Socio-Economic Aspects of Mangrove Degradation in an Urban Setting

In Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), the degradation of mangroves advances at a fast pace, especially in urban places. Rural to urban migration let urban settlements grow tremendously in the past 60 years. People built many informal settlements straight into mangrove forests. Health implications are severe, but settlements in mangrove forests provide protection against eviction. The case study provides insight into people's lives, perception and actions in a degraded mangrove forest in the eastern part of Suva, the capital of Fiji. The major question is why people are exposing themselves to serious environmental health hazards. Based on recent changes, the chapter also looks at development efforts that threaten residents of informal settlement to get evicted from the locations they right now reside. Investigations concentrate on people's actions in space, particularly, the role degraded urban mangroves play in their decision to reside in a particular place. A major explanation is that people want to reduce risk and enhance security: security from eviction.

Perception of Local People on Land Use Change

The land use of the Belihuloya catchment area in Sri Lanka has been changing over a long period mainly due to the human activities. The study was aimed to find out the spatial and temporal changes of land use in the Belihuloya Mini Catchment area of 1956 to 2015, and obtain the local people's perception of the effects of land-use changes in Belihuloya. To study the people's perceptions of land use change, a questionnaire survey was conducted among randomly selected 180 households. Aerial data of 1956 and satellite data of 2015 were used to analyze the land use changes. The vegetation cover maps of 1956 and 2015, demonstrated the drastic changes of land use in Belihuloya. More than 50% of the respondents in the study area perceived that the land use has been changing due to the construction activities, forest fires, illegal loggings, pine and tea cultivation and the expansion of built-up areas. The deforestation has badly effected on water resources in the Belihuloya. The reforestation programs, including community-based reforestation programs can be introduced to minimize the impacts. It is necessary to implement existing legal frameworks with supports of different stakeholders to conserve the Belihuloya.

A Critical Review of Gullah Geechee Midlife Women and Heirs' Property Challenges Along the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor

This critical review explored the current scholarship of the experiences and challenges faced by Gullah Geechee midlife women heirs' property owners along the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Past researchers have noted these women often experience invisibility due to the concurrent burdens of management of jointly owned property along the corridor in addition to legacy experiences of cultural isolation, land dispossession, voice dispossession, and ancestry enslavement. Past researchers have called for ongoing collaborative research by both non-indigenous and indigenous researchers as a gap continues for gendered perspectives for current corridor heirs' property challenges and land dispossession with respect to power, trauma, economic impact, Gullah Geechee ways of knowing, land-based cultural values, heritage tourism, governmental dispossession, and the legacy of enslavement for critical inquiry from the transformative paradigm.

Urban Forestry in Sabah, Malaysia

This chapter provides a holistic understanding of the existing conditions of urban green spaces in Sabah by reviewing relevant past studies and publications. Nature serves as the foundation in the establishment of pocket parks, urban parks, and forest protected areas that are made available for public access within and outside of the major urban areas in Sabah. Presently, both native and exotic flora and fauna species are coexisting at the local urban green spaces, although some invasive exotic species have developed into urban pests of Sabah. Moreover, the importance and functions of urban green spaces in maintaining the well-being of mankind and ensuring the survival of indigenous wildlife species are acknowledged by society. Nevertheless, much research is required to fill up the research gaps of urban forestry, and also to provide solutions to the existing problems that happened at the urban green spaces in Sabah.

Youth Willingness to Accept Agricultural Entrepreneurship in Bedkot Municipality, Kanchanpur, Nepal

One of the major factors that aids in economic growth, sustainability, and poverty reduction of a developing nation is agriculture. With the passage of time, contribution of agriculture in GDP seems decreasing and youths' involvement towards agricultural entrepreneurship has been increasing in Nepal. Agro-entrepreneurship is rising due to technological innovation and transformation in production process that will provide higher output aiding in income generation. This study aims to identify youths' willingness to accept agriculture entrepreneurship and provincial role for its development. This study is based on explanatory research design with 324 samples from farmers of Bedkot municipality. Both primary and secondary data are used for the study based on a structured questionnaire. Tobit model has been used to generate results, along with several variables based on descriptive and inferential analysis. The study depicts that agriculture information has positive significance with overall awareness of youths' willingness to accept agriculture entrepreneurship. Likewise, youths' acceptance of agro-entrepreneurship is significant to annual income, land size, market information centre (MIC) as well. Training and awareness of agricultural entrepreneurship need to be focused more by policy-makers. This is one of the first investigations conducted to identify the various dimensions of youths' willingness to accept agriculture entrepreneurship in the Nepalese context.

Transformation in Vegetation and Urban Sprawl in Gotan and Surrounding

The main driving forces associated with transformation of vegetation cover and urban sprawl, are undoubtedly climate change and human intervention. Finding the truth behind transformation of Gotan, Rajasthan Landsat TM/ETM+ data of the years 1987,1990, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2010, 2015, and 2018 were used. These time series data comprising total of nine scenes were selected to measure the urban and green cover transformation in the past four decades. Landsat TM/ETM+ data were used because it is inexpensive, with high monitoring frequency and covers large areas. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of 1987–2018, derived from the remote sensing dataset along with the application of statistical methods and GIS techniques, were used to quantify vegetation cover change. The results show that human-induced factors can explain most variations at sites with significant cover change. It has been a well-known fact that sustainable development presents a system in order to accomplish economic growth, bring about social justice, implement environmental awareness and most certainly the fortification of government sector.

Land Use Planning and Sustainable Development

This chapter explores the ability of remote sensing and GIS technology for the preparation of land use land cover plan in an effective manner. It is an established fact that remote sensing products are being widely used for land use and land cover products to facilitate their stakeholders to provide them cost effective and reproducible mechanism to extract meaningful information for the development of infrastructure in particular region at any scale. Remote sensing has produced different high resolution datasets that may be convert into fruitful products by using recently developed image processing techniques. India is vast country, having natural resources as land resources which needs reallocation as per future demands. Present legislation and regulation are hardly enough for sustainable development of land resources.

Land Use Planning and Management in Tank Cascade Environment of Sri Lanka

The Tank Cascade System is one of the unique and socially accepted land-use practices in the dry zone of Sri Lanka which has evolved since 600 B.C. The small tank builders of the historical period had a profound and unified understanding of the natural resources, regional landscape, landforms, and hydrology. Tanks and irrigation canal systems, environmental zoning, forest reservations, agro-well-based land utilization, land-sharing system (Bethma), traditional soil conservation measures have been still maintaining well in some rural areas in the dry zone. Newly developed agro-well-based agro-forestry systems and some participatory techniques are also counted as few of sustainable land-use practices. This study has provided many valuable lessons of land use planning and management from the ancient hydraulic civilization and proving that the ancient system is still appropriate for the dry zone agricultural community rather than inadequately coordinated modern efforts of land use practices.

Towards Sustainable Land Management

In the global context, land-use policies have been considered as one of the significant aspects to obtain sustainable land management. Although this is a situation, it is not always achievable. Therefore, the critical analysis of land use policies is required. This chapter aims to understand the state of the art in land-related policies in Nepal after 1951 that contribute towards SLM. The methodology applied is the desktop review approach. The analytical framework namely sustainable land management (SLM) consisting of parameters: productivity, security, protection, viability, and acceptability, is developed. Under the basis of the SLM framework, content analysis has been carried out. The results show that although the policies take into account all the components of sustainability, the lack of implementing the integrated land use policy has triggered the questions for sustainable land management. The chapter recommends innovative approaches like parcel-based land use planning to obtain sustainable land management.

Role of Urban Vegetation

Increasing world population is the main reason behind rapid urbanization which is coupled with environmental pollutions (i.e., air, water, soil, noise, and atmospheric pollution). Urbanization is responsible for deteriorating living standards and quality of life for humans in major metropolitan cities around the world. The urban ecosystem leaves a major impact on world renewable resources and carbon footprint. Urban vegetation and forests can help in net balancing and buffering of immense pollutant surge intro urban ecosystems being done due to urbanization. Extensive urbanization is responsible for more and more wastewater and gaseous pollutant release in the environment which urban forests can help tackle effectively. Moreover, city vegetation also plays a critical role in decreasing city surface temperatures thus helping shrinkage of the urban heat island. The present draft presents the role of urban vegetation in effective management and buffering of urban microclimate.