agricultural land

Landscapes with open evergreen oak woodlands in Southwestern Iberian Peninsula have been subjected to a consistent oak forest loss. In these landscapes, the abandonment of traditional land management activities have been associated with major land use transformations, such as the replacement of agricultural land uses and native oak woodlands by both shrublands and fast-growing Eucalyptus and pine (Pinus pinea L.) plantations. In this study a spatially explicit approach, combining aerial photographs, geographical information systems and land cover metrics, was used to assess long-term landscape dynamics over a 50-year period. The aim was to provide interpreted quantitative information on the landscape dynamics and to determine the key roles of open farmland, shrubland and new forest plantations on the ongoing loss and fragmentation of oak woodlands. Different trends of land abandonment and intensification of land uses were found across the study areas mainly related to combination of particular socioeconomic and biophysical conditions, resulting in different types of evergreen oak forest conservation and restoration issues. A comprehensive assessment of these (biophysical and socioeconomic) change driving forces is, therefore, presented and discussed, as a baseline for future planning by setting of appropriate management, restoration and conservation strategies for oak woodlands in the studied landscapes. Although this study focused on a specific system of Southwestern Mediterranean, the methodology applied herein can be extrapolated to other comparable human-driven scattered tree systems, within cultural landscapes.

Ensuring acceptance of dedicated biomass feedstocks by landowners, agricultural communities, environmental and public interest groups, requires that the environmental benefits, concerns, and risks associated with their production be quantified. Establishment and management measures to benefit soil and water quality are being identified by ongoing research. Field studies are showing that nutrients are retained within the rooting zone of dedicated feedstocks, subsurface herbicide transport does not occur, and off-site chemical transport is minimal compared with traditional agricultural crops. The amounts and timing of fertilizer application were critical to minimizing off- site transport of nutrients. Maintaining soil cover decreased runoff, sediment losses, and nutrient transport compared with traditional agricultural crops. Conversion of traditional croplands to biomass and no-till crop production improved soil quality and soil carbon storage. Subsurface nutrient losses were less fr...

A Decision Support System (DSS) to support sustainable development planning processes in the agricultural sector has been developed in the context of the research project entitled WATER MAP (Development and utilization of vulnerability maps for the monitoring and management of groundwater resources in the Archimed area), which is an Interreg -Archimed project. The model is based on vulnerability maps and facilitates and optimizes the decision-making process relating to the problems of land use, water management and environmental protection. The spatial integration of the vulnerability maps in the DSS enables regional authorities to design optimal spatial development policies. The DSS is based on a Multicriteria Mathematical Programming model and can achieve the optimum agricultural production plan in the area combining different criteria to a utility function under a set of constraints concerning different categories of land, labour, available capital, etc. The model is further used to simulate different scenarios and policies due to changes on different social, economic and environmental parameters. In this way we get alternative production plans and agricultural land uses as well as the economic, social and environmental impact of different policies.

This paper illustrates the result of land use/ cover change in Dhaka Metropolitan of Bangladesh using topographic maps and multi-temporal remotely sensed data from 1960 to 2005. The Maximum likelihood supervised classification technique was used to extract information from satellite data, and post-classification change detection method was employed to detect and monitor land use/cover change. Derived land use/cover maps were further validated by using high resolution images such as SPOT, IRS, IKONOS and field data. The overall accuracy of land cover change maps, generated from Landsat and IRS-1D data, ranged from 85% to 90%. The analysis indicated that the urban expansion of Dhaka Metropolitan resulted in the considerable reduction of wetlands, cultivated land, vegetation and water bodies. The maps showed that between 1960 and 2005 built-up areas increased approximately 15,924 ha, while agricultural land decreased 7,614 ha, vegetation decreased 2,336 ha, wetland/lowland decreased 6,385 ha, and water bodies decreased about 864 ha. The amount of urban land increased from 11% (in 1960) to 344% in 2005. Similarly, the growth of landfill/bare soils category was about 256% in the same period. Much of the city's rapid growth in population has been accommodated in informal settlements with little attempt being made to limit the risk of environmental impairments. The study quantified the patterns of land use/cover change for the last 45 years for Dhaka Metropolitan that forms valuable resources for urban planners and decision makers to devise sustainable land use and environmental planning.

Agricultural land values in South Dakota are booming! Values increased 16.5% this past year, which is the third highest rate of increase since 1991. As of February 2011, the average value of all-agricultural land in South Dakota was $1,374 per acre. Agricultural land values increased more than 11% in all regions except the northwest region which showed a 4% increase. From 2010-2011, statewide average cash rental rates per acre increased for all uses, with substantial increases (greater than 10%) in cash rental rates in several regions. Average percentage increase in cash rental rates was 14.1% for cropland, 10.8 for hayland, and 11.2% for pasture and rangeland. These are some of the key findings from the 2011 South Dakota Farm

The increasing pace and scale of landscape changes involve objective measurements in order to estimate the effects of changes on people's landscape preferences in a meaningful way. In the literature, some attempts have been made to provide a more conceptual base related to landscape preferences. These concepts and their indicators need to be tested empirically in different contexts and landscape types. In the present study, different items related to theoretical concepts of both aesthetic preference and cognitive rating were examined. They were combined in an in situ questionnaire, which was conducted among undergraduate students in geography during two different field excursions. Stimuli consisted of 11 landscape vistas selected during the excursions. All vistas represent rather rural landscapes but they vary with regard to relief, degree of urbanisation, and degree of agricultural land use. Statistical analysis of all data yielded significant correlations between aesthetic and cognitive ratings. However, these correlations did not appear to be very strong. When considering landscape vistas separately, the relations between all cognitive ratings seemed to vary. Further, not all cognitive aspects had an equal predicting value for aesthetic preference. Moreover, this predicting value appeared to vary between different landscape vistas. The groups of interrelated cognitive aspects could not be associated consistently with theoretical concepts. The results demonstrated the inconsistencies existing between the contents of the theoretical concepts and the indicators found within the landscape. The findings argued for the necessity to distinguish between different ratings and landscape types instead of using unitary preference measures and generalized data when studying landscape preference.

Agriculture faces a multitude of challenges in the 21st century, and new tools are needed to help determine how it should respond. Among these challenges is a need to reconcile how human food consumption patterns should change to both improve human nutrition and reduce agriculture's environmental footprint. A complete-diet framework is needed for better understanding how diet influences demand for a fundamental agricultural resource, land. We tested such a model, measuring the impact of fat and meat consumption on the land requirements of food production in New York State (NYS). Analysis was confined to this geographic area to simplify the modeling procedure and to examine the state's ability to reduce environmental impact by supplying food locally. Per capita land resource requirements were calculated with a spreadsheet model for 42 diets ranging from 0 to 381 g d−1(0 to 12 oz d−1) of meat and eggs and 20 to 45% total calories from fat. Many of these diets meet national die...

The generation of runoff and the associated processes are important for the understanding of flood generation and sediment mobilisation. However, only few studies of this kind were conducted in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. This paper presents detailed rainfall event analyses in the Jhikhu Khola catchment in the middle mountains of Nepal's Himalayas followed by analysis of runoff events in erosion plots on different land use. It shows that rainfall events in the catchment can be divided into four clusters: minor events, medium events, high intensity events and large events with each cluster having particular characteristics. Annually about nine high intensity events occur, most of them during the monsoon season. Large events, about one event per year, generally occur during the monsoon and the post-monsoon season. Both the high intensity and the large events are potentially important for the generation of floods in the catchment and beyond. Runoff events in the catchment are closely correlated to the event rainfall intensity parameters and the proposed clusters. Depending on land use another surface flow process is expected. While on degraded land infiltration excess flow is the key process in terms of runoff generation, on agricultural land saturation excess overland flow is more relevant. The bulk of the runoff is generated in a few major rainfall events. Particularly on agricultural land only few events cause the total annual runoff.

In southwestern Australia, karst features occur in geological formations other than the coastal calcarenites of the Tamala Limestone. The Noondine Chert was formed by the silicification of carbonate rocks and contains relict carbonate textures and palaeokarst features such as intense brecciation and the presence of subsurface voids. This geological formation is an important aquifer to the east of the Perth Basin where groundwater resources are otherwise limited, and the aquifer is highly vulnerable to contamination from agricultural land use. The Noondine Chert may also contain a rich stygofauna. This has not been taken into account in groundwater protection policies, and needs to be assessed as a matter of urgency. Karst in southwestern Australia is usually thought to be exclusively associated with variably lithified Quaternary calcarenites of the Tamala Limestone that are distributed near the coast between near Shark Bay and the south coast of Western Australia. Although the Tamal...

One of the major concerns in environmental studies is understanding the factors and processes that control and affect water quality. This study aimed to examine the causal relationship between land use/land cover and water quality in Tonle Sap Lake, one of the largest fresh water lakes in Southeast Asia and also to monitor the spatial distribution of water quality in the scale of the lake basin. The approach combines spatial data analysis using Geographic Information System (GIS) and statistics to establish the strength of relationship between land use/land cover derived from classifying Landsat data and water-quality within Tonle Sap sub- catchments. These analyses produced indicators (Kendall's tau) showing the strength of correlation between percentages of land use/land cover type as predictor variable and median of water quality parameters as response variable. The retrieval of optically active constituents from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrophotometer (MODIS) was ...

One of the major concerns in environmental studies is understanding the factors and processes that control and affect water quality. This study aimed to examine the causal relationship between land use/land cover and water quality in Tonle Sap Lake, one of the largest fresh water lakes in Southeast Asia and also to monitor the spatial distribution of water quality in the scale of the lake basin. The approach combines spatial data analysis using Geographic Information System (GIS) and statistics to establish the strength of relationship between land use/land cover derived from classifying Landsat data and water-quality within Tonle Sap subcatchments. These analyses produced indicators (Kendall's tau) showing the strength of correlation between percentages of land use/land cover type as predictor variable and median of water quality parameters as response variable. The retrieval of optically active constituents from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrophotometer (MODIS) was done using bio-optical algorithm applied in turbid inland waters based on the parameterization of the inherent optical properties-absorption and backscattering to come up with the modeled reflectance spectra, which was later, used in an inversion model to obtain the estimated concentration map of Total Suspended Sediments (TSS) and Chlorophyll-a from remote sensing reflectance of the multispectral images. Rank correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis results reveal the statistical relationships between agriculture lands, grasslands, forest covers and population density with TN, PO4P, NO3 and TSS. The results from remote sensing analysis exhibit quite appreciable variation in spatial distribution of water quality which helps identify the spatial aspects of the lake ecosystem more clearly and cost-effectively than point measurements.

Heterogeneity of agricultural landscapes is supposed to be of significant importance for species diversity in agroecosystems. Thus it is necessary to account for structural aspects of landscapes in land management decision processes. Spatial ...

Currently, Malaysia like other Asian countries has experienced rapid expansion of urbanization due to economic development, industrialization, massive migrations as well as natural population growth. This expansion particularly unplanned consumed a huge amount of arable land in the urban milieu and in its surrounding areas. This paper aims to measure arable land loss due to massive urbanization in Balik Pulau region of Penang State, Malaysia. Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) images of 1992 and 2002 at the resolution of 30 m and Landsat ETM (Enhanced Thematic Mapper) 2010 have been used to measure the rate of urban expansion and its impact on agricultural land. The integration of Remote Sensing and Geographical information system GIS were used to quantify the conversion of arable land to built-up areas in Penang State. The result reveals that built-up areas have expanded rapidly during the last four decades at the expense of agricultural land in Balik Pulau Region. Built-up areas had inc...

During the past 50 years forests have recolonized extensive areas of Puerto Rico. Between 1950 and 1990 forest cover increased from 9% to 37% of the island's land area. In proportional terms more land has reverted to forest in Puerto Rico than anywhere else on earth during the second half of the twentieth century. This paper explores the geography of this process by matching changes in land cover with the characteristics of the land and communities in Puerto Rico. The reversion of agricultural lands to forest occurred most frequently in humid, upland, coffee-growing regions characterized by heavy out-migration and populations of smallholders who earned some of their income from off-farm sources. These findings suggest that changes in non-farm labor markets, as well as changes in the political economy of agriculture, have important impacts on the prospects for converting agricultural lands into forests.

The present study was undertaken in Maroorpatti village in Namakkal district of Tamilnadu. From the results o/the livelihood analysis conducted/or the three different categories a/wealth ranking, it may be pointed out that with respect to the size of land holdings the rich farmer ...

New flue gas desulfurization (FGD) scmbbing technologies create a dry, solid by-product material consisting of excess sorbent, reaction product that contains sulfate and sulfite, and coal fly ash. Generally, dry FGD by-products are treated as solid wastes and disposed in Iandfll]s. However, landfill sites are becoming scarce and tipping fees m constantly increasing. Provided the environmental impacts are socially and scientifically acceptable, beneficial us& via recycling can provide economic benefits to both the producer and the end user of the FGD. A study titled "LandApplication Usesfor Dry Flue Gas DesulfurizationBy-Products"was initiated in December, 1990 to develop and demonstrate large volume, beneficial uses of FGD by-products. Phase 1 and Phase 2 reports have been published by the

During the mid-1900s, most of the island of Puerto Rico was deforested, but a shift in the economy from agriculture to small industry beginning in the 1950s resulted in the abandonment of agricultural lands and recovery of secondary forest. This unique history provides an excellent opportunity to study secondary forest succession and suggest strategies for tropical forest restoration. To determine the pattern of secondary succession, we describe the woody vegetation in 71 abandoned pastures and forest sites in four regions of Puerto Rico. The density, basal area, aboveground biomass, and species richness of the secondary forest sites were similar to those of the old growth forest sites (Ͼ 80 yr) after approximately 40 years. The dominant species that colonized recently abandoned pastures occurred over a broad elevational range and are widespread in the neotropics. The species richness of Puerto Rican secondary forests recovered rapidly, but the species composition was quite different in comparison with old growth forest sites, suggesting that enrichment planting will be necessary to restore the original composition. Exotic species were some of the most abundant species in the secondary forest, but their long-term impact depended on life history characteristics of each species. These data demonstrate that one restoration strategy for tropical forest in abandoned pastures is simply to protect the areas from fire, and allow natural regeneration to produce secondary forest. This strategy will be most effective if remnant forest (i.e., seed sources) still exist in the landscape and soils have not been highly degraded. Patterns of forest recovery also suggest strategies for accelerating natural recovery by planting a suite of generalist species that are common in recently abandoned pastures in Puerto Rico and throughout much of the neotropics.

Farmers’ participation in agricultural projects has a direct bearing on technology awareness, adoption, livelihoods, environment, nutrition, poverty, performance of the agricultural sector and the macro economy. This study therefore sought to identify factors, which delimitate farmer’s participation in agricultural projects using the case of the Agricultural Value Chain Mentorship Project. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to collect cross sectional data from 180 farmers in the Saboba and Chereponi districts of the Northern Region of Ghana. The study adopts the binary probit model and results of the analysis indicate that number of years in school, access to production credit and agricultural extension service are factors that significantly determine farmer’s participation in agricultural projects. It appears that farmer’s interest in agricultural projects can be permanently sustained by providing them with tangible benefits such as production credit and agricultural ext...

There is widespread agreement on the need for land reform in Zimbabwe as a means of reducing poverty. This paper assesses the potential consequences of a land-reform scheme that draws on proposals from Zimbabwe's government in 1998 and 1999. The authors analyze the ...

The Netherlands has a high cumulative mean phosphorus (P) balance. In the 20th century, cumulative mean P surpluses were ca. 4500 kg P 2 O 5 ⁄ ha. The annual surpluses have levelled off because of manure application limits from 1984 onwards. We report the effect of soil type, land use, and manure policy on changes in soil P of fields in the Netherlands during the 20th century. We used data (>5 million soil P tests) from the soil analysis laboratory BLGG AgroXpertus. Our results show that soil P has increased on average to fairly high and high ratings. Differences between regions and between land use have remained high from the first records in the 1930s; on arable land the increase continued until the end of our study period while on grassland no changes are evident in the last decades. In general regions with high livestock density have high soil P status. Soil P increased in the order bulbfields < grassland < arable land < maize land < horticulture, and in the order loess < clay < peat < sand soils. Spatial variations in P values reflect more the market value of the crops and regional availability of animal manure than (fertilizer) recommendations. Manure policy since 1984 has resulted in increasingly tight restrictions on P application from manure and fertilizers, but the effects are not yet clearly reflected in changed trends in soil P.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad overview of the social and environmental costs and benefits of biofuels in Asia. The major factors that will determine the impacts of biofuels are: (1) their contribution to land-use change, (2) the feedstocks used, and (3) issues of technology and scale. Biofuels offer economic benefits, and in the right circumstances can reduce emissions and make a small contribution to energy security. Feedstocks that involve the conversion of agricultural land will affect food security and cause indirect land-use change, while those that replace forests, wetlands or natural grasslands will increase emissions and damage biodiversity. Biofuels from cellulose, algae or waste will avoid some of these problems, but come with their own set of uncertainties and risks. In order to ensure net societal benefits of biofuel production, governments, researchers, and companies will need to work together to carry out comprehensive assessments, map suitable and unsuitable areas, and define and apply standards relevant to the different circumstances of each country. The greatest benefits may come from feedstocks produced on a modest scale as co-products of smart technologies developed for phytoremediation, waste disposal and emissions reduction.

Hedonic valuation of quality attributes can be misleading when the assumption that these attributes are exogenous to sample selection is violated. This paper considers the simultaneity between hedonic valuation and sample selection in the context of a model of producer behavior and investigates empirically the case where land is demanded for use as an input either in agricultural production or in touristic development. The empirical analysis suggests that failing to correct for sample selection results in a biased valuation of the effect of water salinity on agricultural land.

If the efficiency of the large commercial farm is a myth, why do markets for the rental and sale of agricultural land rarely reallocate land to the most efficient uses and users (family farmers)? PoUcyRcarch Wosking Papczs disseninatothe findings of work in progress and encourage the exchange of ideas among Bank staff and alodtcsintrestedindvelopmentisues Thesepapers,disuibutedbytheRescarchAdvisoyStaff,carry thenamesoftheauthors5reflect ordytheirviews,andshouldbouseda ndcitedaccordingly.Thcfindings,interpreutions.andconclusionsamtheauthors'own.nTcyshould na be attributed to the World Bank. its Board of Directon, its management, or any of its member countries.

Currently, Malaysia like other Asian countries has experienced rapid expansion of urbanization due to economic development, industrialization, massive migrations as well as natural population growth. This expansion particularly unplanned consumed a huge amount of arable land in the urban milieu and in its surrounding areas. This paper aims to measure arable land loss due to massive urbanization in Balik Pulau region of Penang State, Malaysia. Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) images of 1992 and 2002 at the resolution of 30 m and Landsat ETM (Enhanced Thematic Mapper) 2010 have been used to measure the rate of urban expansion and its impact on agricultural land. The integration of Remote Sensing and Geographical information system GIS were used to quantify the conversion of arable land to built-up areas in Penang State. The result reveals that built-up areas have expanded rapidly during the last four decades at the expense of agricultural land in Balik Pulau Region. Built-up areas had increased from 1793.22 ha in 1992 to 3235.38 ha in 2002, while agricultural areas decreased from 6171.32 to 4727.83 ha during the same period. The expansion of Built-up area is directed towards low-lying areas with less topographical barrier causing heavy loss in productive land and environmental degradation. In order to safeguard the environment and maintain arable land, urbanization should be controlled and rationalized through legislative measures, wise policy and public awareness. More attention should be given to the areas that have witnessed massive urbanization and coordination between various sectors involved in development is a must.

In the final analysis, sustainable agriculture must derive from applied ecology, especially the principle of the regulation of the abundance and distribution of species (and, secondarily, their activities) in space and time. Interspecific competition in natural ecosystems has its counterparts in agriculture, designed to divert greater amounts of energy, nutrients, and water into crops. Whereas natural ecosystems select for a diversity of species in communities, recent agriculture has minimized diversity in favour of vulnerable monocultures. Such systems show intrinsically less stability and resilience to perturbations. Some kinds of crop rotation resemble ecological succession in that one crop prepares the land for successive crop production. Such rotations enhance soil organic processes such as decomposition and material cycling, build a nutrient capital to sustain later crop growth, and reduce the intensity of pest buildup. Species in natural communities occur at discrete points along the r-K continuum of reproductive maturity. Clearing forested land for agriculture, rotational burning practices, and replacing perennial grassland communities by cereal monocultures moves the agricultural community towards the r extreme. Plant breeders select for varieties which yield at an earlier age and lowerplant biomass, effectively moving a variety towards the r type. Features of more natural landscapes, such as hedgerows, may act as physical and biological adjuncts to agricultural production. They should exist as networks in agricultural lands to be most effective. Soil is of major importance in agroecosystems, and maintaining, deliberately, its vitality and resilience to agricultural perturbations is the very basis of sustainable land use.

This study could not have been possible without the technical assistance of the following: the funding from WaterNet; the Biological Science Department' laboratory personnel, including Dr. .M. Bason, a biologist in the department; the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority particularly, the North Bank Lake Chivero Research Station for their boat, the field assistants and the shelter provided; the Department of Chemistry; Mr. J. Mafodya from the Department of Statistics who assisted me with data analysis and Mr. M. Sibanda from the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences for assistance in coming up with the wonderful study area map. It is with great humility that I extend my gratitude, honour and glory to the Almighty God who loosened up things for me when things seemed difficult at times, who gave all the people I met patience and understanding and who was with me always. Lastly, but not least, I would like to thank my loving husband, Siphosami, who gave me moral support, courage and strength throughout my study as well as believing in me.

Provisions of Law no. 41 of 2009 concerning the Protection of Sustainable Food Agricultural Land (UU PLP2B) is basically intended to classify a certain area of land that is allowed for appropriate food agriculture activities. This research is to examine the problems of sustainable agricultural land protection after the Job Creation Act and find a solution. The research method is a normative research method with a statute approach and uses content analysis. The findings of this study are changes in agricultural land protection regulations that can cause significant shrinkage of agricultural land and threaten farmer groups for investment. The abolition of the obligation to provide replacement land for affected farmers is not profitable for the farmer, because he will lose his agricultural land. The solution is that the government in determining the location of development projects must avoid the use of fertile/productive agricultural land.

Small wetlands in Kenya and Tanzania cover about 12 million ha and are increasingly converted for agricultural production. There is a need to provide guidelines for their future protection or use, requiring their systematic classification and characterisation. Fifty-one wetlands were inventoried in 2008 in four contrasting sites, covering a surveyed total area of 484 km 2. Each wetland was subdivided into sub-units of 0.5-458 ha based on the predominant land use. The biophysical and socioeconomic attributes of the resulting 157 wetland sub-units were determined. The wetland sub-units were categorized using multivariate analyses into five major cluster groups. The main wetland categories comprised: (1) narrow permanently flooded inland valleys that are largely unused; (2) wide permanently flooded inland valleys and highlands floodplains under extensive use; (3) large inland valleys and lowland floodplains with seasonal flooding under medium use intensity; (4) completely drained wide inland valleys and highlands floodplains under intensive food crop production; and (5) narrow drained inland valleys under permanent horticultural production. The wetland types were associated with specific vegetation forms and soil attributes.

The Valle de Bravo reservoir provides 30% of Mexico City's drinking water. Unfortunately, human activities in the watershed have affected the water quality in this reservoir. Its trophic state changed from oligotrophic in 1980 to mesotrophic in 1987. Research conducted from March 1992 to February 1993 defined the main limnological characteristics of the water body and identified the most highly polluted subbasins in the Amanalco River Watershed. For this purpose, water, sediments and vascular plants were sampled in the waterbody. In the Amanalaco River Watershed land use and nutrient loadings in each subbasin were quantified. The study dam is warm and monomictic, with a nine-month period of stratification and an overturn in December. Bottom anoxia occurred during the stratified phase. The reservoir was eutrophic during summer and mesotrophic the rest of the year. In the Amanalco basin, the highest phosphorus and nitrogen loadings (P, N in t y Ϫ1) entered by way of the Becerra (4.9, 47.2), Pipioltepec (8.6, 61.9) and Candelaria (8.5, 69.5) subbasins. A good agreement was found in a comparison between the export coefficients estimates in the Amanalco River Watershed and the measured amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen transported to 38 US waterbodies. Nevertheless, the phosphorus export coefficients for the forested subbasins within the Amanalco River Watershed were rather high in relation to the typical values found in the literature, and the values for agricultural land were low in relation to the same source. For the first time in Mexico, export coefficients for phosphorus and nitrogen were estimated, both of which will be useful in assigning priorities in land management. The export coefficients estimates presented in this study can be applied to other scenarios in Mexico which have the same temperate semihumid climate.

Assessing the impacts of climatic and, in particular, land use changes on rates of soil erosion by water is the objective of many national and international research projects. However, over the last decades, most research dealing with soil erosion by water has concentrated on sheet (interrill) and rill erosion processes operating at the (runoff) plot scale. Relatively few studies have been conducted on gully erosion operating at larger spatial scales.

The study area Chevella located at a distance of about 42 km from Hyderabad city covers an area of about 5000 ha, is one of the drought prone areas in the Rangareddy district of Andhra Pradesh. Groundwater is the main source for irrigation and for drinking purpose. The primary objective of the study is the soil and water conservation through multi-thematic information derived from remote sensing data for optimal management of soil and water resources for drought proofing on long-term basis. An attempt is made in the present study to suggest an action plan for the sustainable development of the area using GIS and Remote Sensing techniques. For the present study IRS P6 LISS III, IRS 1D LISS-III and IRS 1D PAN Imagery have been used for the preparation of land use/land cover, hydrogeomorphogy and soil maps. Geologically most of watershed is covered by Deccan basalt formation comprising nearly horizontal lava flows. In the northern part of the study area, the basalts are lateritised whe...

There are growing interests on how Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflectance Radiometer (ASTER) image data could be used for various applications. ASTER offers improved spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions. Hence, our purpose was to evaluate the utility of multispectral ASTER imagery in the discrimination and mapping of agricultural crops, soil and related land cover types. Four agricultural land cover attributes were specifically considered for spectral separability assessment and mapping: crop type, crop growth stages, soil colour and soil texture. Two scenes of approximately 60 km x 60 km ASTER Level 1B imagery, covering the eastern Darling Downs region, Queensland, Australia, were selected for this study. Acquired on 24 September 2001, the imagery covers extensive agricultural region encompassing the rural towns of Dalby, Brookstead, Jondaryan, Pittsworth and Millmerran. ASTER's visible and near infrared (VNIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands, as well as selected image transformation layers (e.g. ratios, vegetation indices, and principal components), were utilised. Training areas were selected and supported with field information, soil sampling and cropping details obtained by interview with farmers. The results of separability analysis indicated that ASTER data provided adequate spectral discrimination of crop types (wheat/barley vs. chickpea), and to some extent, crop growth stages. Interaction between cover attributes (e.g. same wheat but in an early stage or in a very wet patch) produced some classification errors. Despite that, ASTER's sensitivity to changes in bio-physical conditions indicate that these data are useful for mapping within-field variability where the focus is confined to a limited area. The three bands that produced the best average separability are the layers pertaining to vegetation indices: ratio NIR/R, Sqrt(NIR/R) and NIR-R. On the other hand, two-level broad classes of soil colour and texture were adequately mapped. Bands 2 (visible red), 8 (SWIR), and first principal component 1 (of bands 1 to 9) are the best layers to use for discriminating soil features. However, some spectral confusion between intermediate soil colour and texture class was observed. Thus, ISBN 0-9581366-0-2 396 11th ARSPC detailed level mapping of soil attributes using ASTER does not appear achievable. Nevertheless, ASTER's 15-m spatial resolution in the VNIR bands offers potential for mapping within-in field soil variability at relatively broad attribute classes.

Determination of temporal and spatial distribution of water use (WU) within agricultural land is critical for irrigation management and could be achieved by remotely sensed data. The aim of this study was to estimate WU of dwarf green beans under excessive and limited ...

Flood and inundation are annual event, which is utilized for agriculture in the Lower Mekong basin. Inundation area can be associated with agricultural land. A numerical simulation was carried out to understand change of inundation area by flood control, and irrigation area estimated from reserved water. The decrease of inundation area caused by flood control is much smaller compared with

SUMMARY The growth of urbanisation started in Nepal during 1980s. The annual urban population growth rate is about 5% and about 25% percent of Nepalese live in urban areas. The city areas are expanding as per the need of housing without planning, and prior provision of infrastructures. As per the cadastral survey, only 23% of territory belongs to the private ownership which is mostly good agricultural land and being urbanised. The average size of parcel is about 180 sq. m. The infrastructures added later date after construction of the building. The present urbanisation is neither planned nor sustainable nor will meet million Development goals (MDG).The squatter settlements are also illegally settled by political parties cadres to their supporters in vulnerable and unsafe areas of public places. Dept. of Housing and Physical Planning, of Nepal is planning to develop modern cities through land pooling (readjustment) programmes as per the Town Development Act 2045.It is difficult to ha...

Marginalisation has been integrated in the debate about rural landscapes already in the eighties, when the first large reform of the Common Agricultural Policy started being discussed and scenarios of large areas of farmland getting out of production became a threat. Since then, the concept of rural marginal areas is often connected both with trends in the sense of socio-economic decay and abandonment of agricultural land, especially in the most peripheral parts of Europe. In South-eastern Portugal these concepts are also connected, both by experts and the public, with the problem of desertification, affecting the areas with most extreme environmental constrains. Since the beginning of the nineties, different type of policy strategies and specific instruments have been created to avoid the effects of marginalisation and to preserve the diversity of European rural landscapes and communities. But these policies do not consider the specific problems of each area affected, and their eff...

Many modern landscapes in the humid tropics appear as a mosaic of primary forest, agricultural land and abandoned areas at various stages of regrowth. Whereas the hydrological functioning of primary forest and agricultural ecosystems is known to some degree, the impact of secondary forests on the hydrological cycle has yet to receive the same attention; this is particularly true for the effects of forest regrowth on soil hydrology. We investigated the effects of land-use and land-cover types representative of largely deforested areas of the Amazon basin on soil hydrological flowpaths by quantifying infiltrability and field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) at two depths (12.5 and 20 cm) under primary forest, recently cleared secondary forest (prepasture), teak (Tectona grandis), pasture and secondary forests originating from a former banana-cacao plantation (banana) and from pasture (capoeira). We further inferred potential changes in the hydrological flowpath regime by comparing our results with prevailing rainfall intensities. Infiltrability varied (a = 0.05) among the cover types according to: {forest} > {banana, capoeira, teak} > {pasture}, with prepasture overlapping with forest, banana and capoeira. Although the infiltrability of pasture is lower by an order of magnitude in comparison to the other cover types, this decrease does not affect flowpath patterns as infiltrability still exceeds even the highest short-term, such as 5 min, rainfall intensities. Ksat at the 12.5 cm depth varies as follows: {forest, banana, capoeira} > {teak} > {pasture}, with prepasture being undistinguishable from the first group. Under teak and pasture, Ksat is lower than prevailing rainfall intensities, which implies the possible generation of a perched water table at a shallow depth and hence the generation of saturation overland flow. The impact of 13 years of cattle grazing prior to planting teak is still measurable even after 10 years of growth. At the 20 cm depth, the differences in Ksat among the land uses are minor compared to prevailing rainfall intensities, i.e., the vertical flow of water is impeded regardless of land use. We conclude that there is a considerable memory effect; hence, any assessment of the hydrological functioning of secondary forests, quasinatural or man-made, must take into account the kind, intensity and duration of land use prior to regrowth.

Office of Basic Science. Funding was approved in July of 1999 and received by participating Mississippi institutions by 2000. The project was funded via two 3-year phases of operation (the second phase was awarded based on the high merits observed from the first 3-year phase), with funding ending in 2007. The mission of the Consortium was to promote the utilization of biomass, both cultured and waste derived, for the production of commodity and specialty chemicals. These scientific efforts, although generally basic in nature, are key to the development of future industries within the Southeastern United States. In this proposal, the majority of the efforts performed under the DOE EPSCoR funding were focused primarily toward the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic feedstocks and biogas from waste products. However, some of the individual projects within this program investigated the production of other products from biomass feeds (i.e. acetic acid and biogas) along with materials to facilitate the more efficient production of chemicals from biomass.

Total geographical area of Pakistan is 79.61 million hectares (m.ha.). Area under cultivation is 21.59 m.ha.; of which, only 5.34 m.ha. (i.e., 25 percent) is free from soil limitations and is fit for intensive agriculture [Mian and Mirza (1993)]. The remaining agricultural lands have various types of problems including formation of slow permeability, water logging, salinity and sodicity, and wind and water erosion. Thus, on an average, three out of four hectares of cultivated land in Pakistan are in poor health. This in turn is causing temporary or permanent decline in the productive capacity of the land. Therefore, poor soil health is posing serious threat to the sustainable growth of agriculture.

Urban sprawl has become a remarkable characteristic of urban development worldwide in the last decades. However, trajectories and rhythms of sprawl may vary in important ways according to specific geographical and historical characteristics, and these differences need to be contrasted with specific case studies especially for the booming urbanization of the Global South. The purpose of this paper is to study urban growth in the city of Yazd, Iran. Urban growth and other land uses were calculated through treated satellite images for four periods: 1975, 1987, 2000 and 2009. Results reveal that from 1975 to 2009, the urbanized area increased from 1843 ha to 13,802 ha; that is a rate close to three times the population growth observed for the same period. The Yazd case is interesting for several reasons: first, it is a case of very fast urban growth even for a developing country; second, it illustrates how the fastest rates of urban sprawl may correspond to middle size cities rather than large centers. Third, it portrays a land substitution process in which agricultural land is not the primary provider of urban land which is relatively rare in urban contexts, and fourth, it also illustrate how sprawl may also hide important internal land uses such as the presence of agricultural plots within urban boundaries.

Agricultural land suitability analysis (ALSA) for crop production is one of the key tools for ensuring sustainable agriculture and for attaining the current global food security goal in line with the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) of United Nations. Although some review studies addressed land suitability, few of them specifically focused on land suitability analysis for agriculture. Furthermore, previous reviews have not reflected on the impact of climate change on future land suitability and how this can be addressed or integrated into ALSA methods. In the context of global environmental changes and sustainable agriculture debate, we showed from the current review that ALSA is a worldwide land use planning approach. We reported from the reviewed articles 69 frequently used factors in ALSA. These factors were further categorized in climatic conditions (16), nutrients and favorable soils (34 of soil and landscape), water availability in the root zone (8 for hydrology and irrigation) and socioeconomic and technical requirements (11). Also, in getting a complete view of crop's ecosystems and factors that can explain and improve yield, inherent local socioeconomic factors should be considered. We showed that this aspect has been often omitted in most of the ALSA modeling with only 38% of the total reviewed article using socioeconomic factors. Also, only 30% of the studies included uncertainty and sensitivity analysis in their modeling process. We found limited inclusions of climate change in the application of the ALSA. We emphasize that incorporating current and future climate change projections in ALSA is the way forward for sustainable or optimum agriculture and food security. To this end, qualitative and quantitative approaches must be integrated into a unique ALSA system (Hybrid Land Evaluation System-HLES) to improve the land evaluation approach.

Crop-land suitability analysis is a prerequisite to achieve optimum utilization of the available land resources for sustainable agricultural production. One of the most important and urgent problems in Bangladesh is to improve agricultural land management and cropping patterns to increase the agricultural production with efficient use of land resources. In Bangladesh, agriculture is the mainstay of national economy and rice is the major food but the production is very low. In particular the rice production of Bangladesh does not meet the demands due to its rapidly growing population. The aim of this study is to determine physical land suitability for rice crop using a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) & GIS approach and to compare present land use vs. potential land use. The aim in integrating Multi-Criteria Evaluation with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is to provide more flexible and more accurate decisions to the decision makers in order to evaluate the effective factors. T...

In this review, technical and economically viable potentials for carbon sequestration in the agricultural soils of Europe by 2008-2012 are analysed against a business-as-usual scenario. We provide a quantitative estimation of the carbon absorption potential per hectare and the surface of agricultural land that is available and suitable for the implementation of those measures, their environmental effects as well as the effects on farm income. Realistically, agricultural soils in EU-15 can sequester up to 16-19 Mt C year À 1 during the first Kyoto commitment period (2008-2012), which is less than one fifth of the theoretical potential and equivalent to 2% of European anthropogenic emissions. We identified as most promising measures: the promotion of organic inputs on arable land instead of grassland, the introduction of perennials (grasses, trees) on arable set-aside land for conservation or biofuel purposes, to promote organic farming, to raise the water table in farmed peatland, and-with restrictions-zero tillage or conservation tillage. Many options have environmental benefits but some risk of increasing N 2 O emissions. For most measures it is impossible to determine the overall impact on farm profitability. Efficient carbon sequestration in agricultural soils demands a permanent management change and implementation concepts adjusted to local soil, climate and management features in order to allow selection of areas with high carbon sequestering potential. Some of the present agricultural policy schemes have probably helped to maintain carbon stocks in agricultural soils.