The development efforts of successive governments during the last several decades have led to growth in per capita incomes, increase in standard of living of the people and decrease in overall poverty levels. However, Sri Lanka faces a host of environmental problems such as land degradation, pollution and poor management of water resources, loss of biological diversity, coastal erosion, increas...

Smallholder dairy production is increasingly becoming popular in Jimma town. However, feed shortage is a major constraint to dairy production. The objectives of this study was to assess feed resources, feeding practices and farmers' perceived causes of feed shortage and coping strategies to feed scarcity in smallholder dairy producers in Jimma town, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. A total of 5...

Increased development results in the loss of forest, farm, range, and other open space lands that contribute to the quality of life of U.S. residents. I describe an economic rationale for growing public support for preserving local open space, based the growing scarcity of open space lands. I test the rationale empirically by correlating the prevalence of open space referenda in U.S. counties t...

The course examines natural resource issues affecting developing countries, and explores the impacts on communities, households, their decisions, and their health. Key resource use issues include water use (drinking, sanitation, and irrigation), agriculture (intensification, pesticide use, and land degradation), fuel wood scarcity, deforestation, conservation, and mining. For each of these issu...

Rapid urbanization, land scarcity, and accompanying ecological deterioration in China have received growing attention. In this paper, two fast-growing metropolitan regions, Greater Shanghai and Greater Hangzhou, were selected as case studies to quantify the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) change on regional ecosystem services value (ESV) at the landscape scale since the late 1970s. The res...

The growth of human populations around protected areas accelerates land conversion and isolation, negatively impacting biodiversity and ecosystem function, and can be exacerbated by immigration. It is often assumed that immigration around protected areas is driven by attraction in the form of economic benefits, but in many cases, people may be pushed from their areas of origin toward protected ...

Growing pearl millet and cowpea in combination with raising ruminant livestock is widely practised in the Sahel. In this farming system, livestock feeding depends mostly on rangeland, fallows and cropland grazing. Nutritional constraints to grazing ruminants stem primarily from feed scarcity and seasonal fluctuations in feed supply associated with low rainfall and poor soil fertility. Low feed ...

Recently, special attention has been paid to artificial groundwater recharge in water resource management in arid and semi-arid regions. Water resources distribution in these regions is extremely uneven, both in spatial and temporal forms and groundwater is the only water resource and is a major constraint on economic and social development. Artificial groundwater recharge is considered an appr...

Nature reserves are often designated ad hoc. Despite increasing conservation efforts, loss of biodiversity is still accelerating. Considering land scarcity and demand for alternative uses, efficiency in conservation strongly correlates with efficiency in land allocation. Systematic conservation planning can effectively prioritize conservation activities. Previous studies minimize opportunity co...