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.

Africa is on the verge of a mining boom. We review the environmental threats from African mining development, including habitat alteration, infrastructure expansion, human migration, bushmeat hunting, corruption, and weak governance. We illustrate these threats in Central Africa, which contains the vast Congo rainforest, and show that more than a quarter of 4,151 recorded mineral occurrences are concentrated in three regions of biological endemism—the Cameroon‐Gabon Lowlands, Eastern DRC Lowlands, and Albertine Rift Mountains—and that most of these sites are currently unprotected.

In agricultural industry of the Republic of Belarus the problem of increasing the effectiveness of utilization of land resources appears one of the most actual. Annual alienation of agricultural lands and arable fields under housing construction and industrial buildings, roads and other economic object leads to implacable decline of agricultural areas. Absence of new lands, suitable for agricultural use, promotes increase of agricultural productivity by means of intensification of producing process.

Willow (Salix) communities are important components of riparian ecosystems. However, browsing by livestock and wildlife species can negatively impact willow size and abundance, and make restoration efforts difficult. A common solution has been fencing of affected willows to exclude ungulates, but fencing is expensive and may not complement desirable land management strategies. An alternative to fencing is the use of structures that limit access to streamside willows, without excluding ungulate access to the entire riparian zone.

Over the last century, natural resource management on forest lands has shifted from a singular focus on resource extraction to many foci, such as recreation, tourism, conservation, view-scapes, cultural and spiritual values, sustainability, and other values. As a result, the information needs of land managers must now include social and cultural values. In addition, the public's interest in having greater participation in land management decisions and in generating scientific knowledge has never been greater.

We analyzed the microbial community that developed after 4 years of testing different soil-crop management systems in the savannah–forest transition zone of Eastern Ghana where management systems can rapidly alter stored soil carbon as well as soil fertility.

The Soil Conditioning index (SCi) and Soil management assessment Framework (SmaF) are two different but complementary methods for evaluating soil quality. Both tools have been widely used, but little is known regarding how they compare and if they provide similar results when the same agricultural management practices are compared. This SCi and SmaF soil quality index (SQi) comparison was conducted on the Fort Cobb Reservoir experimental Watershed (FCReW) in Oklahoma.

Globally, colonialism resulted in the suppression of aboriginal land management practices, abetted by the concept of terra nullius, “belonging to no one”; the belief that aboriginal people had little influence on or ownership of the land. Until recently, this ideology was entrenched in resource management and policy. Traditional ecological knowledge, historical ecology, archaeology, and palaeoecological research have shown these assumptions to be wrong.

Land management is an important factor that affects ecosystem services provision. However, interactions between land management, ecological processes and ecosystem service provision are still not fully understood. Indicators can help to better understand these interactions and provide information for policy-makers to prioritise land management interventions. In this paper, we develop a framework for the systematic selection of indicators, to assess the link between land management and ecosystem services provision in a spatially explicit manner.

Alaska's Western Arctic Caribou Herd is an important subsistence resource for communities along its migration path and provides opportunities for sport hunting. Members of local communities have expressed conflict with sport hunters' actions including dispersing caribou away from their communities, failing to salvage meat, and trophy hunting. We measured sources of conflict among village residents and sport hunters' motivations for hunting.