Knowledge of the variability of soil water content (SWC) in space and time plays a key role in hydrological and climatic modelling. However, limited attention has been given to arid regions. The focus of this study was to investigate the spatio-temporal variability of surface soil (0–6 cm) water content and to identify its controlling factors in a region of the Gobi Desert (40 km ²). The standard deviation of SWC decreased logarithmically as mean water content decreased, and the coefficient of variation of SWC exhibited a convex upward pattern.

Birds of agricultural systems are one of the most threatened groups of birds in Europe mainly due to their sharp population decline in recent decades. Habitat intensification resulting from more productive agricultural practices has been proposed as a major cause for these declines. However, especially in some regions such as Eastern European and Mediterranean countries, little is known about the ultimate factors linked to habitat intensification that drive population declines for different species.

Subsistence agriculture under rainfed conditions and declining or stagnant yields on irrigated farmland has raised concerns about resource management and long-term sustainability in the subtropical, semiarid region of India. Soil quality assessment has been recognized as an important step toward understanding the effects of land management practices within an agricultural watershed. This study addressed the spatial variability of soil properties and their quality at the watershed level using geostatistical methods.

Countries around the world have responded to the problems associated with rapid urban growth and increasingly land-consumptive development patterns by creating a wide range of policy instruments designed to manage urban growth. Of the array of growth management techniques, urban containment policies are considered by some to be a promising approach. This paper focuses on greenbelts, the most restrictive form of urban containment policy. The long-standing greenbelt of Seoul, Republic of Korea is examined as a case study.

Conservation planners and land managers are often confronted with scale-associated challenges when assessing the relationship between land management objectives and species conservation. Conservation of individual species typically involves site-level analyses of habitat, whereas land management focuses on larger spatial extents. New models are needed to more explicitly integrate species-specific conservation with landscape or regional scales.

The area of land occupied by exurban residential development is significant and has been increasing over the past several decades in the United States. Considerable attention has been drawn to the measurement of regional-scale patterns of land-cover change and assessment of its environmental and socioeconomic consequences. Yet little is known about the quantity of land-cover change within individual exurban residential parcels, which reflect homeowner preferences, land-management strategies, and the ecosystem services they generate.

Terrace soils are distinctive features of the agricultural landscape in Europe. Due to their historical and aesthetic significance, they are a resource for agriculture and tourism: however they are also a challenge for land conservation and management. Nevertheless, the fundamental role of terrace soils for agricultural quality and natural hazard prevention has not been fully investigated. In the past, terraced slopes became ideal sites for human settlement and agricultural activities.

Numerous studies have been conducted that evaluate the utility of remote sensing for monitoring and assessing vegetation and ground cover to support land management decisions and complement ground measurements. However, few comparisons have been made that evaluate the utility of object-based image analysis (OBIA) to accurately classify a landscape where rule sets (models) have been developed at various scales. In this study, OBIA rule sets used to estimate land cover from high–spatial resolution imagery (0.06-m pixel) on Pinus L. (pinyon) and Juniperus L.

Calamagrostis villosa has recently expanded in Nardus stricta-dominated sub-alpine grassland of the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše/Karkonosze, the Czech Republic). To investigate whether this expansion has been promoted by high nitrogen deposition or by the cessation of agricultural management, grassland plots dominated by C. villosa were manipulated with four treatments: control (Con), fertilised (Fer), cut (Cut) and cut-fertilised (Cut-Fer).

Phenology is the study of recurring life‐cycle events, classic examples being the flowering of plants and animal migration. Phenological responses are increasingly relevant for addressing applied environmental issues. Yet, challenges remain with respect to spanning scales of observation, integrating observations across taxa, and modeling phenological sequences to enable ecological forecasts in light of future climate change.