Conservation decisions should be evaluated for how they meet conservation goals at multiple spatial extents. Conservation easements are land use decisions resulting from a combination of social and environmental conditions. An emerging area of research is the evaluation of spatial distribution of easements and their spatial correlates. We tested the relative influence of interacting social and ...

BACKGROUND In the study, the Aras Basin and its environment, one of the most important hydrological basins of Turkey, was evaluated. In survey area, to determine the change of air quality, it was benefited from 23,770 pieces of hourly measured SO2 (Sulfur dioxide) and PM10 (particulate matter) concentration values for the December, January and February of 2009-2010 in which the pollution is at ...

Continuing depletion of forest resources, particularly in tropical developing countries, has turned vast areas of intact ecosystems into urbanized and agricultural lands. The degree of degradation varies, but in most cases, the ecosystem functions and the ability to provide a variety of ecosystem services are severely impaired. In addition to many other challenges, successful forest restoration...

Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) populations have declined perhaps 95% in the recent past, creating legitimate concern that the species may become endangered. During the nonbreeding period the species occurs predominantly in southern U.S. forested wetland habitats, with concentrations in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and in the southeastern Coastal Plain of the Carolinas and Georgia. Both...

When large carnivores occupy peripheral human lands conflict with humans becomes inevitable, and the reduction of human-carnivore interactions must be the first consideration for those concerned with conflict mitigation. Studies designed to identify areas of high human-bear interaction are crucial for prioritizing management actions. Due to a surge in conflicts, against a background of social i...

Approaches to soil management, including problems of soil degradation and low soil fertility, have recently undergone major changes. The former view was to concentrate on achieving high levels of production from the more fertile areas, leaving the marginal lands for extensive use only. Steeply sloping and highly drought-prone areas were preferably not to be cultivated at all. Soil constraints w...

The present paper focuses on determining the most important factors affecting urban growth in large cities of Iran through modeling and comparing the common and diverse points of urban growth obtained from other studies. For this purpose, by reviewing the theoretical concepts associated with urban growth, quantities and measurable variables are developed as proper frameworks to study the influe...

Urban growth models have been used for decades to forecast urban development in metropolitan areas. Since the 1990s cellular automata, with simple computational rules and an explicitly spatial architecture, have been heavily utilized in this endeavor. One such cellularautomata-based model, SLEUTH, has been successfully applied around the world to better understand and forecast not only urban gr...

The latest tiger census conducted in India during the year 2014 shows that it harbors 57% of the global tiger population in 7% of their historic global range. At the same time, India has 1.25 billion people growing at a rate of 1.7% per year. Protected tiger habitats in India are geographically isolated and collectively holds this tiger population under tremendous anthropogenic pressure. These ...

this research was conducted to zoning of gorgan agricultural lands for hulless barley cropping using evaluation of some environmental factors base on boolean logic and by geographic information system. for this purpose, agro-ecological requirements of hulless barley firstly, identified according to scientific resources. rating and thematic requirement maps were then provided. studied environmen...