Objective: The aim of this study is to provide a management plan for the Sykan watershed of Darre shahr city located in Ilam province using GIS in land use planning. Methods: For land using of Sykan watershed of Ilam province with about 9 hectares area, map of classes, elevation, percent slope, geographical aspects, soil characteristics, vegetation density and the final map units were combined ...

This article offers an analysis of financial incentives for landowners, conservation bank managers, and land developers under habitat regulations for land use. A financial option theory approach is used with call and put options as contracts for habitat conservation and exchange. The market for habitat is modeled as a stochastic game to derive the option price on habitat that allows for arbitra...

Conservation priority-setting schemes have not yet combined geographic priorities with a framework that can guide the allocation of funds among alternate conservation actions that address specific threats. We develop such a framework, and apply it to 17 of the world's 39 Mediterranean ecoregions. This framework offers an improvement over approaches that only focus on land purchase or species ri...

Agriculture is the world’s largest industry, continues to dominate human land use, and will become more intensive to meet global food demands associated with population growth. Sustainability of global agricultural systems will require strategic integration of conservation practices to protect ecosystems services, health, and productivity. Natural communities as a component of agricultural land...

This report describes the results of interviews and focus groups, gauging support for innovative farmland preservation techniques. Four techniques were selected for assessment from approximately 30 novel techniques identified in previous research: (1) Term conservation easements; (2) Land preservation tontines; (3) Rights of first refusal; and (4) Agricultural conservation pension with purchase...

Soil conservation practices have been widely implemented on the Loess Plateau to reduce severe soil erosion in north-central China over the past three decades. However, the hydrologic impacts of these practices are not well documented and understood. The objective of this study was to examine how water yield has changed after implementing soil conservation practices that resulted in changes in ...

W ithout careful thought, policies to promote a goal can end up doing less good than intended and, in extreme cases, can do more harm than good. Actions lead to reactions, namely, changes in human behavior or in biological or physical processes. Such reactions often cause unintended consequences that can render policies inefficient and ineffective. Some unintended consequences are hard to antic...

Geomorphometric features and land use/land cover are essential in the context of watershed prioritization for resources conservation and protection. Watersheds in tropical regions like the Philippines are under threat of degradation due to the combined effects of uncontrolled agricultural activities in the uplands and frequently increasing erosive precipitations brought about by climate change....

Conservation initiatives to protect and restore valued species and communities in human-dominated landscapes face huge challenges linked to the cost of acquiring habitat. We ask how the sale of forest carbon offsets could reduce land acquisition costs, and how the alternate goals of maximizing α or β-diversity in focal communities could affect the prioritization land parcels over a range of con...