Special Issue "Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability, Biodiversity and Conservation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Waqar Ahmad
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Interests: environmental sustainability; carbon management; soil linked human nutrition; food and nutrition security; biodiversity and natural resources management; climate change and agricultural development―sustainable development goals
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Biodiversity is a base to support all forms of life on earth, ensuring environmental sustainability in terms of providing clean and sustainable natural resources (land, air, water, soil, plants, and animals), and essential ecosystem services. Soils are widely recognized as a major storehouse of global biodiversity, and up to 90% of living organisms in terrestrial ecosystems are associated with below-ground habitats. Soil biodiversity constitutes an important source of genetic resources for biotechnological and medical innovation. Climate regulation is one of the most important ecosystem services on a global scale. The loss of soil biodiversity is deemed as one of the major soil threats in many regions of the world. For example, land clearing and concomitant degradation are the contributing factors along with the introduction of field monocultures that have further aggravated the impoverishment of biological diversity. Such activities contribute to further loss of biodiversity through an accelerated deterioration of land and water resources. This loss in biodiversity is intimately linked to the climate emergency and has been increasingly recognized by the scientific community.

The outbreak of COVID-19 is a source of unexpected stress and adversity for many research, development, extension (RD&E), and agricultural communities. These communities play a vital role in ensuring sustainable food production to the agriculture sector that contributes around $2.4 trillion to the global economy. It is necessary to adopt a holistic approach to boost resilience tackling upstream causes and determinants, aimed at helping communities to augment their role in managing biodiversity and natural resource management for ensuring food, nutritional, and environmental security. The current crisis calls for a paradigm shift in policies; and in the nexus between policies and systems at various scales. This Special Issue aims to build a community of authors and readers to document the latest research and develop new ideas and research directions in the area of Biodiversity, Natural Resource Management, and Food Security to promote sustainable development under the changing scenario of climate and amid the COVID-19 pandemic (during and after).

Dr. Waqar Ahmad
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • biodiversity
  • natural resources
  • food security
  • environment
  • case studies
  • policy framework

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

Article
Using Naturalness for Assessing the Impact of Forestry and Protection on the Quality of Ecosystems in Life Cycle Assessment
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 8859; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13168859 - 08 Aug 2021
Viewed by 358
Abstract
A novel approach is proposed to evaluate the impact of forestry on ecosystem quality in life cycle assessment (LCA) combining a naturalness assessment model with a species richness relationship. The approach is applied to a case study evaluating different forest management strategies involving [...] Read more.
A novel approach is proposed to evaluate the impact of forestry on ecosystem quality in life cycle assessment (LCA) combining a naturalness assessment model with a species richness relationship. The approach is applied to a case study evaluating different forest management strategies involving concomitantly silvicultural scenarios (plantation only, careful logging only or the current mix of both) combined with an increasing share of protected area for wood production in a Québec black spruce forest. The naturalness index is useful to compare forest management scenarios and can help evaluate conservation needs considering the type of management foreseen for wood production. The results indicate that it is preferable to intensify forest management over a small proportion of the forest territory while ensuring strict protection over the remaining portion, compared to extensive forest management over most of the forested area. To explore naturalness introduction in LCA, a provisory curve relating the naturalness index (NI) with the potential disappeared fraction of species (PDF) was developed using species richness data from the literature. LCA impact scores in PDF for producing 1 m3 of wood might lead to consistent results with the naturalness index but the uncertainty is high while the window leading to consistent results is narrow. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management)
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Article
Rangeland Biodiversity and Climate Variability: Supporting the Need for Flexible Grazing Management
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7124; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137124 - 25 Jun 2021
Viewed by 445
Abstract
Resting or grazing exclusion is an effective practice widely adopted to restore degraded, arid rangelands. To understand its effect on plant diversity, we studied Hill’s diversity indices during two growing seasons (2017–2019). The experiment consisted of a three-level factorial design with four plant [...] Read more.
Resting or grazing exclusion is an effective practice widely adopted to restore degraded, arid rangelands. To understand its effect on plant diversity, we studied Hill’s diversity indices during two growing seasons (2017–2019). The experiment consisted of a three-level factorial design with four plant communities subjected to different resting durations (one, two, and three years) compared to continuously grazed areas (control). The results showed that rainfall plays an important role in arid rangeland restoration. Under favorable conditions, one-year grazing exclusion considerably enhanced species richness and evenness diversity compared to longer resting durations under dry to average rainfall conditions. The decision to how long livestock grazing exclusion would last should not be decided upfront as it depends on the climatic and the site-specific conditions. The findings of this study will have vital management implications for development agencies. Knowing that short grazing exclusion with adequate rainfall amount and distribution could be enough and offers a cost-effective technical option to ensure the sustainable restoration of arid rangeland. This flexible grazing management would also be more acceptable by the pastoral communities. Longer resting periods could have detrimental effects on arid rangeland vegetation, in addition to adding more pressure on the remaining rangeland areas open to grazing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management)
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Article
Environmental Design Features for Large-Scale Nature-Based Solutions: Development of a Framework That Incorporates Landscape Dynamics into the Design of Nature-Based Solutions
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6123; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116123 - 28 May 2021
Viewed by 752
Abstract
Large-scale nature-based solutions (NBS) contribute to the change in large-scale landscapes and ecosystems for which continuous monitoring activities would be necessary to reflect the constantly changing environment. To fill the existing gap in the design-making process of implementing NBS, a framework that incorporates [...] Read more.
Large-scale nature-based solutions (NBS) contribute to the change in large-scale landscapes and ecosystems for which continuous monitoring activities would be necessary to reflect the constantly changing environment. To fill the existing gap in the design-making process of implementing NBS, a framework that incorporates the landscape dynamics into the design of NBS is expedient and beneficial. This research addresses the above knowledge gap and presents a practically applicable framework for large-scale NBS that incorporates landscape dynamics into the design of NBS. To amplify the power of stakeholders’ involvement and evidence-based knowledge (i.e., field experiences and literature reports), the framework developed in this study was evaluated on a case-study site in Odense area, Denmark, within the EU-funded RECONECT project. Furthermore, this study also addresses the relationship between landscape dynamics and biodiversity by performing a detailed literature review. The results obtained from this work demonstrate that the framework developed can be applied to existing large-scale NBS and it has the potential to recommend guidelines during the planning and design step of large-scale NBS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management)
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Article
Effects of Selection Regime on Invasive Characteristics in an Emerging Biomass Crop, Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.)
Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5045; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095045 - 30 Apr 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 456
Abstract
Production of biomass feedstock crops could produce substantial environmental benefits, but these will be sharply reduced if these crops become invasive. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is being bred for biomass production; these selective efforts may enhance invasive traits. To inform the assessment [...] Read more.
Production of biomass feedstock crops could produce substantial environmental benefits, but these will be sharply reduced if these crops become invasive. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is being bred for biomass production; these selective efforts may enhance invasive traits. To inform the assessment of invasive risk, undomesticated switchgrass strains were used as a baseline for comparison with strains bred for biomass production. In a three-year field experiment, we compared juvenile plant densities and survival, persistence of established plants, and aboveground biomass between selectively bred (cultivar) and undomesticated switchgrass strains. Cultivars had modestly greater third-year biomass and first-year plant densities than commercial ecotypes but lower survival and persistence; consequently, third-year plant densities did not significantly differ between cultivars and commercial ecotypes. Higher initial establishment and subsequent self-thinning in cultivars resulted in stands that were similar to those of commercial ecotypes. Therefore, our results do not suggest that the breeding of current cultivars of switchgrass enhanced juvenile and young-stand traits associated with invasiveness. Because biomass yields were not greatly different between cultivars and commercial ecotypes, use of the latter in biomass grasslands could provide functional benefits, including an enhanced habitat for native biodiversity and reduced pathogen loads, without incurring large losses in biomass production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management)
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