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The goal of the research is the development of effective methods of stabilization and determining ways to increase productive productivity in natural and designed agrocenosis. It is necessary to choose the promising composition of the pasture reclamation and forage plantations, taking into account their seasonality and the optimal seizures of the seizure of phytomass. The objects of research chosen pasture phytocenoses of the Astrakhan Volga region, the northern part of the Harabali district, the Burley plot (47° 33' N.; 47° 16' E), and vegetative sites of the hydrological complex of the Federal research center of agroecology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Volgograd (48 ° 65' N., 44 ° 44' E.). Ecological and biological features of the dominant forage shrubs of Eurotia Ceratoides L. and Kochia Prostrata L. Schrad, Artemisia Lercheana Web., and the herbs of the Poaceae family studied according to generally accepted techniques. As a result of research, it was found that in the vegetative sites with a black soil soil substrate, the best conditions for the growth and development of herbage with the average productivity of the green mass of 1.1 t / ha for vegetation are formed, where more than 70% of the phytomass shape Poaceae. The smallest average productivity is marked on the light-chestnut soup substrate "Spring-Summer" pasture – 0.73 t / ha. Conclusion. The use of pastures is different, so the composition of agrocenoses must be chosen based on the season of operation, optimizing the load on the pasture. At the moment, the maximum adapted composition of the pasture reclamation and forage plantations, promising to create multi-tiered communities. The presented assortment serves as a stable source of additional and stable animal feed on the pasture, while at the same time rendering a positive phytomeliorative effect. The design of pasture agrocenoses allows to achieve productivity of at least 0.73 t / ha. In the structure of their phytomass, cereal species dominate, and shrubs and semi-stares perform a stabilizing role, contributing to the acceleration of the processes for the restoration of degraded pasture phytocenoses.

Abstract Soil hydrology has deep Russian roots, which are primarily related to the theory of soil hydrological constants and their practical application. These constants have been used to assess the hydrological soil conditions in stationary observations, for which attempts to arrange regular hydrological observations in the landscape faced impracticable complexity of work and calculations and provided unreliable quantitative predictions. At present, there are new opportunities for experimental research, digital analysis, and prediction of hydrological indicators of soils in the landscape. A new quantitative approach to the use of digital technologies for monitoring soil water and temperature in the soils of agricultural landscapes, their dynamics, and their probabilistic calculations has been developed. Based on the soil map, it is proposed to create an information and measurement system with the studied thermal and hydrophysical characteristics of soils using mathematical models to calculate the dynamics of moisture and temperature for given periods and conditions of different availability of heat and precipitation, which allows us to quantify the availability of moisture reserves in the soils of the agricultural landscape. This system of observations, assessment, and forecast includes the use of modern technologies for determining soil water content and temperature, the adaptation of predictive physically based models for calculating the dynamics of moisture reserves depending on the availability of precipitation and conditions at the lower boundary of soil profiles. The paper deals with the hydrological analysis of soils by the example of the agricultural landscape of the Zelenograd station of the Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute in the village of El’digino, Pushkino district, Moscow oblast.

Despite their negative environmental impacts, human-modified environments such as agricultural and urban landscapes can have a relevant role on biodiversity conservation as complements of protected areas. Such anthropized landscapes may have endangered, valuable, and nuisance species, although most of them do not fit in any of these categories. Therefore, in such environments we must deal with the same decision-making process concerning the same possible interventions proposed by Caughley (1994) to wildlife management, which are related to biological conservation, sustainable use, control/coexistence, and monitoring. Such decision-making process should be based on good science and good governance. On such context, the first step should be to implement multifunctional landscapes, which keep their primary mission of human use, but incorporate a second but fundamental mission of biological conservation. In this study we present a summary of the research carried out at the Biota Program of Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) in this field since the late 1990's and propose priorities for biodiversity research and governance in multifunctional landscapes for the near future. Resumo Apesar de seus impactos ambientais negativos, ambientes modificados pelo homem, como paisagens agrícolas e urbanas, podem ter um papel relevante na conservação da biodiversidade como complementos de áreas protegidas. Tais paisagens antropizadas podem ter espécies ameaçadas, valiosas e incômodas, embora a maioria delas não se enquadre em nenhuma dessas categorias. Portanto, em tais ambientes devemos lidar com o mesmo processo de tomada de decisão sobre as mesmas possíveis intervenções propostas por Caughley (1994) para o manejo da vida selvagem, que estão relacionadas à conservação biológica, uso sustentável, controle/coexistência e monitoramento. Esse processo de tomada de decisão deve ser baseado em boa ciência e boa governança. Neste contexto, o primeiro passo deverá ser a implementação de paisagens multifuncionais, que mantenham a sua missão primordial de uso humano, mas que incorporem uma segunda, mas fundamental missão de conservação biológica. Neste estudo apresentamos um resumo das pesquisas realizadas no Programa Biota da Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) neste campo desde o final da década de 1990 e propomos prioridades para pesquisa e governança da biodiversidade em paisagens multifuncionais para o futuro próximo.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, irrigation in Andalusia experienced a historic expansion as a result of the transfer of political powers from the State to regional authorities and, thanks to its application in Andalusia, to pass, among other measures, an agrarian reform bill and the subsequent development of new irrigation infrastructures. Against this background, our objective was to determine the role of the body responsible for implementing agrarian reform, i.e., the Institute for Agrarian Reform (Instituto Andaluz de Reforma Agraria, IARA), by converting drylands into irrigation lands, with a special focus on one of the region’s most vibrant agro-economically transformed areas: the irrigable area of the River Chanza (the west coast of the province of Huelva). To conduct the study, we have applied the historical method and content analysis to technical, legal and agro-statistical documentation from the entire active period of the IARA (1984–2011). The results highlight the leading role played by the IARA in extending irrigation land in agrarian-reform priority areas, as well as in developing irrigation infrastructures in the areas that the State defined as strategic in Andalusia, such as the 17,200 hectares of irrigated land of the Chanza Irrigation Project. We conclude that the radical agro-productive transformation of the coast of Huelva in recent decades is mainly due to the availability of water for irrigation, which the IARA was primarily responsible for planning and executing, The paper is a result of the project PY20_00864 financed by the PAIDI 2020 Plan of the Regional Government of Andalusia and the FEDER Operative Program

ViSA is a spatial agent-based model that simulates the decision behaviors of different stakeholders showing demands for ecosystem services in agricultural landscape. The lack of sufficient supply of ecosystem services triggers stakeholders to apply different management options to increase their supply. However, while attempting to reduce the supply–demand gap, conflicts arise among stakeholders due to the tradeoff nature of some ecosystem services. ViSA investigates conditions and scenarios that can minimize such supply–demand gap while reducing the risk of conflicts by suggesting different mixes of management options and decision rules.

Birds have a significant role in maintaining the ecological balance of agro-ecosystems. But yet there is no documentation related to bird diversity in the agricultural landscapes of eastern Uttar Pradesh. This study was conducted from March 2019 to February 2020 using fixed radius point count method in Ayodhya district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. A total of 139 bird species belonging to 107 genera, 49 families and 15 orders were recorded from the study area. Passeriformes was the most dominant order with 28 families and 76 species. Accipitridae and Muscicapidae were the most diverse families with 11 species each and RDi value of 7.91. Among the recorded bird species, 105 species (76%) were resident, 29 species (21%) were winter visitors and only 5 species (4%) were summer visitors. According to the feeding guilds, omnivores (46 species, 33%) were highly represented, followed by insectivores (31%), carnivores (25%), granivores (6%), frugivores (4%) and nectarivores (1%). The Sohawal tehsil was found to have the highest species richness and a Shannon-Weiner diversity index (133, 4.30). Aquila nipalensis and Neophron percnopterus were the two ‘Endangered’ species, Antigone antigone and Clanga hastata were the two ‘Vulnerable’ species and Ciconia episcopus, Gyps himalayensis, Mycteria leucocephala and Psittacula eupatria were the four ‘Near Threatened’ species found in this region. In addition to this, the region also supported 31 species (22%) whose global population trend is decreasing. This study provides a baseline data on the bird diversity present in agricultural landscapes of this region. Based on which further studies should be designed to understand the factors influencing the diversity of birds in these agricultural landscapes which are continuously subjected to anthropogenic pressures.

The aim of the research is to study the effect of multipurpose compost on the agrochemical indicators of sod-podzolic soil and the productivity of field crop rotation in reclaimed agricultural landscapes of the humid zone. Methodology and methods of research. The studies were carried out at an experimental area in the Tver region in 2013–2019 on a drained soddy-podzolic gley soil. Multipurpose compost was applied for sowing spring wheat at a dose of 12 t/ha, which is N300P180K120. Subsequently, the aftereffect of compost on soil properties and crop productivity in the crop rotation was studied: spring wheat – spring rapeseed (for green manure) – winter rye - oats with over-sowing of grasses – a mixture of 1–3 years of use. Grain crop rotation was deployed in time. Results. It was found that the level of mobile phosphorus increased by 7.4–23 %, exchangeable potassium – by 6.8–26.5 %. In areas with a low content of nutrients, the accumulation of mobile phosphorus (in the eluvial-transit variant of the northern slope) and exchangeable potassium (in the transit northern slope) increased by 23.6 and 26.5 %, respectively. On variants of the experiment with a high content of nutrients, their content decreased slightly over seven years. The amount of easily hydrolyzable nitrogen during the rotation of the crop rotation decreased by 13.4–57.2 %. The content of organic matter increased by 6.7–11.9 % (rel.). Soil acidity (pHKCl) during the rotation of the crop rotation increased by 0.03–0.23 units. The greatest acidification of the soil solution was noted in the transit-accumulative variant of the northern slope (by 0.23 units). It was found that the use of multipurpose compost contributed to an increase in crop yield on average per rotation by 1.6–13.2 c/ha of feed units. The maximum yield increase (44%) was obtained in the eluvial-transit and transit variants of the southern slope. Scientific novelty. The dependence of agrochemical indicators of sod-podzolic soil and crop productivity on the use of multipurpose compost in individual agromicrolandscapes has been established.

The location, size, and structure of the farmlands and hydraulic systems built by the Indigenous inhabitants of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain, remain unknown. This hampers our ability to understand how they organized agricultural production and how European settlers transformed local landscapes to build commercial plantations in the late fifteenth century. This paper combines an analysis of archival sources with the study of agricultural landscapes and practices to identify and describe the fields that were employed by the first colonists of Aguimes and Temisas, and to derive information about the location, design, and management of the pre-Hispanic farmlands.

Farm habitat enrichment is crucial for sustainable production of pollinator-dependent crops. Correct choice of crop and non-crop plant species in habitat management support resilient pollinator fauna and effective pollination service delivery. We identify key network metrices to recognize suitable crop and non-crop plant species for farm habitat enrichment. We also highlight the importance of seasonal variation of the key plant and pollinator species that will crucially inform farm management. Crop species played a key role in maintaining plant-pollinator network integrity. In contrast to the conventional practice of focussing on non-crop plants for pollination service restoration, we find crop plants across seasons hold a key role in maintaining healthy plant-pollinator networks. Our study highlights the importance of non-bee pollinators especially, flies and butterflies in sustaining healthy plant-pollinator network. Bees were important as connector species and controlled other species in the network. Only 16.67% bees and 33.33% of plant species acted as connector species. Our study also shows that the identity of connector species in a plant-pollinator network can change drastically across seasons.

This paper presents an original approach for identifying and mapping agricultural landscapes that are highly representative of different biogeographical and natural settings and likely to be tradit...

The term Sudetenland refers to large regions of the former Czechoslovakia that had been dominated by Germans. German population was expelled directly after the Second World War, between 1945 and 1947. Almost three million people left large areas in less than two years. This population change led to a break in the relationship between the people and the landscape. The aim of the study is to compare the trajectories of these changes in agricultural landscapes in lower and higher altitudes, both in depopulated areas and areas with preserved populations. This study included ten sites in the region of Northern Bohemia in Czechia (18,000 ha in total). Five of these sites represent depopulated areas, and the other five areas where populations remained preserved. Changes in the landscape were assessed through a bi-temporal analysis of land use change by using aerial photograph data from time hoirzons of 2018 and 1953. Land use changes from the 1950s to the present are corroborated in the studied depopulated and preserved areas mainly by the trajectory of agricultural land to forest. The results prove that both population displacement and landscape type are important factors that affect landscape changes, especially in agricultural landscapes.

Environmental policies that require native vegetation conservation can be challenging to implement, especially in productive agricultural landscapes. In Brazil, the Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law mandates ‘Legal Reserves’, protected native vegetation that landowners must retain on their properties. If landowners do not have the required minimum amount of native vegetation on their properties (the Legal Reserve ‘target’), they must either restore vegetation on the same property to meet the target, or compensate by protecting existing vegetation or restoring it on another property, ideally in ecologically equivalent areas. Here, we evaluate how different strategies (on-site/off-site protection and/or restoration), and different requirements for ecological equivalence when off-site strategies are used, affect the ability to achieve Legal Reserve targets, while minimising the need to restore native vegetation on productive farmland. We used a novel iterative tool to build scenarios that reflect different combinations of strategies to meet the minimum conservation target under different requirements for ecological equivalence, and compared their ability to achieve the target and their likely cost. The Atlantic Forest was the only biome where it was not possible to achieve the Legal Reserve target by protection of existing native vegetation, even when ecological equivalence rules were relaxed. As a consequence, vegetation restoration is required in this biome. Directing this required restoration to pasturelands that are less-suitable for agriculture allowed the target to be achieved in all states of Brazil, as long as only minimal ecological equivalence was required; however, for most states, the need to restore native vegetation on productive areas on farmlands could still be avoided while requiring medium to high ecological equivalence. These findings show the potential for moderate ecological equivalence to be achieved across most of Brazil in a cost-effective way and without impairing productive lands when seeking to meet the Legal Reserve targets.

The article provides the assessment of the levels of aerotechnogenic pollution caused by the emissions from stationary pollution sources of industrial agglomerations in Zhytomyr, taking into account climatic conditions that affect the dispersion and accumulation of pollutants in soils and vegetation cover of surrounding agricultural landscapes. The examination of dust accumulated on the surface of leaves showed that it contains high concentrations of Mn, Cr, Pb, Ni, and Cu. The bioindication method with the use of white-tip radishes was applied to estimate the extent of aerotechnogenic pollution. The results of the investigation testified to the high informativeness of the offered test objects. The indexes of soil saturation with heavy metals indicated the presence of intensive processes of their accumulation. As a consequence, this territory became unsuitable for agricultural production. The inhibition of growth of radish roots identified the toxicity level of the investigated technogenic substrates as medium and higher than average. Also, there is inverse close correlation relationship between the distance from the emission source and the soil phytotoxicity indicators in all the investigated directions.

The main stages of the formation of ecological paradigms of environmental management are considered, the fundamental role of V.V. Dokuchaev ideas and the importance of following V.I. Vernadskiy works in their development are shown. The role of scientists of the Club of Rome in the development of the ideology of sustainable development and its controversial perception by the world scientific community is reflected. The analysis of the existing paradigms, in particular of the co-evolutionary paradigm, and its implementation in the theory and practice of adaptive-landscape farming systems is given. The priority tasks for its improvement are defined. Further prospects for its development are considered in the framework of the proposed constructive-biospheric paradigm of environmental management, which implies the creation of a network of agricultural landscapes (agricultural, water, land reclamation, agro-industrial, rural forestry, livestock, residential) in compliance with the ecological status of the territory. The grouping of ecological functions of the landscape and mechanisms of their transformation into socio-economic functions are considered as tools for landscape-ecological planning and design.

The authors present the results of R & D and new aggregates for improving degraded slope areas. The purpose of the study is to develop new systems of grassland management to increase soil fertility and accelerate the restoration of mountain areas. The object of the study is agricultural practices that increase the productivity of mountain phytocenoses with aggregates developed by the authors for the following operations: slitting, sowing grass seeds and applying mineral fertilizers. The tasks of the research included: to study the optimal distance between the springy stands of the chisel cultivator KCHG-2,4 and to assess the impact of the conducted agricultural practices on changing the floral composition of the grass stand, improving the plant nutrition regime and water-air regime, enriching the grass stands by seeding valuable grass species. The novelty of the technical solution is that new resource-saving methods have been developed to improve the phytocenosis of land using small-sized universal aggregates. The tests were carried out in the mountain zone of the RNO – Alania (Dargava basin, the stronghold of the SKNIIGPSH) at an altitude of 1540m above sea level in the south-eastern exposure with a slope steepness of up to 150. The pasture area is heavily degraded. The experimental section is divided into three repetitions. The width of each repetition is 2.4 m, the length is 10 m, the dividing strips are 1m, the side strips are 2.4 m. The total area of the experimental site located across the slope is 184.2 m2. Results. It was found that a higher yield for three years of observations was revealed in the variant with a distance between the slits of 1.5 m. In relation to the control variant, in the first year of observations, the increase in this variant was 8.9 c/ha of dry weight, and in the third year this indicator increased to 12.5 c/ha, while in the variant with slits after 1 m, this indicator was 5.2–6.7 c/ha, respectively, and at a distance of 2.4 m – 4.3–5.1 c/ha (42 % of the soil cover).

La Mixteca Alta es una región natural y cultural de importancia mundial. La agricultura en la región reconoce serias limitantes ambientales, como lluvias escasas e irregulares, estación de crecimiento corta, y poca extensión de suelos con buena calidad en términos de profundidad, fertilidad y pendiente, estos factores han influido para que las comunidades mixtecas hayan creado diversos paisajes agrícolas, entre los que destacan las terrazas y los lamabordos. El objetivo de este trabajo fue identificar y proponer una clasificación de los paisajes agrícolas en una zona de la Mixteca Alta, a través la interpretación de imágenes de satélite, entrevistas con agricultores, y recorridos de campo. Localmente los sistemas agrícolas se diferencian por la forma del terreno, la modificación del relieve y la disponibilidad de agua. Se identificaron seis paisajes: el valle de temporal, el valle de riego, los valles secundarios, las laderas de temporal, las laderas de riego y las terrazas agrícolas o lamabordos. Cada uno se distingue por un grupo de cultivos de los cuales el maíz aparece como cultivo dominante, excepto en las laderas de riego, que reconoce un sistema de cultivo diferenciado para cada paisaje. Estos paisajes son producto de la interacción entre las comunidades y la geodiversidad, son parte de la identidad de las comunidades mixtecas. Su diversidad tiene un gran valor cultural e histórico, basado en los conocimientos tradicionales involucrados en sus transformaciones.

The adoption of the European Landscape Convention by the member states of the Council of Europe emphasized the importance of raising awareness of, promoting and educating local communities in, and fostering the activism of all European citizens in the process of transforming the European landscape. The work carried out by the Landscape Observatory for Montferrat and Astigiano was to raise awareness in local communities regarding landscape protection processes that those communities could steer, as required by the Code of the Cultural and Landscape Heritage of the Italian State (2004). Consequently, for the first time, a participatory model was established in the province of Asti and the Piedmont region in Italy to support the community-driven requests for a special protection decree for some targeted areas. In this paper, the process and novel multisource methodology used for the two pilot cases are reported, where the landscape values to be protected were identified through local community involvement. Supported by the Landscape Observatory and experts, the broad participation allowed their recognition of Public Interest. These recognitions are relevant because they rely on a shared perspective of populations for the self-management of their landscapes. They represent an operational model for other local communities in the Council of Europe countries.

Background Inter-regional relationships between landscape factors and biological responses in natural conditions are important but difficult to predict because of the differences in each landscape context and local environment. To examine the inter-regional variability in relation to landscape factors and the biological response of an insect pest of rice, Stenotus rubrovittatus, we extrapolated a damage prediction model (the ‘original model’ of our previous study) for rice using land-use data. The ‘original model’ comprised as fixed factors the area of source habitat (i.e. pastures and graminoid-dominated fallow fields), soybean fields, and rice paddies within 300-m radii with research years as the random intercept. We hypothesized that the original model would be applicable to new regions, but the predictive accuracy would be reduced. We predicted that fitting a new extended model, adjusting the parameter coefficients of identical fixed factors of the ‘original model,’ and adding regional random intercepts would improve model performance (the ‘extended model’). A field experiment was conducted in two regions that had a similar landscape context with the original region, each in a different year of four years in total. The proportion of rice damage and surrounding land use within a 300-m radius was investigated, and the data were applied to the models and the applicability and accuracy of the models were examined. Results When the ‘original model’ was assigned to the combined data from the original and extrapolated regions, the relationship between the observed and the predicted values was statistically significant, suggesting that there was an inter-regional common relationship. The relationship was not statistically significant if the model was applied only to the new regions. The extended model accuracy improved by 14% compared with the original model and was applicable for unknown data within the examined regions as demonstrated by three-fold cross validation. Conclusions These results imply that in this pest–crop system, there is likely to be a common inter-regional biological response of arthropods because of landscape factors, although we need to consider local environmental factors. We should be able to apply such relationships to identify or prevent pest hazards by offering region-wide management options.

The increasing interest in the protection of the agricultural landscape as a category of heritage can be observed both in the growing number of globally recognized agricultural landscapes and in the development of new legal and institutional tools for their protection. The multifunctionality of agriculture, involving the multiplicity of interests and actors, engenders the questions of how and who manages the heritage agricultural landscapes at the local level? The research aims to provide an empirical model for the identification and evaluation of the local governance models used in the management of multifunctional agricultural landscapes. It focuses on two heritage agricultural landscapes in Italy and bases on field observations, semi-structured in-depth interviews with the local stakeholders and comparative analysis of the case studies. The research draws the map of interaction between the local stakeholders. It outlines the crucial role played by the local governing bodies in the management of heritage agricultural landscapes, involving several administrative and sociocultural units.

Following the nuclear disaster of 1986, forests have established throughout the abandoned agricultural landscapes within Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (ChEZ). However, they are yet to be monitored prope...

Human-induced land degradation and impairment of ecosystem services (ES) are among the serious problems in Ethiopia due to excessive pressure on land and water resources. Thus, various land managem...