scholarly journals POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN HUMAN IMPACT AND BIODIVERSITY: THE CASE OF THE FIRE-BELLIED TOAD (BOMBINA BOMBINA) IN EUROPE

Author(s):  
Volodymyr Tytar ◽  
Oksana Nekrasova ◽  
Mihails Pupins

Habitat modification affects amphibians indirectly by reducing energy reserves and energy allocated to growth and reproduction, and by affecting population dynamics and viability. Marginal populations of amphibians in Latvia and Ukraine are particularly vulnerable. On the other hand, several studies have shown a positive relationship between human density and biodiversity, indicating that species-rich areas and human enterprises quite often co-occur. Therefore, both positive and negative correlations between human population and species richness may be expected. For a better understanding of what constitutes suitable habitat we used a habitat modeling approach, where modeling can be used for revealing species ecological requirements and relationships between the distribution of species and predictive variables, as well as the importance of each variable in model building. Here we employed maximum entropy (MaxEnt) niche modeling, as a tool to assess potential habitat suitability (HS) for amphibians in Europe, making special emphasis on anthropogenic impact. We used 2474 georeferenced point data (783 - B. bombina occurrence, and to compare results 1691 - L. vulgaris), including results of our field investigations in Latvia and Ukraine. The predictor variables used for modelling the toad species HS suitability were of climate derived from the WorldClim database (19 bioclimatic variables). Human impact was assessed by the Human Footprint (HF), produced through an overlay of a number of global data layers that represent the location of various factors presumed to exert an influence on ecosystems: human population distribution, urban areas, roads, navigable rivers, and various agricultural land uses. Using the Spearman rank correlation, a low, however statistically significant positive correlation (p<0.05), was found between the predicted HS and the HF.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Cassan Kimani

Purpose: The better management of land resources is essential for sustainability and for improving the quality of life of people living in the city and the peri urban areas who are mostly farmers With major changes being agricultural land use giving way to residential land use in the peri urban area, access to agricultural land is drastically reduced causing food insecurity problems in the region. The general objective of the study was to establish the access the impact of human population on land degradation. Methodology: The paper used a desk study review methodology where relevant empirical literature was reviewed to identify main themes and to extract knowledge gaps. Findings: The study found out that increase in human population has resulted to more land-use and land cover changes are likely to take place as more land is converted over time, forest to agricultural land, and agricultural land to built-up land, which threatens the existence of agricultural land and water sources in the future. Recommendations: The study recommends that there is the need for stakeholder participation and institutionalize stakeholders’ participations in land use planning process and urban planning. It is only when the public and land owners are well informed about land management issues that a positive change of attitude, adherence to laws on land use among others can be achieved. The county government and the national governments should come up with policies to outlaw arbitrary sale of land especially in areas where the main form of land use is agriculture to enhance the effectiveness of zoning regulations. It is important that the management of land be made the first priority in the study area and the nation as a whole. The various land sector agencies and institutions responsible for land management should enforce the existing laws on land management


1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 839-853
Author(s):  
Sarfraz Khan Qureshi

Taxation of the agricultural sector is a major instrument for mobilization of the surplus to finance development projects within the agricultural sector and/or the rest of the economy. For many years, the need for a heavier taxation of agricultural land has formed part of the conventional wisdom regarding the ways of extracting agricultural surplus and increasing the tempo of agricultural development in poor countries. Land taxes have both equity and efficiency properties that gladden the hearts of both economists and vocal politicians belonging to urban areas. Taxes on land promote efficiency in the allocation of scarce resources by creating incentives for farmers to increase their effort and reduce their consumption, thus expanding the amount of agricultural produce available to the non-agricultural sectors of the economy. A tax on land has an important redistributive function because its incidence falls squarely on the landlord and is shifted neither forward to consumers nor backwards to suppliers of agricultural inputs; nor does it introduce distortions in the allocation of productive resources.


Author(s):  
Herman Herman ◽  
Demi Adidrana ◽  
Nico Surantha ◽  
Suharjito Suharjito

The human population significantly increases in crowded urban areas. It causes a reduction of available farming land. Therefore, a landless planting method is needed to supply the food for society. Hydroponics is one of the solutions for gardening methods without using soil. It uses nutrient-enriched mineral water as a nutrition solution for plant growth. Traditionally, hydroponic farming is conducted manually by monitoring the nutrition such as acidity or basicity (pH), the value of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Electrical Conductivity (EC), and nutrient temperature. In this research, the researchers propose a system that measures pH, TDS, and nutrient temperature values in the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) technique using a couple of sensors. The researchers use lettuce as an object of experiment and apply the k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) algorithm to predict the classification of nutrient conditions. The result of prediction is used to provide a command to the microcontroller to turn on or off the nutrition controller actuators simultaneously at a time. The experiment result shows that the proposed k-NN algorithm achieves 93.3% accuracy when it is k = 5.


Geosciences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 312
Author(s):  
Barbara Wiatkowska ◽  
Janusz Słodczyk ◽  
Aleksandra Stokowska

Urban expansion is a dynamic and complex phenomenon, often involving adverse changes in land use and land cover (LULC). This paper uses satellite imagery from Landsat-5 TM, Landsat-8 OLI, Sentinel-2 MSI, and GIS technology to analyse LULC changes in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. The research was carried out in Opole, the capital of the Opole Agglomeration (south-western Poland). Maps produced from supervised spectral classification of remote sensing data revealed that in 20 years, built-up areas have increased about 40%, mainly at the expense of agricultural land. Detection of changes in the spatial pattern of LULC showed that the highest average rate of increase in built-up areas occurred in the zone 3–6 km (11.7%) and above 6 km (10.4%) from the centre of Opole. The analysis of the increase of built-up land in relation to the decreasing population (SDG 11.3.1) has confirmed the ongoing process of demographic suburbanisation. The paper shows that satellite imagery and GIS can be a valuable tool for local authorities and planners to monitor the scale of urbanisation processes for the purpose of adapting space management procedures to the changing environment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Dan Lu ◽  
Yahui Wang ◽  
Qingyuan Yang ◽  
Kangchuan Su ◽  
Haozhe Zhang ◽  
...  

The sustained growth of non-farm wages has led to large-scale migration of rural population to cities in China, especially in mountainous areas. It is of great significance to study the spatial and temporal pattern of population migration mentioned above for guiding population spatial optimization and the effective supply of public services in the mountainous areas. Here, we determined the spatiotemporal evolution of population in the Chongqing municipality of China from 2000–2018 by employing multi-period spatial distribution data, including nighttime light (NTL) data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS). There was a power function relationship between the two datasets at the pixel scale, with a mean relative error of NTL integration of 8.19%, 4.78% less than achieved by a previous study at the provincial scale. The spatial simulations of population distribution achieved a mean relative error of 26.98%, improved the simulation accuracy for mountainous population by nearly 20% and confirmed the feasibility of this method in Chongqing. During the study period, the spatial distribution of Chongqing’s population has increased in the west and decreased in the east, while also increased in low-altitude areas and decreased in medium-high altitude areas. Population agglomeration was common in all of districts and counties and the population density of central urban areas and its surrounding areas significantly increased, while that of non-urban areas such as northeast Chongqing significantly decreased.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6930
Author(s):  
Shinsuke Kyoi

This study evaluates people’s preferences regarding the proximity of their residence to agricultural urban green infrastructure (UGI), such as agricultural land and satoyama, and discusses the availability of these types of land as UGI. UGI is vital for reducing the negative environmental impacts of urban areas, as these impacts are too large to ignore. In this study, we conducted an online survey and a choice experiment to investigate people’s perceptions regarding the proximity of their residence to agricultural UGI (AUGI). The respondents of the choice experiment were 802 inhabitants of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, which has rich agricultural resources. To examine explicitly the spatial autocorrelation of people’s preferences, in this study, we used the spatial econometrics method. The main empirical findings are that people prefer agricultural land far away from their residence—more than 1000 m, not within 1000 m—which reflects the not-in-my-backyard phenomenon. Meanwhile, people’s preferences regarding proximity to satoyama are complicated and their preferences are positively spatially autocorrelated. The results indicate that policymakers and urban planners should manage and provide AUGI far away from residential areas; otherwise, they must address people’s avoidance of neighboring AUGI.


2005 ◽  
Vol 181 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tian Xiang Yue ◽  
Ying An Wang ◽  
Ji Yuan Liu ◽  
Shu Peng Chen ◽  
Dong Sheng Qiu ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-233
Author(s):  
Vu Bach Diep ◽  
Dinh Hong Linh ◽  
Bui Thi Minh Hang

The process of urbanization is taking place fast and vigorously in large urban and peri-urban areas in Vietnam. According to national forecasts, the rate of urbanization nationwide will reach 39.3% by 2020 and 50-55% by 2035. Thai Nguyen is a province in the midland and mountainous region. The province is located at the northern gateway and bordered with Hanoi capital. In recent years, the agricultural land area of Thai Nguyen province has narrowed due to the urban-industrial development. Urban agriculture development is an inevitable direction, creating safe and high quality food products, protecting the ecological environment, and increasing people's income. Thai Nguyen is one of the provinces promoting sustainable urban agricultural development. Secondary and primary data sources are analyzed and synthesized by descriptive statistical methods. The article will analyze five groups of factors affecting urban agricultural development in Thai Nguyen province in the period 2015-2018, including Socio-economic; Natural conditions and infrastructure; Policy factors; Planning factors; Links and integration.


Author(s):  
Albert Utama ◽  
Sutarki Sutisna

The Living Bot is a project where future residential buildings will adapt to the times. In the coming year, the human population will continue to grow, so that it will use the land as a place for various needs such as shelter, activities, and other things. Along with this increase in human population, the land will also shrink while the land itself is needed so that humans can meet their food needs either from farming (plants), or through livestock (animal). Therefore, The Living Bot created a system in which human implementation begins to adapt to the life in which they live by implementing a residential system that can produce their own food with plantings that maximize vertical land. This form of shelter can be used as a system so that its application can be carried out. Adaptations that are carried out are by changing the lifestyle of humans to the use of technology. The lifestyle that must adapt is by farming, assisted by A.I. technology. because humans in urban areas do not have a background in growing a food crop. Therefore technology is present in helping urban communities, also assisted by modern planting methods such as using hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics, and indoor planting techniques assisted by artificial light such as LEDs. Keywords: Adaptation; Techonology Abstrak The Living Bot merupakan sebuah proyek dimana bangunan hunian pada masa depan akan beradaptasi dengan perkembangan zaman. Pada tahun yang akan datang, populasi manusia akan terus bertambah, sehingga akan menggunakan lahan sebagai tempat untuk berbagai macam kebutuhan seperti tempat tinggal, aktivitas, dan hal lainnya. Seiring dengan pertambahan populasi manusia ini, lahan juga akan semakin menyempit sedangkan lahan sendiri diperlukan agar manusia dapat memenuhi kebutuhan pangannya baik dari hasil bertani (tumbuh-tumbuhan), ataupun melalui peternakan (hewani). Maka dari itu The Living Bot membuat suatu sistem yaitu dimana implementasi manusia mulai beradaptasi dengan kehidupan tempat tinggalnya dengan menerapkan sistem hunian yang dapat menghasilkan makanannya sendiri dengan penanaman-penanaman yang memaksimalkan lahan secara vertikal.Bentuk hunian seperti ini dapat dijadikan sebuah sistem sehingga penerapannya dapat dilakukan di berbagai hunian Adaptasi yang dilakukan adalah dengan mengubah gaya hidup manusia sampai kepada pengunaan teknologi. Adapun gaya hidup yang harus beradaptasi adalah dengan bercocok tanam, dengan dibantu oleh teknologi A.I. karena manusia yang ada di perkotaan tidak memiliki latar belakang dalam menanam sebuah tanaman pangan. Maka dari itu teknologi hadir dalam membantu masyarakat kota, juga dibantu oleh metode menanam yang modern seperti menggunakan hidroponik, akuaponik, aeroponik, dan teknik penanaman indoor yang dibantu oleh cahaya buatan seperti LED.


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