implied by the implementation of the Colombian land restitution policy, as an example of the way in which the state works in its day-to-day practice. The document highlights the role played by the...

Intensive land-cover changes (LCC) driven by unplanned urbanisation continue to threaten the sustainability of ecological assets in many cities in Africa. Evaluating the nature and processes of these changes is key to understanding the extent to whic...

Environmental activism, with decades of relevant presence already, is a fundamental element for the preservation of natural and cultural values. Theories around their bases, protagonists, methods, instruments and results proliferate in a period of ob...

Nitrogen (N) fertiliser is applied to pastures in dairy farming systems to ensure productivity, but it is an expensive input that could be damaging to the environment if used excessively. In the southern Cape region of South Africa, N fertilisation g...

Digital soil mapping (DSM) is currently the primary framework for predicting the spatial variation of soil information (soil type or soil properties). Random forests and similarity-based methods have been used widely in DSM. However, the accuracy of...

Land fragmentation is a factor that limits the development of the agricultural and forestry sector, as well as the ability of operators to reach a profitable economic dimension. This phenomenon also influences the creation of activities and incomes i...