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Soil erosion is a global environmental problem and a pervasive form of land degradation that threatens land productivity and food and water security. Some of the biggest sources of sediment in catchments are cultivated and abandoned lands. However, the abandonment of cultivated fields is not well-researched. Our study assesses the level of degradation in cultivated and abandoned lands using a case study in South Africa. We answer three main questions: (1) What is the extent of crop field degradation on used, partly used, and abandoned fields? (2) What are the drivers of field abandonment in relation to land degradation? (3) Can proposed sustainable land management interventions tackle the dynamics of land abandonment and associated degradation? To answer these questions, cultivated and abandoned lands were mapped in a pilot catchment with ArcGIS tools and assigned severity codes and classified according to status, degradation, and encroachment. Systems diagrams were developed to show the interactions between agricultural land use and the level of degradation and leverage points in the system, with interventions assessed via a multi-criteria analysis. The results revealed that 37% of the total mapped area of croplands in the pilot site was abandoned and 20% of those lands were highly degraded. We argue that the innovative application of systems thinking through causal loop diagrams (CLDs) and leverage point analysis, combined with spatial and multi-criteria analyses, can assist with planning SLM interventions in similar contexts in the developing world.

Recent research has identified the potential of the metropolitan scale, and indeed metropolitan bodies, in achieving greater coordination and more effective land-use management. In this paper, we have undertaken a systematic scoping review of the English-language literature (2014–2019) on metropolitanisation and metropolitan governance, with a view to understanding the potential relationship with more sustainable land management. Our scoping review identified several dominant trends within current research on metropolitanisation and metropolitan governance illustrating the complexity between sustainable land management and issues of territorial politics, resourcing, and power relations. The centrality of collaborative working relationships in supporting sustainable land management is identified, yet collaboration and effective metropolitan scale governance is not always an easy task or readily implemented. The paper identifies a series of challenges and concludes that while there is general consensus that the metropolitan arena may be an appropriate scale through which to support more sustainable land management, there is no agreement on the mechanisms to enable this. Steering and more strongly directing metropolitanisation processes through either formal metropolitan governance structures or other tools could provide a potential approach but will require significant adaptation in power and funding structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) established a science–policy interface (SPI) to address Parties' need for demand-driven, timely, interdisciplinary science and technical knowledge to tackle problems of desertification, land degradation and drought. Since then, a comprehensive assessment of the SPI's impacts on policy decision-making has been lacking, despite perceptions that the SPI is vital to the Convention's success. Addressing this gap, this paper evaluates whether the SPI and its processes and outputs have provided the necessary scientific and technological knowledge and advice to Parties to support timely, evidence-informed decision-making. It applies an analytical framework to assess performance metrics, considering associated documents and evidence of societal relevance and social quality. The findings indicate that SPI outputs have improved implementation of the UNCCD since 2015, particularly in the context of Sustainable Development Goal Target 15.3. SPI outputs have supported scientific cooperation between the Convention and its strategic partners while enhancing its science and technology profile in line with Article 16 and Article 17. The findings indicate that further formalization of the SPI's status within the UNCCD is vital to improve its functions, undertake its work, and enable the UNCCD to maintain its global lead in providing knowledge and advice on combating desertification, land degradation and drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable land management (SLM) practices are key for achieving land degradation neutrality, but their continued implementation lag behind the progression of various forms of land degradation. While many scholars have assessed the drivers of SLM uptake for restoring land affected by desertification, drought, and floods (SDG 15.3 and partly SDG 2.4), little is known about the implication of SLM implementation on invasive alien species (IAS) management. This study aimed at understanding the challenges and proposing solutions for the uptake of SLMs with respect to the management of the invasive tree, Prosopis juliflora, in Baringo County, Kenya. Data were collected with semi-structured questionnaires, the responses were coded into themes, and c-coefficient tables were used to determine code linkages. Our results show that the availability of incentives is the main motivation for invasion management. Thus, management efforts have often focused on private parcels, while communally shared lands tended to be neglected despite their vulnerability to invasion. We conclude that sustainable IAS management lies at a landscape scale, and thus the national IAS management strategies should adopt a collective approach by empowering local actors to engage in SLM implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modifying human activities is key to achieving land degradation neutrality in rangelands. Rangeland stakeholders encompass different ownership regimes; however, little is known about whether different ownership models benefit or degrade social conditions and ecosystem services in the Middle East. The aim of this research was to determine the effects of Collective or Council ownership on social and ecological indicators in the wintery rangeland of Iran. The study included a social network analysis of the 187 stakeholders in the communal rangelands of Kalat (NE Iran). We considered social network variables such as density, reciprocity, transitivity, geodesic distance and E–I (external–internal) and degree centrality combined with ecological indicators such as condition, forage yield and trend in range condition. The stocking rate was 2.43 AU ha−1 in Council rangelands and 0.94 AU ha−1 for Collective rangelands, with both exceeding recommended carrying capacity. Herbage mass and canopy cover were both higher in the Collective (247 kg/ha; 59%) than Council rangelands (140 kg/ha; 48.3%). Density (47.6% and 48.6%) and reciprocity (54.2% and 53.7%) were higher for Collective rangelands than Council rangelands, but were lower for geodesic distance (1.5 and 1.7–1.8) for trust and collaboration ties. Collective rangelands showed more bridging ties (55%) than the council rangelands (27.5%), suggesting they would be more resilient when problems occur. It concluded that social capital was richer in the Collective rangelands, which creates a willingness in operators to contribute to participatory management of rangelands to improve their condition. Finally suggested new tools and policies, and possible financial and pedagogic support be provided to the Council rangelands to increase social capital and improve outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Blue Nile Highlands, Ethiopia, has been experiencing serious land degradation, menacing water security, and then human well-being. However, sustainable land management (SLM) may be the way to curb land degradation and improve water security. Therefore, in order to assess benefits after a 5-year catchment restoration effort, we conducted a paired-catchment study to investigate runoff and soil moisture dynamics. First and second catchments were used as control and treated, respectively. After comparing observations gathered from four sites within each of the study catchments, we found that implementing SLM reduced runoff curve numbers by −13.9 to −21.6 units and increased soil moisture storage by 15.6 to 800%, then promoting rapid recovery of the hydrologic functionality of the natural landscapes. We conclude that SLM initiatives can greatly improve water security in the drought-prone Blue Nile Highlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The couple rapid urbanization and policy failure in controlling urban expansion was sometimes associated to soil and land degradation phenomena in both developing and developed countries. This work points to investigate the link between exurban development and soil/land degradation in the region of Athens (Greece) as a typical semiarid Mediterranean area experiencing a shift from a land-saving compact urban form to a dispersed, low-density urban expansion. The examined area is among the most populated areas in the Mediterranean basin showing an enormous population growth during the last 60 years. While low-density, dispersed urban settlements mainly developed over the decade (2000–2010) in the investigated area occupied mostly land classified at poor soil quality, the overall assessment of vegetation, climate and soil quality layers renders a complex picture in which exurban development consumed high-quality land that were classified as non-vulnerable to land degradation. On the contrary, compact urban settlements prevail in land with intermediate (or even high) soil quality but with inadequate climatic and vegetation conditions, which are classified as highly vulnerable to land degradation. Urban planning should integrate multi-dimensional indicators of soil, climate and vegetation quality to evaluate the environmental impact of exurban development.

The chapter deals with the system of soil governance in the European Union and focuses on legal instruments for the protection and sustainable use of soil. In addition, other aspects of soil governance, like the policies, strategies, and the processes of decision-making, are addressed. Reference points for this assessment are the identified soil threats in the EU and the need for soil protection, based on the results of scientific studies, especially of the Intergovernmental Platform on Climate Change (IPCC 2019) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IP-BES 2018). Currently, there is no comprehensive directive to address soil threats and soil-related issues in a coherent way in the European Union, although several legal instruments refer to certain soil threats, mainly in the field of soil pollution. The European Union has the competence for soil legislation and, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, would be legally able to enact it. Therefore, the current mosaic of approaches can be overcome and replaced by an overall harmonised and comprehensive EU soil protection framework. This is all the more true as the United Nations' 2030 Agenda has set in motion a process that will have far-reaching implications for connected thinking: Sustainable Development Goal 15 and its target 15.3 stipulate that land degradation neutrality should be achieved by 2030, although this is not binding. This requires more than the envisaged revision of the 2006 Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection. In particular, possible legal instruments to protect soils from chemical, biological and physical threats need to be reviewed and further developed. The chapter also explains why elements of the European Green Deal are once again falling short of the need to protect Europe's soils, and, for this purpose, analyzes the EU Climate Law, the Biodiversity Strategy, the Zero Pollution Strategy and the Farm to Fork Strategy in particular. It concludes that the time is ripe for the EU to finally become aware of the importance of soils and to act responsibly and unlike 2007, when the former Soil Protection Framework Directive failed in the Environmental Council. Only through joint efforts and effective action can Member States prevent soils from deteriorating further, becoming unusable, and the loss of soil quality and quantity leading to damage to people and the environment.

Soil fertility decline is a serious global problem, leading to a decline in crop yields and jeopardizing household food security, particularly in developing countries. This paper examines the impact of socioeconomic and institutional factors and the adoption of sustainable land management practices on soil fertility changes on farms between 2002 and 2018 in the Mahottari District of Nepal. A household survey among 184 smallholder farmers was conducted in 2018 to complement soil survey data collected in 2002. A seemingly unrelated regression model was used to estimate factors influencing soil fertility changes between the two periods. The results showed that soil organic matter (SOM), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and soil pH increased, on average, by about 0.2%, 97 kg/ha, 4 kg/ha, and 0.5 scales, respectively, on the studied farms. The regression results indicated that extension visits and government support (free seedlings) had positive effects, while cooperative membership negatively affected soil fertility changes. Moreover, practicing fallow land use improved soil fertility changes on farms, while practicing conventional tillage using animals deteriorated soil fertility changes. The adoption of agroforestry practices positively affected changes in P and K and negatively affected SOM. Overall, this study highlighted the importance of institutional characteristics and sustainable land management practices to improve soil fertility. The policy implications of these findings for enhancing soil fertility on smallholder farms are: (1) increase the frequency of extension visits to share relevant information with farmers; and (2) incentivize farmers to adopt agroforestry and fallowing practices on their farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advanced state of land degradation worldwide urges the large-scale adoption of sustainable land management (SLM). Social learning is considered an important precondition for the adoption of innovative and contextualized SLM. Involving farmers and researchers in participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) of innovative SLM such as regenerative agriculture is expected to enable social learning. Although there is a growing body of literature asserting the achievement of social learning through participatory processes, social learning has been loosely defined, sparsely assessed, and only partially covered when measured. Here, we assess how PM&E of regenerative agriculture, involving local farmers and researchers in southeast Spain, enabled social learning, effectively increasing knowledge exchange and shared understanding of regenerative agriculture effects among participating farmers. We measured whether social learning occurred by covering its social-cognitive (perceptions) and social-relational (social networks) dimensions, and discussed the potential of PM&E to foster SLM adoption and out-scaling. We used fuzzy cognitive mapping and social network analysis as graphical semiquantitative methods to assess changes in farmers' perceptions and shared fluxes of information on regenerative agriculture over approximately three years. Our results show that PM&E enabled social learning among participating farmers, who strengthened and enlarged their social networks for information sharing and presented a more complex and broader shared understanding of regenerative agriculture effects and benefits than pre PM&E. We argue that PM&E thereby creates crucial preconditions for SLM adoption and out-scaling. Our findings are relevant for the design of PM&E processes, living labs, and landscape restoration initiatives that aim to support farmers' adoption and out-scaling of innovative and contextualized SLM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand (NZ), a food-producing, geographically isolated nation has set a domestic dietary guideline of 5 servings a day/person of vegetables. The question "does New Zealand produce enough servings and diversity of vegetables to meet dietary recommendations of 5 diverse servings/day?" was explored. Publicly available data for weight of vegetables produced and hectares of land used in relation to five vegetable diversity groups of white roots-and-tubers, vitamin-Avegetables, other vegetables, dark-green-leafy vegetables, and legumes were examined. Overall, the equivalent of 11.7 servings of vegetables/day/NZperson was produced. Potatoes, onions, carrots, and squash were produced in the largest quantities (total 7.7 servings/day/NZperson) but most onions, squash, and some potatoes were exported (2.5 servings/day/NZperson). There was inadequate production of legumes, 0.6 servings/day/NZ person (peas and beans) and dark-greenleafy vegetables, 0.03 servings/day/NZ person (silverbeet and spinach). Only 0.2% of the total land area of NZ is used for growing vegetables. Expansion of the area used for vegetables should be considered in the context of sustainable production and irreversible pressures confronting the unique land and soils the land use requires, as well as current environmental impacts of intensive conventional outdoor vegetable production. An environmentally sustainable and diverse supply of vegetables for domestic use needs to be strategically and actively protected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The negative effects of climate change and the food production systems, based on an ever-growing, intensive, and unsustainable manner, are threatening the stability of landscapes, and therefore, their components, including humans. The implementation of land sustainable management offers a set of social and ecological benefits. However, it is mostly applied to very small spaces, as an agroecosystem. Aim: To analyze the need for land sustainable management practice scaling of landscapes as a geographic space category, using a scientific approach. Method: Documentary review was used along with the integration of land sustainable management approaches, and the need for landscape scaling, including other sustainability approaches, such as agroecology. Results: The study found a theoretical gap in terms of land sustainable management practice scaling of landscapes as a geographic space category. The need for scaling is mainly explained by the fact that the extent of social and ecological problems goes beyond smaller spaces, such as a farm or an agroecosystem. Conclusions: Landscape is an intrinsic part of cultural identity and heritage with high natural and anthropic values that must be highly regarded. The scaling of land sustainable management practices into the landscape is a necessity. The natural, economic, and social problems associated with land use must be addressed beyond the boundaries of a single agroecosystem.

The influx of nearly a million refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in August 2017 put significant pressure on the regional landscape leading to land degradation due to biomass removal to provide shelter and fuel energy and posed critical challenges for both host and displaced population. This article emphasizes geospatial applications at different stages of addressing land degradation in Cox’s Bazar. A wide range of data and methods were used to delineate land tenure, estimate wood fuel demand and supply, assess land degradation, evaluate land restoration suitability, and monitor restoration activities. The quantitative and spatially explicit information from these geospatial assessments integrated with the technical guidelines for sustainable land management and an adaptive management strategy was critical in enabling a collaborative, multi-disciplinary and evidence-based approach to successfully restoring degraded landscapes in a displacement setting.

The reliable reconstruction of cultural or historical heritage objects is an urgent problem for humanity. It can be successfully solved using up-to-date 3D modeling tools. The proposed technique allows for modeling virtual environments at an even higher level. This study aimed to develop an approach for designing historical heritage objects with sufficient accuracy using a built environment. The Kilburun Fortress was chosen as the object of study. The modeling procedure includes monitoring the object’s territory, analyzing archival, librarian, and cartographic sources, and further modeling and reproducing the research object in a virtual environment using various software tools. The following stages were implemented during this study: analysis and processing of preliminary data (analysis of plans and schemes, overlapping maps); the scaling of graphical objects for the reliable reproduction of the studied object; the design of a working 3D model using AutoCAD and SketchUp; the rendering and final processing of textures using Quixel; and visualization using Twinmotion. As a result, a model of the historical heritage object was created using 3D means. The model can also be integrated into ArchiCAD and Revit software.

The hydrological impact of many expensive investments on watershed interventions remains unquantified due to lack of time series data. In this study, remote sensing imagery is utilized to quantify and detect vegetation cover change in Magera micro-watershed, Ethiopia, where sustainable land management interventions have been implemented. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values were retrieved for the period 2010 to 2019, which encompasses before, during and after the interventions. Mann-Kendal trend test was used to detect temporal trends in the monthly NDVI values. In addition, multiple change-point analyses were carried out using Pettitt’s, Buishand’s and Standard Normal Homogeneity (SNH) tests to detect any abrupt changes due to the watershed interventions. The possible influence of rainfall on changes in vegetation cover was investigated. A significant increasing trend (from 1.5% to 33%) was detected for dense vegetation at the expense of a significant reduction in bare land from 40.9% to 0.6% over the analysis period. An abrupt change in vegetation cover was detected in 2015 in response to the interventions. A weak and decreasing correlation was obtained between monthly rainfall magnitude and NDVI values, which indicates that the increase in vegetation cover is not from rainfall influences. The study shows that the sustainable land management has an overall positive impact on the study area. The findings of this research support the applicability of remote sensing approaches to provide useful information on the impacts of watershed intervention investments.

Declining soil fertility is one of the major causes of food insecurity and high levels of poverty, both of which tend to hamper economic development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To improve soil fertility, the implementation of soil organic carbon (SOC) enhancement technologies has become crucial to slowing land degradation, through increasing SOC, which is the basis of soil fertility. Using data from 381 households from Azuga-Suba and Yesir watersheds in Ethiopia, this study explores the extent of the adoption of technologies that enhance SOC. Soil organic carbon enhancing technologies include the use of manure, fertilizer, and crop residue management. The Probit model was used to assess what constrains the adoption of these technologies. The results indicate that fertilizer is the most adopted technology having over 90% adoption in both watersheds. Manure at 28% and 56% adoption while crop residue management at 37% and 26% adoption in Azuga-Suba and Yesir respectively. Technology adoption is highly constrained by lack of education, access to extension services, and access to credit services. Institutions and local farmer groups influence these constraints through training, provision of information, offering incentives, and credit services. Large plots hinder the use of manure and fertilizer due to the bulky nature of manure and the high costs of fertilizers. Insecurity in land tenure limits the adoption of manure and residue management. Perception of soil erosion and soil fertility tends to constrain the adoption of SOC technologies, as farmers are afraid that all improvements through soil amendment will be diminished through soil erosion. At the same time, farmers do not perceive the importance of SOC enhancing technologies in plots that were fertile. These results imply that strengthening institutions that enhance farmers’ knowledge and provide credit as well as strengthening social protection schemes and farmer groups is crucial in promoting the adoption of these technologies.

Land is essential to livelihoods, so it is hard to overstate its strategic significance for well-being and prosperity. It has been detected that farm size greatly influences agricultural sustainability from the viewpoints of the economy, environment, and society. Land concentration is negatively affecting the development of rural communities. Similar to other European countries, Estonia is undergoing agricultural land concentration. One way to stop the further concentration of agricultural land is to set an upper limit to land acquisition (similar to that in Latvia and Lithuania). This paper aimed to determine what kind of regulations concerning agricultural land use and ownership Estonia needs to restrain land concentration. Four sources of data were used for this research: statistical data from Statistics Estonia, the data for the land holdings of agricultural producers from the Estonian Agricultural Registers and Information Board, data from the Land Registry and available literature. The outcome of the study confirmed that Estonia requires policy direction and regulations for the agricultural land market, that would help to lighten the impact of land concentration in rural areas in the long run, similar to several other European countries.

This study assessed the use of sustainable land management practices (SLMP) among arable crop farmers in the study area. Using three stage sampling technique, 120 arable crop farmers were selected as study sample. Interview schedule was utilized to elicit relevant information and data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results show that most (90.8%) of the respondents were males, married (90.0%) with mean age, household size and years of formal education of 50.5±12.3, 7 ± 3 persons and 8.0±5.2 years, respectively. Most (87.5%) of the respondents were primarily engaged in farming with an average farming experience and annual primary income of 19.6±11.7years and ₦418,712.50±519,625.60, respectively. An average farm size of 5.4±3.2ha was mainly grown with maize (85.0%), cassava (77.5%) and yam (51.7%) while only 7.5% of the respondents had access to farm credit. The most frequently utilized SLMP among respondents included crop rotation (1.67), multiple cropping (1.60) and use of contour bund (1.58) while purchasing power of land users (1.57), poor incentives for natural resources conservation (1.42) and limited use of land due to tenure system (1.38) were the main constraints to utilization of SLMP in arable crop production in the study area. Positive relationship was found between years of formal education (r = 0.01, p=0.05) and utilization of SLMP while age (r = -0.16, p=0.05) was negatively related to utilization. The study concluded that SLMP were moderately utilized and recommended that government should implement special incentive packages for farmers that utilize SLMP towards improved utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a household and plot‐level survey conducted in Ethiopia, this study analyses the difference in farmers' adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) practices between their rainfed and irrigated plots. The paper also investigates the varying influence of different types of irrigation water management systems and associated irrigation technologies on the adoption of SLM practices in irrigated plots. After controlling for heterogeneity among different irrigation water management systems and technologies, we found that access to irrigation play major role in enhancing farmers' motivation to adopt more SLM practices. Furthermore, the combined effect of irrigation water management system and irrigation technology on type and number of SLM practices adopted is quite varied and very significant. The evidence highlights that farmers adopt more SLM practices in their plots with pump irrigation compared with those plots where gravity irrigation is applied because pump irrigation systems enhance complementarities with SLM practices. Finally, the findings underscore that the type of irrigation water management and the irrigation technology applied play an important role in restoring degraded lands and maintaining soil fertility, even when farmers' adoption of irrigation was not explicitly triggered by concerns for soil health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at identifying whether and how sustainable land management practices and livelihood diversification strategies have contributed to moderating the impacts of the El Niño-related drought in Zambia. This is done using a specifically designed survey called the El Niño Impact Assessment Survey, which is combined with the Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Surveys, as well as high resolution rainfall data at the ward level over 34 years. This unique panel data set allows us to control for the time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity to understand the impacts of shocks like El Niño, which are expected to become more frequent and severe as a result of climate change. We find that maize yields were substantially reduced and that household incomes were only partially protected from the shock thanks to diversification strategies. Mechanical erosion control measures and livestock diversification emerge as the only strategies that provided yield and income benefits under weather shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, increasing the vulnerability of smallholder farmers dependent on rain-fed agriculture. We evaluate the extent to which farmers in Malawi suffer crop production losses due to extreme weather, and whether sustainable land management (SLM) practices help shield crop production losses from extreme events. We use a three period panel dataset where widespread floods and droughts occurred in separate periods, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate impacts using data collected immediately following these events. Results show that crop production outcomes were severely hit by both floods and droughts, with average losses ranging between 32–48 per cent. Legume intercropping provided protection against both floods and droughts, while green belts provided protection against floods. However, we find limited evidence that SLM adoption decisions are driven by exposure to weather shocks; rather, farmers with more productive assets are more likely to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk of erosion is particularly high in Mediterranean areas, especially in areas that are subject to a not so effective agricultural management-or with some omissions-, land abandonment or wildfires. Soils on Crete are under imminent threat of desertification, characterized by loss of vegetation, water erosion, and subsequently, loss of soil. Several large-scale studies have estimated average soil erosion on the island between 6 and 8 Mg/ha/year, but more localized investigations assess soil losses one order of magnitude higher. An experiment initiated in 2017, under the framework of the SoilCare H2020 EU project, aimed to evaluate the effect of different management practices on the soil erosion. The experiment was set up in control versus treatment experimental design including different sets of treatments, targeting the most important cultivations on Crete (olive orchards, vineyards, fruit orchards). The minimum-to-no tillage practice was adopted as an erosion mitigation practice for the olive orchard study site, while for the vineyard site, the cover crop practice was used. For the fruit orchard field, the crop-type change procedure (orange to avocado) was used. The experiment demonstrated that soil-improving cropping techniques have an important impact on soil erosion, and as a result, on soil water conservation that is of primary importance, especially for the Mediterranean dry regions. The demonstration of the findings is of practical use to most stakeholders, especially those that live and work with the local land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Anthropocene, Earth's social-ecological systems are experiencing intense pressure as a result of human-induced resource over-exploitation at a magnitude never seen before. Consequently, land use and cover change (LUCC) dynamics have implications for environment through the resultant land degradation. This study focuses on understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics associated with mining activities in Zambia's Solwezi copper mining district. Landsat-5 (TM), Landsat-8 (OLI and TIRS) satellite images were classified using Supervised Classification and Maximum Likelihood Approach in ERDAS Imagine 2015 for the LUCC detection between 1995 and 2019. The images were categorized into six different classes: water body, mine, agriculture, built-up, barren and forest areas. The results show a rapid reduction of forest cover and water body from 82.32% and 1.88% to 54.14% and 0.47% in 1995 and 2019, respectively. Built-up area on the other hand increased from 2.04% in 1995 to 4.9% in 2019. Mine area increased from 0.02% in 1995 to 1.43% in 2019. Barren and agriculture areas both gradually increased from 8.24% and 5.5% to 19.52% and 19.53% in 1995 and 2019, respectively. Thus, there was progressive LUCC with increase in the mining activities in the study area. The results obtained from this study proffer lessons that will benefit policy and environmental management strategies applicable to mining-dominated landscapes. We suggest that multiple stakeholders make use of such baselines to guide conservation planning and mitigation measures in resource-rich and mining-dominated landscapes.

Despite increasing land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa, investment in sustainable land management (SLM) remains low. Empirical evidence show that smallholder farmers tend to prioritize investing in SLM practices with short-term turnover—e.g., composting and crop residue integration—in order to improve soil fertility and yields to the neglect of practices like agroforestry whose benefits tend to materialize in a relatively longer period. While it is crucial for farmers to prioritize both short-term and long-term SLM practices for the maintenance of overall ecosystem health, the factors that shape the concurrent adoption of short-term and long-term SLM practices remain underexplored. Using data from a cross-sectional survey with smallholder farming households (n = 512) in Malawi, we employed logistic regression to examine the determinants of the concurrent adoption of short-term and long-term SLM practices. Our findings show that plot size, farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing, presence of a chronically ill person in the household, active household labor size, wealth and women's autonomy are noteworthy determinants. A unit increase in plot size was associated with increased odds (OR = 1.41, p < 0.01) of simultaneously adopting short-term and long-term SLM practices. Similarly, a unit increase in the active labor size of the household (OR = 1.30, p < 0.001) was positively associated with the concurrent adoption of short-term and long-term SLM practices. Households with no chronically sick person were 3.2 times more likely to adopt short-term and long-term SLM practices simulataneously compared to those with chronically sick persons. Farming households that exchanged farming information (OR = 2.50, p < 0.001) with other households had significantly higher odds of adopting short-term and long-term SLM practices concurrently than those that did not share farming information. Compared to households in the poorest wealth category, those in the richer (OR = 3.14, p < 0.001) and richest (OR = 3.64, p < 0.001) wealth categories were both significantly more likely to adopt short-term and long-term SLM practices concurrently. These findings suggest that initiatives targeted at promoting the holistic adoption of SLM practices—a combination of both short-term and long-term practices—must pay attention to contextual nuances including household wealth, gender, farmer training and land access dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop selection for sustainable and effective agricultural land management has to take into accounts several issues such as chemical, physical, environmental, economic and social conditions. Especially after land consolidation projects, sustainable agricultural crop management should be investigated for each crop which are suitable for the project area to benefit from the land consolidation contributions such as irrigation, roads, modified parcel boundaries and surfaces. Thus, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) aided suitability analysis techniques are required to determine the suitable crops for the consolidated areas. In this study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria decision techniques are integrated with GIS to determine most suitable crops for parcels. The suitability maps of wheat, clover, sugar beet and corn crops are generated for the projected area using 63 Land Mapping Units (LMU) with considering pH, lime, texture, salinity, organic matter, electrical conductivity, permeability, slope, aspect and the distance to settlements and roads within chemical, physical, topological and socio-economic criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil characteristics have spatial variations. Understanding spatial variations of soil characteristics is among the effective factors in sustainable land management. A better understanding the effects of management factors on soil characteristics need to quantify their heterogeneity and variability. This research was conducted with the aim of investigating spatial variations of some soil characteristics such as soil texture (clay, silt and sand), calcium carbonate (CaCo3), soil acidity (pH), and soil salinity using geostatistic methods. For this purpose, 252 soil samples (from 0 to 20 cm depth) were prepared from the study area and physical and chemical properties of soil were measured. After normalizing the data, the half-shift of each of the studied characteristics was calculated and the best model was fitted to them. Then, the characteristics of the study were estimated through different methods of conventional Kriging, simple Kriging, discrete Kriging and Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) using ArcGIS software. The accuracy of the estimation was evaluated using the mean absolute error (MAE), the mean bias error (MBE), and the root mean square error (RMSE). The results showed that the best model for the acidity was the spherical model and for the other measured variables was the exponential model. Moreover, the conventional CoKriging method for clay, calcium carbonate and acidity (pH), IDW method for silt and soil salinity, and conventional Kriging method for sand were better than other methods used and provided more accurate estimates.

Abstract Balancing urban growth and natural resource availability has been recognized as the main challenge of the 21st century from the strategic documents adopted by the recent World Summits. Agenda 21 advocates sustainable land use, as soil is a crucial natural resource to reduce urban vulnerability due e.g. to climate change, energy saving, and natural disasters. In this perspective, this paper aims at supporting local decision makers in identifying the portions and the buildings of an urban area most susceptible to transformation, in order to promote a sustainable land use according to physical and functional characteristics. The proposed methodology combines the 3D modeling of urban settlements and the adoption of the performance-based approach by the urban transformation government, in order to guarantee the satisfaction of the supply–demand ratio through a compatible balance between urban growth dynamics and the overall urban efficiency. The test area was Gozo island, where a significant urban transformation will occur as a consequence of the new Malta-Gozo tunnel construction.

In times of climate change and increasing societal needs, the pressure on land is unprecedented. Sustainable soil and land use management is only achievable if stakeholders from sectors concerned work together. The aim of the project INSPIRATION (Integrated spatial planning, land use, and soil management esearch action) was the integration of science and interdisciplinary research fields to develop a strategic research agenda (SRA) for sustainable land use and soil management in Europe. This article presents the Austrian perspective and contribution to the SRA, highlights the findings of the project, and identifies the most urgent research needs addressing key societal challenges. The project followed a bottom-up, multi-stakeholder approach to enable an evidence-based collation process of interdisciplinary research needs. Through expert interviews, reviews of state-of-the-art documents, and public involvement, six key research topics of the most pressing research needs in Austria were identified. This Austrian contribution to the SRA is characterized by the need for a communication frame and knowledge transfer among research, policy, and society. A compatible knowledge transfer is pivotal to establish an understanding of shared responsibilities among all stakeholders.

Gully erosion causes severe damage to crops and infrastructures and affects the provision of ecosystem services worldwide. To assess the potential of gully control measures to protect ecosystem services and assess the conditions required for their large-scale implementation, this paper critically evaluates a range of gully control measures documented in the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT). Environmental and socio-economic impacts of technologies are assessed, as well as the implications for ecosystem services, costs and benefits of implementation, and stakeholder’s perception. It is demonstrated how gully control measures provide notable on-site and off-site benefits for socio-economic, cultural, ecological, and production goals, and to protect crucial ecosystem services. Control measures particularly contribute to soil and water conservation and to regulating ecosystem services by controlling soil erosion, water cycling, and natural hazards. Most effective control measures consist of combined vegetative and structural measures and of catchment wide interventions. While implementation of gully control can initially be expensive, on the long term, the cost-benefit ratio is usually positive. Moreover, the results emphasize the importance of evaluating control measures considering monetary aspects and all ecosystem services they provide. Nevertheless, individual farmers can often not afford the implementation and maintenance costs due to barriers for implementation and therefore require sustained institutional support.

The Taiwan Lantern Festival (TLF) is a specific cultural tradition that has evolved over many years. It is a large-scale festival as determined by the large number of installations and visitors—that is, 20 million visitors in a period of two weeks. The aim of this study is to combine the TLF-related physical dynamics of land use and lantern installations with the augmented dynamics of lantern installations at reallocated sites. We compared five cities in Taiwan with regard to land alterations between 2016 and 2020. The TLF land assessment identified 34 cross-referred types of land use between aerial imagery and GIS surveys in a small area of 2 km × 2 km, in total. The change in land use by year varied between 2% and 499%, up to three times. The complexity of physical dynamics was re-experienced by a more sustainable dynamic of augmented reality (AR) using a scan-to-AR approach to reactivate the installations and fabrics at redeployed sites. The installations of the 2016 TLF were applied. We found that the land use, 3D scan, and AR reshaped the spatio-temporal festivalscape by both types of dynamics. The simulation demonstrated that the fabric retrieved by heterogeneous technologies had equal importance in assessing the host city and in enabling a reactivation for more diversified scales and characters, even with a smartphone AR.

This paper discusses opportunities to use remote sensing (RS) technologies in addressing the persistent global challenges related to the artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector. The paper uses a systematic literature review to identify, analyze, and synthesize various uses of RS on the detection and monitoring of ASGM activities across the globe. The study covers the use of spaceborne sensors and available opportunities for data access and processing and emphasizes the important role that freely-available data has played in understanding ASGM activities. It discusses applications and opportunities offered in assessing the geospatial and temporal characteristics of ASGM and its impacts on the surrounding environment. Furthermore, it examines different indicators for the detection of ASGM in the landscape. Finally, technological capabilities described in the study are illustrated with case studies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Colombia using cloud computing with the Open Data Cube. The case studies demonstrate the identification and quantification of impacts of ASGM activities on land degradation and water turbidity in remote areas and results are dissiminated using the MapX platform. This facilitates policy development, implementation, and evaluation in the ASGM context.

Investments to promote sustainable land-use within critical river catchment areas are often undertaken to provide benefits to society. Investments generally aim to protect or restore ecological infrastructure—the underlying framework of ecosystems, functions and processes that supply ecosystem services—for multiple benefits to society. However, the empirical evidence base from studies across the world on both mechanisms and outcomes to support these assumptions is limited. We collate evidence on the benefits of ecological infrastructure interventions, in terms of ecosystem services provided to society, from three major South African water-providing catchments using a novel framework. In these catchments, millions of US Dollars' worth of investments have been made into ecological infrastructure since 1996. We ask the question: is there evidence that ecological infrastructure interventions are delivering the proposed benefits? Results show that even in catchments with substantial, long-term financial investment into ecological infrastructure, research has not empirically confirmed the benefits. Better baseline data collection is required, and monitoring during and after ecological infrastructure interventions, to quantify benefits to society. This evidence is needed to leverage investment into ecological infrastructure interventions at scale. Investment at scale is needed to transition to more sustainable land-use to unlock greater benefits to nature and people.