Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of maps -- List of tables -- List of contributors -- Introduction -- PART I Landscape organization -- 1 Borders and mosaics, east and west: landscape organization in environmental history -- Commentary -- Commentary -- Commentary -- PART II Managing the rivers -- 2 Writing the 20th-century history of water on the North China Plain -- 3 Land use change in a mountainous area during the past 300 years from the perspective of the spatial evolution of settlements: the case of the Zhangjiu River Basin in Yunnan Province, China -- 4 Taming the blind snake: flooding disasters and river regulation of the Zengwen River in colonial Taiwan -- PART III Land use and food production -- 5 Transformation through inundation: riziculturing Muslim identity in Qing Dynasty Khotan -- 6 The role of plant factories on food production and technology in Japan -- PART IV Development of eco-cities -- 7 Eco-city development in Japan -- 8 Ecological construction in coastal Southeast China -- 9 Building the sustainable city of Yilan: the development of environmental governance learning capacity -- PART V Folk belief and environment -- 10 Nature worship and the environment in Song China -- 11 The mountain spirits and lake monsters of Xinjiang Province during the Qing Dynasty -- Index

Understanding humanity&rsquo ; s relationship with nature is crucial for the well-being and sustainable development of mankind in the face of global environmental change. Communities depend on landscapes for survival and landscapes determine if sustainable development is to be achieved. The links between landscapes, ecosystem services, livelihoods, and climate change are often complex, misunderstood, and barely studied in rural areas of Africa, where communities live side-by-side with conservation areas. Our study surveyed the perception of the nexus of landscape change, climate change, ecosystem services, and livelihoods in Gonarezhou, a national park in southeastern Zimbabwe. We also used Landsat satellite imagery to map the landscape change over 20 years to validate and to correlate with the survey data. The survey results indicated that people relied on rainfed agriculture as a means of livelihood, but droughts as a result of climate change force communities to engage in other means of livelihoods such as small-scale poaching of small game such as impala and harvesting of natural resources such as edible shrubs. Crops and livestock as provisional ecosystem services have been negatively affected by climate change and landscape change. Landsat data confirmed that there was a negative transformation of the landscape as a result of agriculture, growth in settlements, and large herbivores. However, there was also a positive landscape transformation resulting from the conservation efforts by the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust (GCT). Cultural services about education and awareness of the environment and provisional services such as wild fruits are booming. Challenges such as soil erosion, human&ndash ; wildlife conflict, and minimal community benefits from conservation efforts hindered sustainable development in the study area. While changes in landscape, climate, livelihoods, and ecosystem services happened at a local scale, the underlying drivers such as politics and the economy were also identified as drivers of landscape change.

Context Anthropogenic landscape changes have substantial effects on biodiversity and animal populations worldwide. However, anthropogenic landscape change can take a variety of forms, and its effects on wildlife species can vary by landscape context and scale. It is therefore critical that studies of the effects of anthropogenic landscape change on wildlife consider landscape context and model effects of landscape change at multiple scales. Mesopredators serve as an excellent case study of scale-dependent and even contradictory effects of anthropogenic landscape change, because mesopredator populations can respond both positively and negatively to landscape change depending on its form (e.g. agricultural production, urbanisation) and scale. Aims The aim of this study was to model relationships between multiple aspects of anthropogenic landscape change, including agricultural production and the proliferation of non-native shrubs, and relative abundance of three mesopredator species: Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis), and raccoon (Procyon lotor). Methods We summarised landscape variables at two scales and built both single-scale and multi-scale models linking relative abundance of mesopredators to landscape variables. Key results We found that relative abundance of all three species was most related to either the transition from natural areas to agricultural areas (brown-to-green gradient) or the likelihood of presence of non-native shrubs. We also found that responses to anthropogenic landscape change varied by spatial scale; for instance, skunks and raccoons had higher relative abundance in parts of Illinois with more forest cover and agriculture, respectively, but avoided more highly forested and agricultural areas, respectively, at smaller scales. Conclusions Mesopredator responses to landscape change were highly variable and scale-dependent, but were generally related to transitions from forest to agriculture or the presence of non-native shrubs. Implications Our study demonstrates the need to model effects of anthropogenic landscape change at multiple scales, given the differing results that can be achieved when landscape variables are measured at multiple scales.

The cultural landscape of Norfolk County displays the remnants of numerous cycles of transformation. In the mid-19th century, the region was the hub of the Lake Erie timber trade and a major supplier to America's growing urban markets. By the start of the 20th century, much of the forest was gone, many farms were abandoned and the region was plagued by severe soil erosion. Within a few decades the problems of a degraded environment and depressed local economy were long forgotten: the Ontario government targeted the sandy 'waste lands' with a reforestation programme, and the introduction of flue-cured tobacco in 1922 marked the beginning of an era of unprecedented prosperity. Conceptualizing landscape change as a continuum rather than discrete episodes allows us to expose the multitude and complexity of human responses to perceived environmental problems and earlier interventions in the land. Taking a longer historical perspective also highlights how natural phenomena (i.e. storm events), economic choices, government decisions, and the unexpected outcomes of human intervention all played a role in the creation of waste land in the Norfolk Sand Plain and its subsequent transformation into Canada's tobacco production heartland.

The cultural landscape of Norfolk County displays the remnants of numerous cycles of transformation. In the mid-19th century, the region was the hub of the Lake Erie timber trade and a major supplier to America's growing urban markets. By the start of the 20th century, much of the forest was gone, many farms were abandoned and the region was plagued by severe soil erosion. Within a few decades the problems of a degraded environment and depressed local economy were long forgotten: the Ontario government targeted the sandy 'waste lands' with a reforestation programme, and the introduction of flue-cured tobacco in 1922 marked the beginning of an era of unprecedented prosperity. Conceptualizing landscape change as a continuum rather than discrete episodes allows us to expose the multitude and complexity of human responses to perceived environmental problems and earlier interventions in the land. Taking a longer historical perspective also highlights how natural phenomena (i.e. storm events), economic choices, government decisions, and the unexpected outcomes of human intervention all played a role in the creation of waste land in the Norfolk Sand Plain and its subsequent transformation into Canada's tobacco production heartland.