Sustainable Landscape Planning to Mitigate Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions

Road development, traffic intensification, and collisions with wildlife represent a danger both for road safety and species conservation. For planners, deciding which mitigation methods to apply is often problematic. Through a kernel density estimate, we analyzed 715 crossing locations and wildlife–vehicle collisions (WVCs) involving brown bears, lynx, wolf, red deer, roe deer, and wild boar in the Southeastern Carpathian Mountains. We identified 25 WVC hotspots, of which eight require urgent mitigation of existing infrastructure. Moreover, many of these hotspots are in Natura 2000 sites, along road sections where vegetation is in close proximity, animal movement is the highest, and driver visibility is low. Our study is the first in Romania to recommend practical solutions to remediate WVC hotspots and benefit sustainable landscape management.

Erosion Control Success Stories and Challenges in the Context of Sustainable Landscape Management, Rwanda Experience

The Government of Rwanda sets up a conducive policy environment to invest in several development initiatives. Agriculture sector as the main contributor in the economic development received supports to sustainably manage Rwandan hilly landscape, dominantly ranging from 5 to 55% slope gradient. Intensive erosion control interventions confronted with different approaches have been introduced in the country such as participatory landscape management, (participatory) integrated watershed management and site-located intervention without any specified approach. This chapter intends to describe and evaluate the impacts of these previous approaches used in Rwanda in order to retrieve the success stories and encountered challenges as lessons learnt in the future interventions for optimizing land productivity in a sustainable manner. Participatory landscape approach in Gishwati area was a success story in protecting degraded lands and generating ecosystem benefits. It leads to more sustainable natural resources management from participatory planning up to implementation which addressed the frequent landslides, erosion and flooding while sustainably exploit the land to the profit of local farmers in the livelihoods. About 6,600 ha of lands have been successfully protected with full-packaged bench terraces, rangeland blocks and forest regeneration. This participatory approach also helped to relocate people from high risk zones to other safe places and build capacities of farmers through farm-livestock cooperatives. On the other side, Nyanza and Karongi sites under LWH project also emphasized strong evidences how land husbandry technologies (terraces) efficiently reduced erosion risks and improved farmers’ livelihoods. Lands were made productive with implementation of bench terraces on 3212 and 2673 hectares respectively for the two selected sites. However, challenges were observed from technical and socio-economic contexts which might have caused farmers to abandon or under-exploit the terraced lands. Finally, the chapter suggests to scale up the participatory landscape management approach which supports the involvement of farmers’ communities in the process.

An Offering of Grain: The Agricultural and Spiritual Cycle of a Food System in the Kailash Sacred Landscape, Darchula, Far Western Nepal

Foodscapes are commonly embedded in spiritual landscapes, making the spiritual dimension of local and indigenous food systems an important element of food sovereignty. However, this dimension is often overlooked in food systems research and policy making. Based on ethnobiological fieldwork conducted in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of far western Nepal, we show how religious festivals and rituals reenact the covenant between people and the land through the numinous intercession of Hindu gods and landscape deities. To demonstrate this, we present the local calendar of the agricultural and ritual year based on data collected through household surveys and participation in festivals and agricultural activities. The complex fabric of the local agri-food system is revealed as articulated in the warp and weft of interwoven agricultural and spiritual cycles. These cycles contribute to respectful and sustainable landscape management practices by shaping the relationship people have with the land. In the annual women's festival of Gaura, the fertility and well-being of people and land is affirmed through the offering of locally produced pulses and grains. Furthermore, local gastronomic identity is enriched by the incentive to cultivate heirloom varieties of crops that are prescribed in rituals performed during Gaura and other major festivals. We conclude that spiritual practices should be considered key elements of biocultural diversity, and recommend that they receive more attention in the implementation of sustainable development that aims to embody the principles of food sovereignty.

ENVISIONING SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT IN THE ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE AREAS OF KSOUR ESSEF, TUNISIA

Each territory has distinctive features and landscape compositions that contribute to the creation of territorial identities. Natural parks are territories remarkable for their wealth of biodiversity, which in turn contribute to the development of sustainable socio-economic development through landscape enhancement. The main idea of this research is to test the combinaison of two concepts to propose a suitable management in a semi-arid environment. It is based on the use of the ESAs and landscape diagnosis concepts. The concept of ESAs is supported including the need to identify environnementally sensitive lands based on the hypotheses of MEDALUS project model. However, the landscape diagnosis is based on the combination of landscape potential and social requirements. Results aimed to create ecological and environmental models based on natural materials such as wood, light minerals and a diversified and multicoloured plant palette, including the logic of working with nature and preserving its particularity by promoting sustainable local development criteria and create a new green city.

Long-Term Tracking of Multiple Benefits of Participatory Forest Restoration in Marginal Cultural Landscapes in Himalaya

The literature is abound with references to the potential of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) for sustainable landscape management, but empirical on-the-ground efforts that demonstrate this potential are still lacking. To identify interventions for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of forest restoration, participatory trials were set out in the Indian Himalaya, where per capita degraded land far exceeds per capita cropped/healthy forest land. Treatments were designed based on pooled indigenous and scientific knowledge taking into account farm-forest-livelihood interactions in cultural landscapes. The multipurpose tree-bamboo-medicinal herb mixed restoration plantation reached a state of economic benefit/cost ratio >1 in the eighth year and recovered 30–50% of flowering plant species and carbon stock in intact forest. The communities maintained but did not expand restoration in the absence of policies addressing their genuine needs and aspirations. Transformative change for sustainable restoration would include (1) nesting restoration in participatory, long-term, adaptive and integrated landscape development programmes, (2) formally involving communities in planning, monitoring, bioprospecting, and financial management, (3) assuring long-term funding but limited to the inputs unaffordable for local people, (4) stimulating the inquisitive minds of local people by enriching ILK and cultural heritage, (5) convincing policymakers to provide the scientific rationale behind policy stands, to support the regular interactions of communities with researchers, traders, and industrialists, to commit to genuine payment for ecosystem services in unambiguous terms at multiple spatial (household, village and village cluster) and temporal (short, medium and long-term) scales, and to support long-term participatory action research for development of “landscape restoration models” in varied socio-ecological scenarios.

Comparative Assessment of Different Modelling Schemes and Their Applicability to Inland Small Reservoirs: A Central Europe Case Study

Sustainable landscape management involve also water reservoir management. The demand of their reconstruction represents a good opportunity for redesigning hydrotechnical structures and their parameters using recent methods and models. The estimation of wind-driven waves on small water reservoirs and their effects on water reservoir structures rarely are applied, although it is an important part of the dam height calculation. The analysis of wave run-up on the upstream face of the dam was performed by means of the Slovak Technical Standard (STN), Coastal Engineering Manual (CEM), Shore Protection Manual (SPM) and model designed by American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). The estimations of the wave characteristics differ depending on the model; wave height (H13%) within the range 0.32–0.56 m, wave period 1.32–2.11 s and run-up (R2%) 0.84–1.68 m under conditions of design wind speed 25 m·s−1. Results obtained by CEM, SPM models predict lower values than STN and ASABE models. Since the height difference between the dam crest and still water level in the reservoir is only 0.90 m, we can expect overtopping of the crest by waves after the critical wind speed is exceeded.