The book written by seventeen experts in the field of rangeland management, this compilation of essays brings to light the latent issues concerning this subject to readers all over the globe. Though technical approaches can address some issues, social processes ultimately prevent the balancing of these matters. Socio-economic and political institutions are often a stumbling block for improving ...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) scenarios address changes in ecosystem services and their implications for human well-being. Ecological changes pose special challenges for longterm thinking, because of the possibility of regime shifts that occur rapidly yet alter the availability of ecosystem services for generations. Moreover, ecological feedbacks can intensify human modification of e...

In order to maintain the biotic integrity and performance of coastal marine ecosystems affected by human population growth and economic development an ecosystem approach to management is required. This is particularly challenging when, as is the case for many coastal ecosystems, development activities on land, often far removed from the coast, have a major impact on the coastal environment. The...

Agro-ecosystem plays a crucial role in conserving biodiversity, sustaining ecosystem functions and processes, and maintaining land productive capacity. In order to effectively manage agro-ecosystem, the planners and government agencies are increasingly seeking better tools and techniques. In this paper, we describe the development of a Web-based resources and environment information system (FRE...

Large-scale transitions between alternative states in ecosystems are known as regime shifts. Once described as healthy and dominated by various marine predators, the Black Sea ecosystem by the late 20th century had experienced anthropogenic impacts such as heavy fishing, cultural eutrophication, and invasions by alien species. We studied changes related to these "natural experiments" to reveal ...

The general objective of the multiple-use Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) framework is to develop and demonstrate practical science-based methods that support, under existing statutory arrangements, integrated regional planning and management of coastal and marine ecosystems. Multiple-use MSE has, so far, focused on four sectors: oil and gas, conservation, fisheries and coastal development...

Since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ecosystem service science has made much progress in framing core concepts and approaches, but there is still debate around the notion of cultural services, and a growing consensus that ecosystem use and ecosystem service use should be clearly differentiated. Part of the debate resides in the fact that the most significant sources of conflict around nat...

Population sizes and growth rates are two major factors used by ecologists in assessing human impacts on ecosystems and landscapes. However, the numbers of households have been increasing much faster than population sizes. As households are basic socioeconomic units (e.g., in consumption of ecosystem services) and key components of coupled human and natural systems, household proliferation has ...

Global climate and environmental changes are endangering global water resources; and several approaches have been tested to manage and reduce the pressure on these decreasing resources. This study uses the case study of Xi'an City in China to test reasonable and effective methods to address water resource shortages. The study generated a framework combining ecosystem services and water resource...

The establishment of exotic game fishes to enhance recreational fisheries through authorized and unauthorized stocking into freshwater systems is a global phenomenon. Stocked fishes are often top predators that either replace native top predators or increase the species richness of top predators. Many direct effects of stocking have been documented, but the ecosystem consequences are seldom qua...