Livestock production is under increasing scrutiny regarding its impacts on the environment and its wider role in climate change. Consequently, there are a growing number of private agri-environmental schemes (AES) now operating alongside public AES that offer farmers economic rewards to maintain and enhance the environment. This study focused exclusively on a small number of commercial dairy producers located in the North West of England who were all suppliers of a global food producer and members of the producer’s own private AES.

A major driver of change in the Mekong River basin relates to hydropower development and the consequent changes in landscape and natural resource access regime that it induces. In this paper, we examine how the livelihoods of resettlers evolve following resettlement, and examine the determinants of that process. The study takes place in the context of the Theun Hinboun Expansion Project in Lao PDR. Based on longitudinal household surveys conducted before resettlement as well as 1, 2, and 3 years after resettlement, we identify the process of livelihood adaptation in resettled communities.

The main purpose of the study is to present a new approach to comparing EU regions according to their level of innovation. For many years, different organizations have published reports related to the innovation level of EU countries and regions. Usually, taxonomic methods are used to measure development in this area.

It is essential to understand how urban plans affect urban growth patterns in order to improve current urban planning and management systems. Few studies have been conducted to analyse urban growth patterns of Shenzhen, an international megacity located in southern China, but none of them revealed the relationships between urban planning and urban growth patterns. This study explores the effects of urban master plans on urban growth patterns in different plan periods in Shenzhen. We first quantified the urban growth patterns comparing pixel- and patch-based methods.

Based on a multilevel and quantile hedonic analysis regarding the local public bus system and the prices of residential properties in Cardiff, Wales, we find strong evidence to support two research hypotheses: (a) the number of bus stops within walking distance (300–1500m) to a property is positively associated with the property's observed sale price, and (b) properties of higher market prices, compared with their cheaper counterparts, tend to benefit more from spatial proximity to the bus stop locations.

Hybrid land tenure administration occurs in a number of South Africa’s state-subsidised housing projects and in the informal settlements from which the housing beneficiaries tend to be drawn. Ownership is the tenure form in most of these housing projects. Under ownership the law only recognises registered land transactions. Non-government tenure administration in Dunoon was organised by street and area committees that are part of the local South African National Civics Association (SANCO) branch, a community based organisation (CBO).

We propose a causal analysis framework to increase understanding of land-use change (LUC) and the reliability of LUC models. This health-sciences-inspired framework can be applied to determine probable causes of LUC in the context of bioenergy. Calculations of net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for LUC associated with biofuel production are critical in determining whether a fuel qualifies as a biofuel or advanced biofuel category under regional (EU), national (US, UK), and state (California) regulations.

Land tenure remains one of the most critical factors determining equity under REDD+, as we demonstrated through our previous article, ‘Roots of inequity: how the implementation of REDD+ reinforces past injustices”. Githiru responded to this paper, with some apparent challenges to both the empirical basis and theoretical arguments, that we had put forward.

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of landscape research, many different systems and methods for landscape identification and classification exist. This paper provides a systematic review of 54 contemporary landscape characterisation approaches from all over the world, with the aim of identifying major methodological strategies. Multivariate statistical analyses revealed segregation of the approaches according to the landscape concept applied, the degree of observer independence and various other factors involved in the landscape characterisation process.

The novelty of this study lies in the analyses of legislation concerning land use policies by examining the specific boundary between land ownership and land take. The basic motive was that the European Commission (EC) withdrew the Soil Framework Directive (SFD) in 2014 following the objections of certain Member States (MS) who countered that as most lands are privately owned, they should not fall under the remit of public governance. Since the withdrawal of the SFD land take is an issue receiving more attention.

The conciliation between different issues such as agriculture production, biodiversity conservation and water management remains unsolved in many places in the world. As a striking example, the wet grasslands of the Marais Poitevin region (France) presents many obstacles against the integration of these issues, especially in terms of public policy design.

Contemporary discourses on customary land tenure in Africa, and South Africa in particular, have emphasized the socially embedded and flexible nature of customary land rights, recognising these as inherently more ‘pro-poor’ than individual titling. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observations in Venda, a former homeland in South Africa, this paper explores how in the context of expanding commodity frontiers, customary land markets have emerged, leading to de facto privatisation of customary land.