The formation and evolution of agricultural land uses in the Zhujiang Delta of South China are examined in the light of the dynamics of people and the environment and their interplay. The origin and propagation of agriculture are found to have a close relationship with the climate and sea level changes in the Holocene era. The development of rice cultivation, horticulture, and dike-pond system ...

Headwater streams constitute the majority of stream length of river systems, and have important roles in terms of landscape processes and as habitat for organisms. These bodies of water are also tightly coupled with the local terrestrial landscape, making them ideal for studying linkages between land use and stream condition. Despite the ubiquity and importance of these streams, they are often ...

Agricultural intensification could reduce pressures on natural habitats, but biological constraints may mitigate the long-term benefits of improved agricultural technologies. We consider one such constraint: that imposed by resistance to pesticides. The application of pesticides places selective evolutionary pressure on pest populations. Those organisms that survive show resistance. Resistance ...

The ability to address land degradation and biodiversity loss while maintaining the production of plant and animal products is a key global challenge. Biodiversity decline as a result of vegetation clearance, cultivation, grazing, pesticide and herbicide application, and plantation establishment, amongst other factors, has been widely documented in agricultural ecosystems. In this paper we iden...

The sub-Saharan Africa region recorded the fastest conversion of forest land to agriculture in the past 20 years. The region also has the widest yield gap and together with Latin America and Caribbean has the largest unused arable land. However, there are wide variations across countries and this offers valuable lessons on the drivers of agricultural intensification and land use dynamics. This ...

Global climate change, especially the phenomena of global warming, is expected to increase the intensity of land-falling hurricanes. Societal adaptation is needed to reduce vulnerability from increasingly intense hurricanes. This study quantifies the adaptation effects of potentially policy driven caps on housing densities and agricultural cover in coastal (and adjacent inland) areas vulnerable...

Aim Land-use history can be an important determinant of ecosystem characteristics, even in landscapes that outwardly appear natural . In New England, like much of the eastern United States, the natural reforestation of agricultural lands over the past 150 years has created a predominantly forested landscape. Understanding the physiographical and historical factors controlling forest structure a...

Conservation biologists are devoting an increasing amount of energy to debating whether land sparing (high-yielding agriculture on a small land footprint) or land sharing (low-yielding, wildlife-friendly agriculture on a larger land footprint) will promote better outcomes for local and global biodiversity. In turn, concerns are mounting about how to feed the world, given increasing demands for ...

This chapter focuses on the rural dimensions of the ‘two economies’ debate, and in particular on the question of what contribution land and agrarian reform can make to reducing inequality and addressing the structural nature of rural poverty in post-apartheid South Africa. It suggests that the problem needs to be conceptualised in terms of an ‘agrarian question of the dispossessed’, that can on...

We propose a framework with endogenous allocation of land between agricultural production, sustainable forest management, and unsustainable forest exploitation in the form of illegal logging to explore deforestation and agricultural and timber supplies when property rights are insecure. Uncertainty over property rights arises through risk of confiscation on sustainably-managed forest land, and ...