A strategy for wildlife management in depopulating rural areas of Japan

Former ranges of wild animals have been reestablished in many developed countries. However, this reestablishment has led to increasing human–wildlife conflict in agroforest ecosystems. In Japan, human–wildlife conflict, such as crop raiding by and ecological impacts of wild ungulates and primates, is a serious problem in depopulated rural areas due to these animal range expansions and increased abundances. Japan's human population is predicted to decline by 24% by 2050, and approximately 20% of agricultural settlements will become completely depopulated. In this scenario, anthropogenic pressures on wildlife (e.g., hunting and habitat alteration) will continue to decrease and human–wildlife conflict will increase due to increasing wildlife recovery. Japan's local governments plan to slow range recovery, prevent species reestablishment, or remove recolonizing large mammals through lethal control. This strategy, however, is not cost-effective, and workforce shortages in depopulated communities make it infeasible. Moreover, the suppression of wildlife prevents the recovery of ecological functions and thus would degrade regional biodiversity. The declining pressure on wildlife that accompanies human depopulation will prevent the restoration of any past states of human–wildlife interaction. We suggest human-used areas in rural landscapes be aggregated in compact cities and that in transition zones between human settlements and depopulated lands that land-sharing approaches be applied. Concentrating management efforts in compact cities may effectively decrease human–wildlife conflict, rather than intensifying human pressures. Reforestation of depopulated lands may lead to recovery of wildlife habitats, their ecosystem functions, and regional biodiversity due to minimization of negative anthropogenic effects (land-sparing approach). Balancing resolution of human–wildlife conflict and ecological rewilding could become a new, challenging task for regional wildlife managers.     

Effects of land use,cover, and protection on stream and riparian ecosystem services and biodiversity

Protected areas are an important part of broader landscapes that are often used to preserve biodiversity or natural features. Some argue that protected areas may also help ensure provision of ecosystem services. However, the effect of protection on ecosystem services and whether protection affects the provision of ecosystem services is known only for a few services in a few types of landscapes. We sought to fill this gap by investigating the effect of watershed protection status and land use and land cover on biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. We compared the ecosystem services provided in and around streams in 4 watershed types: International Union for Conservation of Nature category II protected forests, unprotected forests, unprotected forests with recent timber harvesting, and unprotected areas with agriculture. We surveyed 28 streams distributed across these watershed types in Quebec, Canada, to quantify provisioning of clean water, carbon storage, recreation, wild foods, habitat quality, and terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity richness and abundance. The quantity and quality of ecosystem services and biodiversity were generally higher in sites with intact forest—whether protected or not—relative to those embedded in production landscapes with forestry or agriculture. Clean-water provision, carbon storage, habitat quality, and tree diversity were significantly higher in and around streams surrounded by forest. Recreation, wild foods, and aquatic biodiversity did not vary among watershed types. Although some services can be provided by both protected and unprotected areas, protection status may help secure the continued supply of services sensitive to changes in land use or land cover. Our findings provide needed information about the ecosystem service and biodiversity trade-offs and synergies that result from developing a watershed or from protecting it.     

土地利用变化对土壤硝化及氨氧化细菌区系的影响

以西藏高原相邻的原始森林、天然草原和农田土壤为研究对象,分别采用室内培养法和nested PCR-DGGE技术,对比研究了这3个生态系统的土壤硝化势、硝态氮浓度以及土壤氨氧化细菌（AOB）菌群区系.结果表明,农田土壤的硝化势和硝态氮（NO 3--N）浓度显著高于相邻的草原和森林土壤,硝化势分别是森林和草原土壤的9倍和11倍,NO 3--N是农田土壤无机氮（Nmin）的主要成分,占无机氮的70%～90%.铵态氮（NH 4＋-N）则是森林和草原土壤中主要的无机氮形态.原始森林和天然草原间的硝化势和硝态氮浓度没有显著差异.原始森林的土壤AOB菌群数量、多样性及均匀度最低.天然草原生态系统转换为农田后,土壤AOB菌群的多样性和均匀度显著降低,但是农田土壤的AOB菌群结构仍与其前身草原生态系统有较高的相似性.原始森林的AOB菌群数量、多样性及均匀度最低直接导致了其硝化势最低;农田土壤的硝化势和硝态氮浓度最高意味着农田生态系统中优势AOB的活性最高.以上结果表明,土地利用变化导致土壤氮素内循环及其关键微生物AOB的多样性与活性均发生显著变化,这些变化会影响土壤环境质量以及生态系统的持续与稳定.     

土地利用变化对湿地景观连通性的影响及连通性优化效应——以江苏盐城海滨湿地为例

土地利用与土地覆盖变化对湿地景观的结构和功能产生深刻的影响。选择江苏盐城海滨地区为研究对象,应用遥感和地理信息系统技术,分析20年来土地利用变化对湿地景观连通性的影响,并以2007年湿地景观生态系统服务功能为基础,采用阻力面模型探讨湿地景观连通性优化途径及其效应。结果显示:①1987—2007年间,盐城海滨区域土地利用结构变化显著。其中耕地面积比重由36.72%上升为46.17%,自然湿地持续减少,面积由44.4%减为26.01%,人工湿地持续增加,面积由9.96%上升为18.72%;②随着区域人类土地利用活动的加强,光滩、碱蓬沼泽和芦苇沼泽的空间连通性降低,区域土地利用导致湿地景观之间生态流阻隔,景观生态服务功能减弱;③2007年湿地景观生态功能强度空间差异显著,以累积耗费距离面、生态源地、耗费路径为依据,对湿地景观连通路径优化结果表明,废黄河口和大丰港附近等关键区域对景观连通性和生态流影响最大,是景观生态节点优化的首要对象;④加强连通路径的关键区域优化、提高景观连通度是实现景观优化的关键。     

三江平原湿地不同土地利用方式下土壤有机碳储量研究

选取东北三江平原沼泽湿地5种土地利用方式,共16个土壤剖面,对土壤有机碳储量分布特征进行了研究.结果表明,不同土地利用方式下,土壤剖面有机碳含量与有机碳密度均呈自上而下降低的趋势,且随着深度的增加,垂直差异变小.开垦降低了土壤有机碳含量和有机碳密度,并改变了其在表层的分布结构特征.初步估算5种土地利用方式下土壤有机碳储量分别为:沼泽湿地1.58×104t/km2、退耕还湿地1.23×104t/km2、林地1.01×104t/km2、水田0.85×104t/km2、旱田0.99×104t/km2.开垦降低了湿地土壤有机碳储量,且对耕地的影响大于林地,而退耕还湿有利于土壤有机碳的固定及储量的增加.     

Low-impact development for impervious surface connectivity mitigation: assessment of directly connected impervious areas (DCIAs)

Urbanization increases directly connected impervious area (DCIA), the impervious area that is hydraulically connected to downstream drainage by closed pipelines. Although the benefits of low-impact development (LID) have been examined in other studies, its effect on alleviating DCIA levels has seldom been assessed. This study measured the DCIA of urban watersheds in Houston, TX, USA. Five land-use types were categorized and the contribution of LID facilities to reducing DCIA in each type was estimated by using Sutherland's equations. The results showed (1) DCIA in commercial areas was greater than that in residential areas, especially for big-box retailers; (2) the percentage of DCIA reduction by LID varied by land-use type; and (3) optimal combinations of LID application could maximize the effectiveness of DCIA reduction. The results contribute to prioritizing land-use type for implementing LID practices and providing local governments with a useful measure to estimate runoff volume.     

Microtargeting for conservation

Widespread human action and behavior change is needed to achieve many conservation goals. Doing so at the requisite scale and pace will require the efficient delivery of outreach campaigns. Conservation gains will be greatest when efforts are directed toward places of high conservation value (or need) and tailored to critical actors. Recent strategic conservation planning has relied primarily on spatial assessments of biophysical attributes, largely ignoring the human dimensions. Elsewhere, marketers, political campaigns, and others use microtargeting—predictive analytics of big data—to identify people most likely to respond positively to particular messages or interventions. Conservationists have not yet widely capitalized on these techniques. To investigate the effectiveness of microtargeting to improve conservation, we developed a propensity model to predict restoration behavior among 203,645 private landowners in a 5,200,000 ha study area in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (U.S.A.). To isolate the additional value microtargeting may offer beyond geospatial prioritization, we analyzed a new high-resolution land-cover data set and cadastral data to identify private owners of riparian areas needing restoration. Subsequently, we developed and evaluated a restoration propensity model based on a database of landowners who had conducted restoration in the past and those who had not (n = 4978). Model validation in a parallel database (n = 4989) showed owners with the highest scorers for propensity to conduct restoration (i.e., top decile) were over twice as likely as average landowners to have conducted restoration (135%). These results demonstrate that microtargeting techniques can dramatically increase the efficiency and efficacy of conservation programs, above and beyond the advances offered by biophysical prioritizations alone, as well as facilitate more robust research of many social–ecological systems.     

A spatially explicit backcasting approach for sustainable land-use planning

General backcasting as a decision support and planning method starts from desired future states and simulates developments backwards until reaching the present state. Development pathways that reveal steps to be taken to reach a certain future state, and milestones that serve as interim goals, are created during the process. Backcasting has hitherto only been applied in workshops or as a theoretical framework and no spatially explicit backcasting model has previously been established. This paper presents the development of a spatially explicit backcasting model. The proposed model first creates a future scenario utilizing an agent-based model and then simulates backwards. It is implemented using the programming language Python. The model has been applied to a case study for sustainable land-use planning in Salzburg, Austria. The results of the model run show a successful backcasting of land-use classes from a future state back to the present, in 10 year time steps.     

Soil erosion vulnerability under scenarios of climate land-use changes after the development of a large reservoir in a semi-arid area

Climate and land-use/cover changes (LUCC) influence soil erosion vulnerability in the semi-arid region of Alqueva, threatening the reservoir storage capacity and sustainability of the landscape. Considering the effect of these changes in the future, the purpose of this study was to investigate soil erosion scenarios using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model. A multi-agent system combining Markov cellular automata with multi-criteria evaluation was used to investigate LUCC scenarios according to delineated regional strategies. Forecasting scenarios indicated that the intensive agricultural area as well as the sparse and xerophytic vegetation and rainfall-runoff erosivity would increase, consequently causing the soil erosion to rise from 1.78 Mg ha^?1 to 3.65 Mg ha^?1 by 2100. A backcasting scenario was investigated by considering the application of soil conservation practices that would decrease the soil erosion considerably to an average of 2.27 Mg ha^?1. A decision support system can assist stakeholders in defining restrictive practices and developing conservation plans, contributing to control the reservoir's siltation.     

Ecosystem services assessments in local municipal decision making in South Africa: justification for the use of a business-based approach

The ecosystem services (ES) concept is being increasingly incorporated into environmental policy formulation and management approaches. The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) is a framework used to assess the dependence and impact that a business has on ES. The success of the corporate experience of ES assessment provides an opportunity for adaption for local authority decision making. In this paper, the ESR tool was adapted to the South African setting at a local government level, and tested at two sites in the Msunduzi Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal. In testing the tool and gathering feedback from key stakeholders, it was found that there are both opportunities and challenges to this approach. Overall, however, it provides an opportunity for the systematic inclusion of ES assessment into existing regulatory frameworks for land-use planning and Integrated Environmental Management, whether in a strategic application, at a broader spatial (municipal) scale or in a specific locale within the municipality.