When communicating with farmers and ranchers, land conservation professionals would be better equipped if they understood key influences on their target audience's decisions to permanently preserve their land from development. This study predicted key factors influencing rancher engagement in a conservation easement (CE) agreement. Specifically, theory of planned behavior, trust, environmental identity, past behavior, perceptions of specific CE characteristics and selected participant demographics were used as predictors.

Irreplaceable, self‐organizing landforms and the endemic and ecologically specialized biodiversity they support are threatened globally by anthropogenic disturbances. Although the outcome of disrupting landforms is somewhat understood, little information exists that documents population consequences of landform disturbance on endemic biodiversity.

An empirical power function model of V=kQᵐ has been used worldwide to describe the relationship between flow velocity (V, ms⁻¹) and discharge rate (Q, m³s⁻¹) for rill and open channel flows. However, it has seldom been applied to watershed outlet channels taking into account the impacts of watershed size. In this study, observed data from four experimental watersheds of different sizes, ranging from about 1 to 100km², were used to verify the stability of the power function model for use at a watershed level on the Loess Plateau.

Web-based surveys cost less, obtain responses more quickly, and provide more efficient data management compared to mail surveys; however, the potential inability to reach a random, representative sample of the public raises concerns about the validity and reliability of Web-based surveys. We surveyed recreational users of Virginia wildlife management areas with either a Web-based or mail instrument, based on user preference for contact. Response rates for both modes were comparable, but Web-based surveys were more complete and returned more rapidly than were mail surveys.

A large portion of the Occidental Region of Paraguay consists of a semi-arid territory with vegetation adapted to the features of this region. For just over a decade, a process of intense deforestation has resulted from the expansion of mechanized farming, carried out without any form of land management or planning; this has led to the fragmentation of the forests in this region.

Farmers are key actors in land management confronted with society’s increasing demand for public goods. Understanding farmers’ values and motivations is essential to policy makers to foster more sustainable production practices. So far, no definite value profile for European farmers exists. Based on Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, we statistically analyzed six rounds of the European Social Survey to explore farmers’ value orientations in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.

This paper reviews water-borne soil erosion in Australia in the context of current environmental policy needs. Sustainability has emerged as a central tenet of environmental policy in Australia and water-borne hillslope soil erosion rates are used as one of the indicators of agricultural sustainability in State of the Environment reporting. We review attempts to quantify hillslope erosion rates over Australia and we identify areas at risk of exceeding natural baseline rates. We also review historical definitions of sustainable, or ‘tolerable’ erosion rates, and how to set these rates.

Soil erosion along with soil particles and nutrients losses is detrimental to crop production. We carried out a 5-year (2010 to 2014) study to characterize the soil erosion and nitrogen and phosphorus losses caused by rainfall under different fertilizer application levels in order to provide a theoretical evidence for the agricultural production and coordinate land management to improve ecological environment. The experiment took place under rotation cropping, winter wheat-summer maize, on a 15° slope purple soil in Chongqing (China) within the Three Gorges Region (TGR).

Soil surveys are an essential source of information for land management although a limited budget often reduces the amount of data available. Even if the dataset is limited, geostatistics can provide a valid estimation tool through a weighted moving average interpolation (kriging). Often, however, the spatial variability of soil properties appears smoothed and short range variability is underestimated by this kind of interpolation technique. A more realistic distribution of a given variable on the territory can be obtained through models based on stochastic simulation.

The Curve Number (CN) method is an engineering and land management tool for estimating surface runoff from rainstorms. We investigated CN under continuous longterm no-till corn (Zea mays L.; watershed WS191) and compared it with other potentially high infiltration agricultural practices using data from three experimental watersheds (average area = 0.74 ha [1.83 ac]) at the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed (NAEW) near Coshocton, Ohio.

There are many controversies and conflicts surrounding land management in the Great Basin. The conflicts often revolve around the maintenance of native plant and animal communities. This paper outlines some of the historical aspects of plant community change and some of the unanticipated impacts of policies applied to the Great Basin during Euro-American exploration and settlement. This narrative provides readers with some background on the turbulent history of the Great Basin, and suggests the need for a coordinated vision for future Great Basin land management.

Inefficient irrigation and the excessive use of water on agricultural land in the Aral Sea Basin over several decades have led to saline soils. The main objective of this paper is to identify the environmental predictors to model the spatial distribution of soil salinity in a highly irrigated landscape. Soil salinity at farm scale was measured in the topsoil (Total Dissolved Solids, TDS) and down to a depth of 1.5m by electromagnetic conductivity meter (CMv) over a regular grid covering an area of approximately 15km² in Khorezm Province, Uzbekistan.