Evaluating the Degradation of Natural Resources in the Mediterranean Environment Using the Water and Land Resources Degradation Index, the Case of Crete Island

Natural resources degradation poses multiple challenges particularly to environmental and economic processes. It is usually difficult to identify the degree of degradation and the critical vulnerability values in the affected systems. Thus, among other tools, indices (composite indicators) may also describe these complex systems or phenomena. In this approach, the Water and Land Resources Degradation Index was applied to the fifth largest Mediterranean island, Crete, for the 1999–2014 period. The Water and Land Resources Degradation Index uses 11 water and soil resources related indicators: Aridity Index, Water Demand, Drought Impacts, Drought Resistance Water Resources Infrastructure, Land Use Intensity, Soil Parent Material, Plant Cover, Rainfall, Slope, and Soil Texture. The aim is to identify the sensitive areas to degradation due to anthropogenic interventions and natural processes, as well as their vulnerability status. The results for Crete Island indicate that prolonged water resources shortages due to low average precipitation values or high water demand (especially in the agricultural sector), may significantly affect Water and Land degradation processes. Hence, Water and Land Resources Degradation Index could serve as an extra tool to assist policymakers to improve their decisions to combat Natural Resources degradation.

The temporal and spatial scales of arable land loss and its impact in Guangxi, China: A Commentary

Cropland abandonment because of rural depopulation or policy interventions has become a key issue in Chinese mountainous areas. One such region is the Guangxi Karst Mountainous Area (GKMA), a zone where more than 59% of total land area is hilly and arable land of a commercially viable size is almost non-existent. The rugged terrain and land fragmentation in upland karst areas result in the scarcity of land suitable for cultivation. Although depopulation and declining agriculture since 2000 within the GKMA have led to vast areas of abandoned cropland, the spatiotemporal distribution that underlies this pattern as well as its causes remain little understood. Geomorphic features also bring about differences in the distribution of settlements. Settlements with different degrees of distribution are accompanied by spatial differences in cultivated land resources, which lead to differences in the sufficiency of cultivated land resources. In this paper we provide an overview of the magnitude of the problem of arable land loss. settlements and analyze the spatial distribution and the spatial agglomeration of the cultivated land.

Management of Land, Water, Material and Technical Resources and Their Efficient Use in Agriculture

This article describes in detail the management of land, water, material and technical resources and their efficient use in agriculture. Keywords: Land resources, water resources, indicators of land and water efficiency, Land monitoring and state land cadastre, capitalization of land resources.

A Time Series Investigation to Assess Climate Change and Anthropogenic Impacts on Quantitative Land Degradation in the North Delta, Egypt

In the current study the processes of soil deterioration over the past five decades was evaluated. Land degradation risk, status, and rate were assessed in Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate, Egypt, in 2016 using OLI and ETM (2002) remote sensing data, and soil data from 1961.A quantitative deterioration was produced based on the comparative study approach in the integrated weighted sum, weighted overlay, and fuzzy model. The parameters used were soil depth, texture, pH, EC, OM, SAR, ESP, CEC, CaCO3, BD, N, P, K. The variables were based on the measurements derived from the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). The results of the implemented USLE in the GIS model-builder revealed the prevalence of severe soil deterioration processes in the region, and include four main deterioration risks: water-logging, soil compaction, salinization, and alkalization. During 2002–2016, soil sealing took place on 36,297.87 ha of the study area (9.7% of the total area). Urban sprawl was one of the most noticed problems that became apparent during the fieldwork during the inventory of land resources in the investigation area. Soil sealing is one of the hidden manifestations of desertification, and it is the implicit explanation for the lost land for the agricultural production process. The study showed that the investigated soil, as a part of north Nile Delta, is a very fragile system that needs to be protected, especially under the effect of climate change in areas overloaded with population, and because of their negative effects on soil properties. According to the results of this study, it is recommended that the same approach be applied to similar agricultural semi-arid regions to help in building a database of land resources for agricultural use that will be very useful for the decision-maker to monitor changes on agricultural lands.

Geoinformation Methodology of Agricultural Land Evaluation for Agricultural Economic Growth

The formation of an economically developed management system for the country's agro-industrial complex cannot be considered only from the point of view of a separate science. Land resources are the source of profit, which is involved in almost all sectors of society. Land preservation and improvement is required to ensure an economic security and competitiveness of each region of the Russian Federation). The dynamics of changes in the areas of Svetloyarsky district of the Volgograd region in the context of municipalities is analyzed. The actual deviation of the area of Privolzhsky rural settlement amounts to 2,3 % of the statistical data. The boundaries and areas of the used plots of arable land in the Raigorod settlement do not coincide with the data of the state cadastral registration, the discrepancy of only one land plot is 422,44 hectares. By implementing GIS-technologies, the data were obtained for 2355 arable land plots, whereof the irrigated land area amounts to 52138 hectares, instead of the potentially possible 19455 hectares, that exceeds the settlement's capabilities by 2,7 times according to the statistical data.

KARAKTERISTIK PENGELOLAAN HUTAN RAKYAT DALAM PERSPEKTIF SISTEM (Studi di Desa Semoyo Kabupaten Gunung Kidul)

. Community smallholder forests in various places in Indonesia have different characteristics that depend on many factors that cause the development of community smallholder forests. This study aims to determine the characteristics of community smallholder forest management, the components and the interrelationships between the components that constructed the community smallholder forest system. The study was conducted at Semoyo Village, Gunungkidul Regency. Data were collected by interviewing seventy-two respondents who were purposively chosen, then tabulated and analyzed in a descriptive qualitative manner. Diameter of tree measurements on the respondent's forest land are carried out by census. In the next stage, the construction of the community smallholder forest system is carried out in a causal loop diagram based on the management characteristics found. The results show that the community smallholder forest system is composed of the main components of cultivated land, plant resources, human resources, management activities, and the purpose of managing forests. The component of land resources and human resources determines the agroforestry planting patterns chosen. The activity components, which are planting, maintaining, and cutting, have a positive loop and form different stand structures in different agroforestry planting patterns

CONSEQUENCES OF LOSS OF COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCES IN THE SELECTED BLOCK, DINDIGUL DISTRICT OF TAMILNADU

Common property land resources include grazing ground, community pasture, village forests and woodlots, and village sites, on which the villagers have legal usufructuary rights; these land resources also include all another land formally held by the panchayat or a community of the villages (NSS 54th round). For a collection of data of common land resources de jure and e facto approaches were considered. Forest land resources which are under the jurisdiction of the forest department was also considered as poor dependent rural communities are directly or indirectly dependent on the forest for livelihoods. From the report of NSS 54th round, it is observed that 15% of India’s total geographical area substantially forms a part of common land resources. Consequences of loss of common property resources and depletion of common property resources resulted largely because there was no private cost for using these resources. Privatization of common property resources in the arid zone has invariably meant the conversion of common property resources land into cropland.

Sustainable Management of the Electrical-Energy–Water–Food Nexus Using Robust Optimization

The significance of the security of electrical energy, water, and food resources in the future, which are inextricably connected, has led to increasing attention to this important issue in studies. This is an issue inattention to which can have irreparable consequences in the future. One of the sectors where electrical energy, water, and food are very closely associated is agriculture. Undoubtedly, the ability to properly manage electrical energy, hydropower, and food resources that have many uncertainties brings about the development of agriculture on the one hand and the optimal allocation of electrical energy, water, and land resources on the other. Thus, while reaching the highest economic profit, the greenhouse gas emissions reach the minimum possible value too. In this study, via robust optimization and by precisely considering the existing uncertainties, a model was developed for the optimal allocation of electrical energy, water, and land resources for a region in the north of China. In addition to acknowledging the close relationship between electrical energy, water, and food sources, the results show the method’s effectiveness for sustainable management in agriculture.