Urban habitats are characterized by high levels of disturbance, impervious paving, and heat retention. These factors, acting in concert, alter soil, water, and air conditions in ways that promote the growth of stress-tolerant, earlysuccessional vegetation on abandoned or unmaintained land. In most urban areas, a cosmopolitan array of spontaneous plants provide important ecological services that...

— This paper provides a household-level framework to understand the occurrence of secondary forests. We focus on the role of household life cycles as determinants of secondary vegetation on small farms in tropical Latin America. Following a review of socioeconomic research on secondary growth and a theoretical discussion of life cycle dynamics and land use, we pursue an empirical analysis of th...

The characteristics of minesoils on abandoned mine land (AML) often dictate which plant species will invade and establish from nearby undisturbed areas. This study measured physical and chemical minesoil properties on 15 AML sites in northern West Virginia and matched these properties to vegetation cover. Fifteen sites ranging in age from 13 to 35 yr old were selected from three surface-mined c...

Tropical deforestation is of growing concern to the world community. Global effects associated with this process include loss of biodiversity and changes in the carbon cycle. Although the importance and present severity of these two externalities are subjects of intense controversy, few would deny the cata­ strophic nature of their potential impacts. Deforestation also poses local and regional ...

Agricultural land abandonment is a relevant occurrence in mountainous and peripheral regions all over the world. While both positive negative environmental consequences of this are documented (depending on specific location scale), rural areas it always linked to reduction production income. To address some these problems, several administrative layers within European Union (EU) have put place ...

Taking the mine dump in nonferrous metal as research object desert steppe Inner Mongolia, according to artificial remodeling of landforms and characteristics water soil erosion, vegetation restoration model tests on dumping site were carried out. The ecological effects four measures storage analyzed which including shrubs, shrubgrass, grass natural vegetation. results showed that compared with ...