Productivity equation for reclaiming surface mines

This article addresses the development of an agricultural productivity equation for predicting new soil (neo-sol) plant growth potential in Clay County, Minnesota, USA. Soil factors examined in the study include percent organic matter, percent slope, percent rock fragments, hydraulic conductivity, electrical conductivity, pH, topographic position, available water-holding capacity, bulk density, and percent clay. Squared terms and two-factor interaction terms were also examined as possible regressors. A best equation was selected that had a multiple coefficient of determination of 0.7399 and has five significant regressors and intercept withP.0001. The regressors are hydraulic conductivity, percent slope squared, bulk density times percent rock fragments, electrical conductivity times percent rock fragments, and electrical conductivity times percent organic matter. The regressors predict soil suitability for a general crop model. The crops included in the model are wheat, oats, barley, soybeans, sugar beets, sunflowers, and grasses/legumes.     

Modeling the relationships between land use and land cover on private lands in the Upper Midwest, USA

This paper presents an approach to modeling land-cover change as a function of land-use change. We argue that, in order to model the link between socio-economic change and changes in forest cover in a region that is experiencing residential and recreational development and agricultural abandonment, land-use and land-cover change need to be represented as separate processes. Forest-cover change is represented here using two transition probabilities that were calculated from Landsat imagery and that, taken together, describe a Markov transition matrix between forest and non-forest over a 10-year period. Using a three-date land-use data set, compiled and interpreted from digitized parcel boundaries, and scanned aerial photography for 136 sites (c. 2500 ha) sampled from the Upper Midwest, USA, we test functional relationships between forest-cover transition probabilities, standardized to represent changes over a decade, and land-use conditions and changes within sample sites. Regression models indicated that about 60% of the variation in the average forest-cover transition probabilities (i.e. from forest to non-forest and vice versa) can be predicted using three variables: amount of agricultural land use in a site; amount of developed land use; and the amount of area increasing in development. In further analysis, time lags were evaluated, showing that agricultural abandonment had a relatively strong time-lag effect but development did not. We demonstrate an approach to using forest-cover transition probabilities to develop spatially-constrained simulations of forest-cover change. Because the simulations are based on transition probabilities that are indexed to a particular time and place, the simulations are improved over previous applications of Markov transition models. This modeling approach can be used to predict forest-cover changes as a result of socio-economic change, by linking to models that predict land-use change on the basis of exogenous human-induced drivers.     

Delivering on the Promise of Agroforestry

Agroforestry – the traditional practice of growing trees on farms for the benefit of the farm family and for the environment – was brought from the realm of indigenous knowledge into the forefront of agricultural research less than two decades ago. It was promoted widely as a sustainability-enhancing practice that combines the best attributes of forestry and agriculture. Based on principles of natural resource management and process-oriented research, agroforestry is now recognized as an applied science, that is instrumental in assuring food security, reducing poverty and enhancing ecosystem resilience at the scale of thousands of smallholder farmers in the tropics.Trees on farms provide both products and services: they yield food, fuelwood, fodder, timber and medicines, which farm families can use at home or take to market to bring in much-needed cash; they replenish organic matter and nutrient levels in soils and they help control erosion and conserve water. The International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, and its partners, are working to integrate the functions of trees with policy and institutional improvements that aim at facilitating wide-scale adoption by farmers.Two examples described in this paper are replenishing soil fertility in sub-Saharan Africa using short-term improved tree and shrub fallows and the results of agroforestry research to support significant land tenure policy in southeast Asia.Although just one option in sustainable land-use, science-based agroforestry has the potential to produce economically, socially and environmentally sound results for the billions of people who depend on this ancient practice and modern science.     

川中丘陵区村级景观土壤有机碳密度和储量分析

本文综合运用了地理信息系统(GIS)、遥感(RS)和全球卫星定位系统(GPS)等技术手段,分析了人口密集的川中丘陵乡村区域土壤有机碳密度(SOCD)和储量(SOCS)的空间分布及影响因素。结果表明,区域内SOCD和SOCS平均值分别为5.58kg/m2和75.77×105g,SOCD随丘体高度的降低向四周逐渐增大,SOCS主要分布于旱地、水田等土地利用类型中。0~30cm土层和土体深度内,SOCD以冬水田最高,裸岩最低;SOCS则以丘脚旱地和轮作水田最高,裸岩最低。地形、土地利用和土地覆盖对SOCD、SOCS影响明显。     

土地利用总体规划修编重点与难点问题探讨

土地利用总体规划是国民经济和社会发展规划的重要组成部分,是统筹城乡建设、加强土地管理的基础,是实现世界上最严格的耕地保护制度的基本手段。在新一轮土地利用总体规划修编之际,对上轮规划存在的主要问题从宏观层面上进行了分析与探讨,有助于新一轮规划的科学编制和有效实施。简要介绍了规划修编的背景,并对本轮规划修编的网上调查结果进行了分析。通过回顾和分析上一轮土地利用总体规划实施过程中存在的主要问题,提出本轮规划修编应以统筹城乡发展、加强部门协调、促进节约集约、合理增加弹性、提高公众参与等为理念,并就本轮规划的重点与难点方面提出了建设性的意见和建议。     

城市灾害对城市土地利用的影响

随着城市的不断扩张，对城市土地利用的需求量也在不断增加。地震、火灾、风灾、地质破坏是现代城市的主要灾害，城市灾害在一定程度上制约着土地利用的类型。充分运用GIS的空间分析功能，研究了城市灾害对城市土地利用的影响，所得结果可为城市土地利用规划提供辅助决策参考。     

香溪河流域土地利用格局演变对非点源污染的影响研究

以分布式模型SWAT为研究工具,在气候、土壤等因素不变的情况下,模拟了三峡库区香溪河流域土地利用格局演变对于非点源污染的影响.研究结果表明,自20世纪80年代至2007年,研究区由土地利用所造成的非点源污染TN总体呈减少趋势,4种土地利用情景下模拟得到的年均非点源污染TN分别为1 841.60、824.86、1 790...     

The Vegetation of Wet Meadows in Relation to Their Land-use

Wetland biomonitoring approaches are needed to determine when changes in response to stressors are occurring and to predict the consequences of proposed land-use changes. These approaches require an understanding of shifts in biota that occur in response to land-use, data that are lacking for most kinds of wetlands. Changes in floristic composition corresponding to land-use differences at multiple scales (site to 2500 m radius) were characterized for 40 wet meadows associated with prairie glacial marshes in Minnesota (U.S.A.). In general, guild was more useful than species composition for indicating land-use impacts. Site impacts (stormwater, cultivation) and landscape disturbance (agriculture and urbanization, combined), coincide with a reduction in native graminoid and herbaceous perennial abundance (e.g., Carex lasiocarpa, Calamagrostis canadensis, Spartina pectinata). This vegetation is replaced with annuals (e.g, Bidens cernua, Polygonum pensylvanicum) in recently cultivated sites or introduced perennials (e.g., Phalaris arundinacea, Typha angustifolia) and floating aquatics (lemnids) in stormwater impacted wetlands. Ditches also reduce native perennial importance and increase perennials, but only when they are in highly impacted landscapes.     

Protecting people and property: the influence of land-use planners on flood hazard mitigation in New Urbanist developments

Research suggests that characteristics of local government land-use planners help determine the priority that local communities place on flood hazard mitigation. However, research has not examined the significance of land-use planners' values and role orientations for flood hazard mitigation. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the influence that land-use planners' values and role orientations have on flood hazard mitigation in a national sample of New Urbanist development projects. Findings indicate that land-use planners' values and role orientations have significant implications for flood hazard mitigation in these projects. The paper recommends that local governments adopt a land-use planning approach to flood hazard mitigation that relies on land-use planners to help direct development away from hazardous portions of development sites.     

城乡交错带土地利用方式对土壤理化性质的影响

以长沙市南郊山地丘陵区为研究对象，选择7种不同土地利用方式（次生林地、经济林地、杉木人工林、采伐迹地、撂荒地、苗圃地、坡耕地）研究了城乡交错带不同土地利用方式对土壤理化性质的影响。结果表明：7种土地利用方式下，土壤颗粒组成主要集中在1～0.05 mm和＜0.001 mm两个粒级范围内，土壤质地以重壤土和轻粘土为主。随着人为干扰程度的减弱，土壤砂粒（1.0～0.05 mm）、土壤粉粒（0.05～0.01 mm）百分率逐渐下降，＜0.01 mm的土壤物理性粘粒百分率增加。自然、半自然状态利用方式的林地（次生林地、经济林地、杉木人工林地）土壤总孔隙度、含水量普遍较高，土壤密度低于坡耕地、苗圃地、撂荒地、采伐迹地，而土壤pH值、有机质含量及氮、磷、钾含量普遍高于坡耕地、苗圃地、撂荒地、采伐迹地