scholarly journals A social and ecological assessment of tropical land uses at multiple scales: the Sustainable Amazon Network

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1619) ◽  
pp. 20120166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby A. Gardner ◽  
Joice Ferreira ◽  
Jos Barlow ◽  
Alexander C. Lees ◽  
Luke Parry ◽  
...  

Science has a critical role to play in guiding more sustainable development trajectories. Here, we present the Sustainable Amazon Network ( Rede Amazônia Sustentável , RAS): a multidisciplinary research initiative involving more than 30 partner organizations working to assess both social and ecological dimensions of land-use sustainability in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. The research approach adopted by RAS offers three advantages for addressing land-use sustainability problems: (i) the collection of synchronized and co-located ecological and socioeconomic data across broad gradients of past and present human use; (ii) a nested sampling design to aid comparison of ecological and socioeconomic conditions associated with different land uses across local, landscape and regional scales; and (iii) a strong engagement with a wide variety of actors and non-research institutions. Here, we elaborate on these key features, and identify the ways in which RAS can help in highlighting those problems in most urgent need of attention, and in guiding improvements in land-use sustainability in Amazonia and elsewhere in the tropics. We also discuss some of the practical lessons, limitations and realities faced during the development of the RAS initiative so far.

Author(s):  
Nelly Masayi ◽  
Mugatsia Tsingalia ◽  
Paul Omondi

Forests play a critical role in providing essential goods and services to forest adjacent communities. There is, however, insufficient information on how land uses affect the availability and use of forest products and services by forest adjacent communities. This study analysed the impacts of land use changes on the livelihoods of Mt Elgon forests adjacent communities. Land use changes were assessed for the period 1977-2019 segmented into four time periods corresponding to remote sensing data obtained for the years 1977, 1986, 1999 and 2019. Household surveys were conducted using structured questionnaires administered to 387 respondents. The questionnaires assessed how changes in land uses has impacted livelihoods. Analysis of data revealed that between 1977 and 2019, the size of land under natural forest has declined by 18%, bamboo declined by 15% while grasslands declined by 13%. On the contrary, the size of land under mixed farming and fallow increased by 30% and 27% respectively. Majority of the households (91%) were affirmative that they obtained products from Mt Elgon forest pointing to the importance of the forest to the communities living adjacent to the forest. Households closer to the forest were more reliant on the forest than those that lived farther away. The use of forest resources has been declining from 1970s with herbal medicine, game meat and wild fruits experiencing the highest decline of 28%, 27% and 24% respectively. The high dependency of the forest-adjacent communities on the Mt. Elgon forests call for enhanced conservation of the forest ecosystem and sustainable utilization of forest resources.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 844-856
Author(s):  
Woudi von Solms ◽  
Peet van der Merwe

AbstractThis study briefly discusses the relatively young private wildlife industry of South Africa which surfaced in the late 1990s, early 2000s. The industry has unique conservation management models and land uses that include hunting, breeding and game sales and ecotourism and by-products as well as mixed farming practices that include stock and crop farming. The research found that breeding and game sales are the most productive land-use form. Since this research was conducted, the market for live game sales collapsed and the authors believe that other wildlife-related land uses, such as ecotourism and by-products, will gain popularity in the future to replace breeding which is now less favourable. Furthermore, it was also found that different farm sizes influence the land uses, and a combination of land uses was chosen to be incorporated on a private wildlife establishment. A qualitative research approach was followed, and 223 privately owned wildlife establishment owners and managers were interviewed at fourteen auctions across South Africa. This research also concludes that since most wildlife are found on private conservation land, this research is a must for the industry as it can guide private wildlife establishment owners and managers to manage their private wildlife establishments most productively. Since this research was conducted, the market for live game sales collapsed, and the results show that fewer wildlife establishments are now breeding with game. These game farmers or wildlife establishment owners are now looking for different options on their land. If they cannot find an alternative in the wildlife industry, they will divert to other farming activities such as cattle farming. This will lead to a decrease in land for wildlife, which can impact wildlife numbers in South Africa. The authors believe that land use such as ecotourism and by-products will gain popularity in the future to replace breeding. This research also shows where there are opportunities in the wildlife industry.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-53
Author(s):  
Afrital Rezki, S.Pd., M.Si ◽  
Erna Juita ◽  
Dasrizal Dasrizal ◽  
Arie Zella Putra Ulni

Perkembangan penggunaan tanah bergerak horisontal secara spasial ke arah wilayah yang mudah diusahakan. Penggunaan tanah juga bergerak secara vertikal dalam rangka menaikkan mutunya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis pola penggunaan lahan, bagaimana manajemen penggunaan lahan di satu wilayah berdasarkan batas Nagari. Metode yang digunakan adalah analsisis spasial dengan interpretasi citra penginderaan jauh, survey lapangan, dan analisis deskriptif. Pertumbuhan pemukiman Nagari Sungai Sariak Kecamatan VII Koto Kabupaten Padang Pariaman mengakibatkan pemanfaatan ruang menjadi tumpang tindih. Diperlukan cara-cara pengelolaan dan managemen penggunaan tanah dalam rangka pembangunan berkelanjutan yang menaikkan taraf hidup masyarakat dan tidak menimbulkan kerugian lingkungan.Terdapat 9 jenis penggunaan lahan yang ada di Nagari Sungai Sariak. Penggunaan lahan tersebut adalah Primary Forest, Secondary Forest, Paddy Field, Settlement, Mixed Plantations, Crop Fields, Water Bodies, Bushes, dan Plantations. Penggunaan lahan yang paling luas di Nagari Sungai Sariak adalah jenis penggunaan lahan Primary Forest, sebesar 48% dari total luas wilayah Nagari Sungai Sariak. Pada tahun 2011 sampai tahun 2016, penggunaan lahan paling luas terjadi pada penggunaan lahan jenis Primary Forest yang kemudian menjadi Mixed Plantations. Land use Changes moved horizontally spatially towards areas that are easily cultivated. The land use also moves vertically in order to increase its quality. This study aims to analyze land use patterns, how land use management in one area is based on Nagari boundaries. The method used is spatial analysis with interpretation of remote sensing images, field surveys, and descriptive analysis. The growth of Nagari Sungai Sariak in Kecamatan VII Koto, Kabupaten Padang Pariaman resulted in overlapping use of space. Management methods are needed and management of land use in the framework of sustainable development that raises the standard of living of the community and does not cause environmental losses. There are 9 types of land use in the Nagari Sungai Sariak. The land uses are Primary Forest, Secondary Forest, Paddy Field, Settlement, Mixed Plantations, Crop Fields, Water Bodies, Bushes, and Plantations. The most extensive land use in Nagari Sungai Sariak is the type of Primary Forest land use, amounting to 48% of the total area of the Nagari Sungai Sariak. From 2011 to 2016, the most extensive land use occurred in Primary Forest land uses which later became Mixed Plantations.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 627
Author(s):  
Duong H. Nong ◽  
An T. Ngo ◽  
Hoa P. T. Nguyen ◽  
Thuy T. Nguyen ◽  
Lan T. Nguyen ◽  
...  

We analyzed the agricultural land-use changes in the coastal areas of Tien Hai district, Thai Binh province, in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020, using Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 data. We used the object-oriented classification method with the maximum likelihood algorithm to classify six types of land uses. The series of land-use maps we produced had an overall accuracy of more than 80%. We then conducted a spatial analysis of the 5-year land-use change using ArcGIS software. In addition, we surveyed 150 farm households using a structured questionnaire regarding the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity and land uses, as well as farmers’ adaptation and responses. The results showed that from 2005 to 2020, cropland decreased, while aquaculture land and forest land increased. We observed that the most remarkable decreases were in the area of rice (485.58 ha), the area of perennial crops (109.7 ha), and the area of non-agricultural land (747.35 ha). The area of land used for aquaculture and forest increased by 566.88 ha and 772.60 ha, respectively. We found that the manifestations of climate change, such as extreme weather events, saltwater intrusion, drought, and floods, have had a profound impact on agricultural production and land uses in the district, especially for annual crops and aquaculture. The results provide useful information for state authorities to design land-management strategies and solutions that are economic and effective in adapting to climate change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5433
Author(s):  
Rui Alexandre Castanho ◽  
José Manuel Naranjo Gómez ◽  
Gualter Couto ◽  
Pedro Pimentel ◽  
Áurea Sousa ◽  
...  

The remarkable richness and singularity of the Azorean Region (located 38° North) and its landscapes require a sharp, well-defined, and comprehensive planning policy. Bearing in mind the significance of this issue in the enlightenment of sustainability, planning strategies should be based and supported by different studies and thematic domains to understand the problem thoroughly. Using GIS (Geographic Information Systems), the present article enables us to identify the dynamics and patterns of the evolution of the Land-Use Changes in the Azores Region from 1990 to 2018. In aggregate, the Azores islands showed growth in artificial surfaces and forest and seminatural land-uses by essentially decreasing agricultural areas—most resulting from the economic and social development strategy pursued by several Azorean governments. Moreover, this study permits us to reinforce that the Azores Archipelago’s land-uses has undergone multiple changes—marked by increasing and decreasing periods. In fact, some of these reducing dynamics are disturbing. They require closer monitorization by regional government actors to give protection, preservation, and conservation to these incomparable ultra-peripheral landscapes, environments, ecosystems, and the region as a whole.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Ren ◽  
Jinbo Zhang ◽  
Hamidou Bah ◽  
Christoph Müller ◽  
Zucong Cai ◽  
...  

AbstractSoil gross nitrogen (N) transformations could be influenced by land use change, however, the differences in inherent N transformations between different land use soils are still not well understood under subtropical conditions. In this study, an 15N tracing experiment was applied to determine the influence of land uses on gross N transformations in Regosols, widely distributed soils in Southwest China. Soil samples were taken from the dominant land use types of forestland and cropland. In the cropland soils, the gross autotrophic nitrification rates (mean 14.54 ± 1.66 mg N kg−1 day−1) were significantly higher, while the gross NH4+ immobilization rates (mean 0.34 ± 0.10 mg N kg−1 day−1) were significantly lower than those in the forestland soils (mean 1.99 ± 0.56 and 6.67 ± 0.74 mg N kg−1 day−1, respectively). The gross NO3− immobilization and dissimilatory NO3− reduction to NH4+ (DNRA) rates were not significantly different between the forestland and cropland soils. In comparison to the forestland soils (mean 0.51 ± 0.24), the cropland soils had significantly lower NO3− retention capacities (mean 0.01 ± 0.01), indicating that the potential N losses in the cropland soils were higher. The correlation analysis demonstrated that soil gross autotrophic nitrification rate was negatively and gross NH4+ immobilization rate was positively related to the SOC content and C/N ratio. Therefore, effective measures should be taken to increase soil SOC content and C/N ratio to enhance soil N immobilization ability and NO3− retention capacity and thus reduce NO3− losses from the Regosols.


Logistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Serkan Alacam ◽  
Asli Sencer

In the global trucking industry, vertical collaboration between shippers and carriers is attained by intermediaries, called brokers. Brokers organize carriers for a shipper in accordance with its quality and price requirements, and support carriers to collaborate horizontally by sharing a large distribution order from a shipper. Brokers also act as trustees, preventing the passing of private information of any party to the others. Despite these benefits, intermediaries in the trucking industry are involved in several sustainability problems, including high costs, high levels of carbon emissions, high percentages of empty miles, low-capacity utilizations, and driver shortages. Several studies have acknowledged the importance of improving collaboration to address these problems. Obviously, the major concern of brokers is not collaboration, but rather to optimize their own gains. This paper investigates the potential of blockchain technology to improve collaboration in the trucking industry, by eliminating brokers while preserving their responsibilities as organizers and trustees. This paper extends the transportation control tower concept from the logistics literature, and presents a system architecture for its implementation through smart contracts on a blockchain network. In the proposed system, the scalability and privacy of trucking operations are ensured through integration with privacy-preserving off-chain computation and storage solutions (running outside of the blockchain). The potential of this design artifact for fostering collaboration in the trucking industry was evaluated by both blockchain technology experts and trucking industry professionals.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 198
Author(s):  
Igor Gallay ◽  
Branislav Olah ◽  
Zuzana Gallayová ◽  
Tomáš Lepeška

Flood protection is considered one of the crucial regulating ecosystem services due to climate change and extreme weather events. As an ecosystem service, it combines the results of hydrological and ecosystem research and their implementation into land management and/or planning processes including several formally separated economic sectors. As managerial and economic interests often diverge, successful decision-making requires a common denominator in form of monetary valuation of competing trade-offs. In this paper, a methodical approach based on the monetary value of the ecosystem service provided by the ecosystem corresponding to its actual share in flood regulating processes and the value of the property protected by this service was developed and demonstrated based on an example of a medium size mountain basin (290 ha). Hydrological modelling methods (SWAT, HEC-RAS) were applied for assessing the extent of floods with different rainfalls and land uses. The rainfall threshold value that would cause flooding with the current land use but that would be safely drained if the basin was covered completely by forest was estimated. The cost of the flood protection ecosystem service was assessed by the method of non-market monetary value for estimating avoided damage costs of endangered infrastructure and calculated both for the current and hypothetical land use. The results identify areas that are crucial for water retention and that deserve greater attention in management. In addition, the monetary valuation of flood protection provided by the current but also by hypothetical land uses enables competent and well-formulated decision-making processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Matijosaitiene ◽  
Peng Zhao ◽  
Sylvain Jaume ◽  
Joseph Gilkey Jr

Predicting the exact urban places where crime is most likely to occur is one of the greatest interests for Police Departments. Therefore, the goal of the research presented in this paper is to identify specific urban areas where a crime could happen in Manhattan, NY for every hour of a day. The outputs from this research are the following: (i) predicted land uses that generates the top three most committed crimes in Manhattan, by using machine learning (random forest and logistic regression), (ii) identifying the exact hours when most of the assaults are committed, together with hot spots during these hours, by applying time series and hot spot analysis, (iii) built hourly prediction models for assaults based on the land use, by deploying logistic regression. Assault, as a physical attack on someone, according to criminal law, is identified as the third most committed crime in Manhattan. Land use (residential, commercial, recreational, mixed use etc.) is assigned to every area or lot in Manhattan, determining the actual use or activities within each particular lot. While plotting assaults on the map for every hour, this investigation has identified that the hot spots where assaults occur were ‘moving’ and not confined to specific lots within Manhattan. This raises a number of questions: Why are hot spots of assaults not static in an urban environment? What makes them ‘move’—is it a particular urban pattern? Is the ‘movement’ of hot spots related to human activities during the day and night? Answering these questions helps to build the initial frame for assault prediction within every hour of a day. Knowing a specific land use vulnerability to assault during each exact hour can assist the police departments to allocate forces during those hours in risky areas. For the analysis, the study is using two datasets: a crime dataset with geographical locations of crime, date and time, and a geographic dataset about land uses with land use codes for every lot, each obtained from open databases. The study joins two datasets based on the spatial location and classifies data into 24 classes, based on the time range when the assault occurred. Machine learning methods reveal the effect of land uses on larceny, harassment and assault, the three most committed crimes in Manhattan. Finally, logistic regression provides hourly prediction models and unveils the type of land use where assaults could occur during each hour for both day and night.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Fernando Allende Álvarez ◽  
Gillian Gómez-Mediavilla ◽  
Nieves López-Estébanez ◽  
Pedro Molina Holgado ◽  
Judith Ares Barajas

The present paper highlights the importance of hedgerows and enclosures in the mountains of Central Spain. Now, these landscapes have suffered profound variations in terms of agroforestry practices, especially in the Mediterranean mountains where the characteristic multifunctional has largely been lost. The article analyzes land uses changes, dynamics, and their morphological features between the first half of the 20th Century (1956) and the second decade of the present time (2019). The paper was divided into three sections. First, the identification of land uses using orthophotograph and aerial photograph; after that the info was checked with fieldwork. Eleven categories were identified according to the dominant use and land use changes and size of land parcels were taken into consideration. Second, the configuration and the information collected through the type and intensity of change in land uses made it possible to recognise and quantify their distribution and trend between these two dates. Also, the kernel density algorithm available in the Arcgis 10.5 software was used to obtain density and changes in land parcels. Finally, an overview is given of the main role that this agroforestry plays due to the social, ecological, and economic benefits that they provide for allowing sustainable development.


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