Over the past centuries, cities have undergone major transformations that led to global urbanization. One of the phenomena emerging from urbanization is urban sprawl, defined as the uncontrolled spread of cities into undeveloped areas. The decrease in housing prices and commuting costs as well as the failure to internalize the real costs associated with natural land, led to households moving-out into the urban fringe – resulting in fragmented, low-density residential development patterns that has multiple negative impacts.

Agriculture in many industrialized countries is subject to a wide range of policy interventions that seek to achieve ambitious climate, energy and environment-related objectives. Increasing support for the generation of climate-friendly, renewable energy in agriculture, however, may lead to potential conflicts with agri-environmental policies aimed at land use extensification and landscape preservation.

The restoration and improvement of natural capital (NC) in rural areas represents one of the main objectives of the EU’s rural development policy (RDP). In addition to creating environmental and biodiversity benefits, NC represents an important territorial asset and a basis to generate socio-economic second-order effects for economic competitiveness and rural viability. However, the regional capability to valorise NC depends on the specific regional context, needs and potentials, as well as targeted policy support.

Employing a linkage between a biophysical and an economic model, this study estimates the economic impact of soil erosion by water on the world economy. The global biophysical model estimates soil erosion rates, which are converted into land productivity losses and subsequently inserted into a global market simulation model. The headline result is that soil erosion by water is estimated to incur a global annual cost of eight billion US dollars to global GDP.

In this paper we examine the question of whether and how municipal landscape plans exert a positive influence on and/or correlate with selected aspects of the landscape. To this end, a representative sample of municipal landscape plans in Germany and a statistical-quantitative evaluation approach are used to uncover correlations between planning and landscape development. As a result, we can show that municipalities which draw up a landscape plan have a higher proportion of natural areas and a lower hemeroby index, i.e. a lower level of human influence.

Urban green spaces and their role in the quality of life of residents have been studied across multiple disciplines, based on empirical measurements or qualitative studies – however, the relation, and its strength, between spatial indicators of urban green spaces and visitors’ perceptions of green spaces are less known.

Land tenure security is widely considered to be a fundamental factor in motivating farmers to adopt sustainable land management practices. This study aims to establish whether it is true that owner-operators adopt more effective soil conservation measures than tenant-operators, and whether well-designed agro-environmental instruments can provide sufficiently strong motivation to compensate for the differences between these two groups.

Sustainable land management is essential to meeting the global challenge of securing soil and water resources that can support an ever increasing population. In Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, population growth is forecast to increase from 1.5 to 2.5 million by 2040 which will put immense pressure on the region's soil resources.

The move towards sustainable agriculture requires a more detailed understanding of farmers’ knowledge(s) and knowledge practices. Increasingly, it is important to understand not only what farmers understand, but how their knowledge practices incorporate others – especially given the emerging call for environmentally-orientated policy measures to move beyond an individual farmer focus. This paper considers how farmers engage with, utilise and share knowledge through a focus on the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) initiative in the UK.

The biosphere reserve model is a global designation in accordance with UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme. Biosphere reserves are required to fulfil three functions as prescribed by UNESCO, namely conservation, sustainable development and logistic support. Worldwide, the 669 biosphere reserves in 120 countries are experiencing different degrees of effectiveness in fulfilling these functions.

The development the GIS technology and growing access to spatial data encourage greater use of information for various purposes. Users may not be aware that data pertaining to the same fragment of land (in aspect of geometry or description attributes), but acquired from different sources do not always adequately reflect reality. After Poland's accession to the European Union, the EU Member States have undertaken to develop a Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) as part of the Integrated Administration and Control System in every country.

Current Tanzanian land law offers registration of private interests in land in the form of Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) within a broader community lands approach. We conducted qualitative research on the issuance of CCROs along a mountain slope transect in Meru district in northeast Tanzania. This area features intensified smallholder agriculture that evolutionary theory suggests is well adapted for registration of private interests in land.