Extracting farmland parcels from high resolution remote sensing images is an important issue for land-use dynamic monitoring, precision agriculture and other fields. However, the traditional method, using GIS software and manual digital, has wasted a lot of human and material resources. In addition, the results are impacted by the human factors obviously. Therefore, an automatically extraction ...

Soil erosion is the main pathway of nutrients to fresh water in highly erodible regions. In this study, a dynamic erosion-type nonpoint source (NPS) pollution model was proposed to investigate spatiotemporal characteristics of adsorbed NPS total nitrogen (TN) load before and after returning farmland. Results indicate that: 1) the erosion-type NPS TN load showed a significant decreasing trend si...

An evaluation index system was constructed for the coupling between urbanization and farmland resources, based on data from 31 provinces in the mainland of China. Using the Grey Relational Analysis method, the spatial-temporal variations of the coupling between them can be revealed. The conclusions of this study were: (1) the stress of urbanization on farmland resources is dominated by economic...

Background Few studies have assessed the effectiveness of the Protected Area networks on the conservation status of target species. Here, we assess the effectiveness of the Portuguese Natura 2000 (the European Union network of protected areas) in maintaining a species included in the Annex I of the Bird Directive, namely the population of a priority farmland bird, the little bustard Tetrax tetr...

Heavy metal pollution in farmlands is a serious threat to sustainable agricultural development and has become a major agro-ecological problem that has attracted public concern in China. This study proposes a soil–crop collaborative risk assessment model that aims to assess the potential safety risks of heavy metal pollution in farmland soils by considering the concentrations of heavy metals in ...

Growing demand for food, fuel, and fiber is driving the intensification and expansion of agricultural land through a corresponding displacement of native woodland, savanna, and shrubland. In the wake of this displacement, it is clear that farmland can support biodiversity through preservation of important ecosystem elements at a fine scale. However, how much biodiversity can be sustained and wi...

Land acquisition and ownership is an important part of modern agriculture in North America. Given the unique nature of farmland as a good, this paper develops a multi-agent simulation of farmland auction markets in a Canadian context. The model is used to generate data on land transactions between farm agents to determine if a particular auction design or type is better suited to farmland trans...

Loss of suitable seminatural habitats and homogenization of crop types have led to the population decline of pollinating insects in farmland. As these insects support crop production, many practical efforts aim to sustain pollinator diversity which is especially challenging in intensively managed and homogeneous farmland. However, there are ongoing changes of the farmland toward its multifuncti...

Generalist predators such as spiders and ground beetles provide important ecosystem services by suppressing density of pest insects in agroecosystems, which offers a sustainable solution to trade-off between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. There is increasing recognition that landscape factors beyond field-plot scale are important determinants for community structure of g...

World food demand is expected to more than double by 2050. Decisions about how to meet this challenge will have profound effects on wild species and habitats. We show that farming is already the greatest extinction threat to birds (the best known taxon), and its adverse impacts look set to increase, especially in developing countries. Two competing solutions have been proposed: wildlife-friendl...