Hurricanes can instantaneously affect millions of acres of forestland. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo reduced the inventory of softwood growth stock by 2 I percent in South Carolina (Sheffield and Thompson 1992). Annual forest inventories will provide nearly real-time estimates of change following catastrophic events. T h e ecological and economic sustainability of southern forests is in question. Leg...

Today, the region we currently refer to as Central Asia—the geopolitical space comprised of the five post-Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan—is anything but a core in the contemporary network of globalized flows of information, people, goods, ideas, and money.[1] Due to a host of factors, the lands between the Caspian Sea and the Gobi Desert rep...

~ Riparian lands are among the most productive ecosystems on earth. They occupy only a small proportion of the landscape but frequently support a greater variety and abundance of animal life than adjacent habitats. ~ Important habitat components include vegetation (often taller, denser, more diverse, and more complex in riparian lands), food, standing water, shelter from predators, sites for ne...

Afforestation of agricultural lands has been one of the major land use changes in China in recent decades. To better understand the effect of such land use change on soil quality, we investigated selected soil physical, chemical and microbial properties (0-15 cm depth) in marginal agricultural land and a chronosequence of poplar (Populus euramericana cv. 'N3016') plantations (5-, 10-, 15- and 2...

Concern for the potential global change consequences of increasing atmospheric CO has prompted interest in the 2 development of mechanisms to reduce or stabilize atmospheric CO . During the next several decades, a program 2 focused on terrestrial sequestration processes could make a significant contribution to abating CO increases. The 2 reclamation of degraded lands, such as mine-spoil sites, ...

The fate of private lands is widely seen as key to the fate of biodiversity in much of the world. Organizations that work to protect biodiversity on private lands often hope that conservation actions on one piece of land will leverage the actions of surrounding landowners. Few researchers have, however, examined whether protected lands do in fact encourage land conservation nearby or how protec...

Managing the rapidly changing saline-alkali land under cultivation in the coastal areas of China is important not only for mitigating the negative impacts of such land on the environment, but also for ensuring long-term sustainability of agriculture. In this light, setting up rapid monitoring systems to assist decision-making in developing sustainable management plans is therefore an absolute n...

The problem of environmental degradation is becoming very real in Nigeria. It is also becoming a major source of insecurity locally. In recent times, flooding which affects most parts of the country has resulted in displacement of communities in most states of the federation. While flooding is largely a natural phenomenon, the upgrading of environmental infrastructure should be complemented wit...

Kline, Jeffrey D.; Mazzotta, Marisa J. 2012. Evaluating tradeoffs among ecosystem services in the management of public lands. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNWGTR-865. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 48 p. The U.S. Forest Service has adopted the concept and language of ecosystem services to describe the beneficial outcomes of national forest m...

soil salinity is one of the problems threatening agricultural lands. parts of this phenomenon are related to geologic formations and saltpans, while some major factors are resulted from irrelevant agricultural activities, issue of irrigation, and improper cultivation systems which lead to increase in soil salinity. to avoid such consequences that would end up with ecosystem degradation, suitabl...