Ant diversity and abundance in pasture system and two agricultural land uses in the Rashad district, Southern Sudan

The most common ecological consequence of biodiversity loss is a reduction in ecosystem functions. These responses, however, vary depending on the type of land-use change and the ecological setting. This study investigated the impact of land-use type and ecosystem functions on the ant assemblage of Rashad district, Sudan. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to evaluate the composition and structure of the ant assembly in the station, as well as to determine the trophic guilds and functional groups and their spatial variation in three different land uses. Furthermore, based on the type of land use to determine how the conversion of native vegetation affects the richness and composition of ant species. In each location, we sampled three 20-meter-long transects (Sample plot). Each sample plot consisted of a grid of 12 pitfall traps arranged in three rows of four traps each, with a 2 m spacing between them, replicated six times in a single year. We collected 38 ant species from four subfamilies and 17 genera. Parasyscia lamborni was the most abundant species followed by Bothroponera crassa. Ant diversity was higher in Soy monoculture and Organic farming than in the Pasture. The frequency distributions of ant Functional groups in Soy monoculture and Organic farming were significantly different from the frequency distributions in the pasture. The omnivorous and predator’s trophic guilds were the best represented and regarding functional groups. We found a high proportion of tropical climate specialists and Myrmicinae generalists. These findings suggest that Pasture Activation reduces ant diversity. It can also help to increase the population of species with a diverse diet that predominate in areas where stress and disturbance prevent other ants from reproducing.

Assessment of Urban Greenery Status in Major Cities of Oromia, Ethiopia

This work aims at studying different green spaces’ experiences in developed countries and extrapolates the experiences to Oromia cities in Ethiopia; in order to investigate and promote greenery infrastructure in selected cities. To do that greenery practice performance data were collected in four cities, which were classified into two groups as good and weak performers. As a result, Adama and Bishoftu cities were good urban greenery performers whereas Burayu and Sebeta were weak performers. The cities were also selected non-randomly to investigate the current urban greenery practice and different green areas in each city. Eight green areas were taken as samples for observation, where qualitative and quantitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The assessment of data confirmed that green areas along the roadside, recreational parks, open areas, and nursery sites existed in most cities. The urban plan of some cities does exclude most green area components. Greenery sites in Bishoftu and Adama are relatively better, while in Burayu and Sebeta urban greenery are highly abused for changing to another type of land use, e.g., residential and institutional areas. The technical skills of tree planting, care, protection, and management were also observed as a collective resource.

Land Use Change and Avian Disease Dynamics

Birds live on a human-dominated planet. Over half of Earth’s ice-free land area has been modified by anthropogenic disturbance including deforestation, agriculture, and urbanization, impacting ecosystems around the world. Disturbances associated with these land use types, such as habitat loss, fragmentation, and pollution, influence the dynamics between birds, their pathogens, and the environment they share. Such shifts in disease dynamics can arise through the impacts of land use change on aspects of hosts, vectors, and/or pathogens, including vector and host abundance, behavior, and physiology, and through pathogen persistence in the environment. To address this complexity, the major causes of land use change that can impact birds across diverse ecosystems are described. The chapter then discusses key changes associated with land use change such as habitat loss, pollution, and anthropogenic resources that are relevant to avian disease ecology. These key changes are followed by a synthesis of documented changes in avian health with urbanization, the fastest growing type of land use change on Earth. The chapter closes with relevant implications for One Health systems and future directions for advancing avian disease ecology in rapidly changing landscapes.

Analysis of the current classifier of types of purpose of agricultural lands and proposals for its improvement

The analysis of the current Classification of types of intended purposes of land use is carried out. It is established that the existing 2-level Classification does not meet the modern requirements for monitoring land relations and the norms of current land legislation. The structure and content of the 4-level Classifier of typesof intended purposes of land use are proposed, which allows to determine in detail the type of permitted land use. It is established that the current classifier does not distinguish between the form of management and the type of land use. This issue is especially evident in the example of agricultural land, in which case the types of intended purposes indicate the legal form of landowner or user, rather than regulating the direct use of land. The proposed 4-level classifier is able to distinguish between the form of management and the type of land use. In forming this Classifier, the principles of complexity, systematicity, exhaustiveness, hierarchy and legality are taken into account; requirements of automated technologies for maintaining the State Land Cadastre and remote methods of land monitoring are considered, comprehensive and systematic methodological approaches in compliance with current domestic land legislation and relevant bylawsare applied; principles of openness and manufacturability, as well as recommendations of international organizationsare taken into account.

Spatial structure of the Surface Urban Heat Island in summer based on Landsat 8 imagery in the Górnośląsko – Zagłębiowska Metropolis, Southern Poland

<p>Urbanization results in the increase of impervious surfaces build of materials with high heat capacity and low albedo. Therefore, urban areas heat up more than the surroundings, leading to the development of the urban heat island (UHI). The UHI intensifies the effect of global warming by increased intensity and frequency of heatwaves in the city. In summer, the UHI is considered a phenomenon hazardous for the life and health of city inhabitants. The problem of UHI has not been studied in the Górnośląska-Zagłębiowska Metropolis (GZM), which is the most populated area in Poland. This study aims to determine the spatial structure and intensity of the surface urban heat island (SUHI) in GZM and identify the areas exposed to the most intense heat island. The relationship between the type of land use and the SUHI occurrence was also studied. Four LANDSAT 8 images were converted to the form of land surface temperature (LST). Based on the mean and standard deviation of the LST the extent of the overall SUHI was determined without considering the type of land use. Based on the same method, three classes of SUHI intensity (standard, strong and extreme) were defined and distinguished within anthropogenic areas determined based on the Corine Land Cover 2018 classification of land use. The intensity of SUHI was defined as a difference between urban and non-urban areas. The relationships between various types of land use and LST were also examined. In GZM, SUHI has a structure of 'archipelago' rather than an 'island'. In each image, the highest LSTs were identified for industrial areas represented by Katowice Smeltery. The standard SUHI, defined as average LST +1 standard deviation (only within an anthropogenic area) accounted for 12.7% to 14.4% of the GZM area in individual years, which indicates a small temporal variability of its extent. The extreme SUHI was identified mainly for shopping and logistic centers, industrial facilities, or coal dumps. The intensity of SUHI ranged from 5 to 9 °C depending on the image and method of urban and non-urban areas delineating. The highest average LST was characteristic of the discontinuous urban fabric and industrial or commercial units. Water and forest areas had the lowest average LST. The discontinuous urban fabric and industrial or commercial units constituted more than 70% of the overall SUHI area.</p>

Worldwide Research on Land Use and Land Cover in the Amazon Region

Land cover is an important descriptor of the earth’s terrestrial surface. It is also crucial to determine the biophysical processes in global environmental change. Land-use change showcases the management of the land while revealing what motivated the alteration of the land cover. The type of land use can represent local economic and social benefits, framed towards regional sustainable development. The Amazon stands out for being the largest tropical forest globally, with the most extraordinary biodiversity, and plays an essential role in climate regulation. The present work proposes to carry out a bibliometric analysis of 1590 articles indexed in the Scopus database. It uses both Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer software for the evaluation of author keywords, authors, and countries. The method encompasses (i) search criteria, (ii) search and document compilation, (iii) software selection and data extraction, and (iv) data analysis. The results classify the main research fields into nine main topics with increasing relevance: ‘Amazon’, ‘deforestation’, ‘remote sensing’, ‘land use and land cover change’, and ‘land use’. In conclusion, the cocitation authors’ network reveals the development of such areas and the interest they present due to their worldwide importance.

Application of Spatial Modeling of Biophysical Variables in an Urbanized Area in the Amazon: The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Belém-Pará

The type of land use and land cover plays a decisive role in land surface temperature (LST). As cities are composed of varied covers, including vegetation, built-up areas, buildings, roads and areas without vegetation, understanding LST patterns in complex urban spaces is becoming increasingly important. The present study investigated the relationship between LST and albedo, NDVI, NDWI, NDBI and NDBaI in the period between 1994 and 2017. Images from Thematic Mapper (TM) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) onboard the Landsat 5 and 8 satellites, respectively, were used in the study. The images were processed, resampled (spatial resolution of 120 m) in the environment of the QGIS 3.0 software and, finally, centroids were extracted resulting in a total of 1252 points. A classical regression (CR) model was applied to the variables, followed by spatial autoregressive (SARM) and spatial error (SEM) models, and the results were compared using accuracy indices. The results showed that the highest correlation coefficient was found between albedo and NDBaI (r = 0.88). The relationship between albedo and LST (r = 0.7) was also positive and significant at р < 0.05. The global Moran's I index showed spatial dependence and non-stationarity of the LST (I = 0.44). The SEM presented the best accuracy metrics (AIC = 3307.15 and R2 = 0.65) for the metropolitan region of Belém, explaining considerably more variations in the relationship between explanatory factors and LST when compared to conventional CR models.

Analysis of Travel Hot Spots of Taxi Passengers Based on Community Detection

It is an important content of smart city research to study the activity track of urban residents, dig out the hot spot areas and spatial interaction patterns of different residents’ activities, and clearly understand the travel rules of urban residents' activities. This study used community detection to analyze taxi passengers’ travel hot spots based on taxi pick-up and drop-off data, combined with multisource information such as land use, in the main urban area of Nanjing. The study revealed that, for the purpose of travel, the modularity and anisotropy rate of the community where the passengers were picked up and dropped off were positively correlated during the morning and evening peak hours and negatively correlated at other times. Depending on the community structure, pick-up and drop-off points reached significant aggregation within the community, and interactions among the communities were also revealed. Based on the type of land use, as passengers' travel activity increased, travel hot spots formed clusters in urban spaces. After comparative verification, the results of this study were found to be accurate and reliable and can provide a reference for urban planning and traffic management.

QUANTIFYING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION IN FRONT OF THE FOREST CODE: POTENTIALITY AND CHALLENGE

Brazil confronts a challenge to implement the Forest Code, now called Native Vegetation Protection Law (LPVN), issued in 2012 under the number 12.651/12. The law introduced new mechanisms to quantified environmental liabilities in Permanent Protection Areas (APP) and Legal Reserve Areas (RL). Thus, this study presents a methodological proposal for calculation of environmental liabilities in areas of "water" permanent preservation and legal reserve using geoprocessing tools. This way, a complex analysis was required, based on the size of the private rural properties, the type of land use/cover, and “temporal cut”, for which there is no methodology defined. The “temporal cut” was defined to fine cancel those who practiced illegal deforestation prior to 22 July 2008, thus creating the figure of the "Consolidated Productive Areas”. This methodology was tested and applied in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu-PA and the results pointed to a total environmental liability of the municipality of 178,835 hectares by 2010. According to requirements established in article 61-A, the settlements were considered rural properties with consolidated productive areas, and thus benefited by law. Despite this, it is important to improve environmental education techniques and the recovering of environmental liabilities of settlements, mainly for sustainable production purposes.

The Trash Tracker: A Macroplastic Fate and Transport Model at River Basin Scale

&lt;p&gt;Plastic pollution in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is of growing global concern due to its negative impact on environmental health and human livelihood. Most plastic research to date focused on observing and modelling plastic in the oceans, revealing that the highest plastic concentrations are found in the five ocean gyres (&amp;#8220;the garbage patches&amp;#8221;). Plastic waste originating from land has been identified as the main source of marine plastic debris. Yet it remains highly uncertain which processes control the mobilisation and transport of plastic waste over land to rivers and eventually to the ocean. Here, we introduce the Trash Tracker, a numerical model to forecast the pathways and fate of plastic waste in terrestrial and freshwater systems. In this model, the plastic transporting agents, wind and surface runoff, are resisted by the friction of the terrain. The terrain resistance, a function of the surface slope and the type of land use, is translated to thresholds that define the critical wind and surface runoff conditions required to mobilise and transport macroplastics. By repeatedly checking whether the wind and/or surface runoff conditions are strong enough to overcome their respective thresholds, the Trash Tracker simulates the transport of plastics and allows us to identify accumulation hotspots and high probability transport routes of plastic waste within river basins. This makes the Trash Tracker a practical tool for preventing, mitigating and reducing plastic pollution in the natural environment.&lt;/p&gt;