In the economic analysis of CBFM, people's discount rates are assumed exogenous and same for all goods. We examined the validity of this assumption by eliciting the discount rates of households for grass, timber, fuelwood and money, and analyzed the impacts of various personal and economic factors...

Although aggressive tree planting and vegetation recovery have enhanced the ecosystem functions and services of the Yellow River (YR) basin, there have been unintended consequences. The primary goal of this study is to explore the implications of alternatives of vegetation cover restoration to...

Vegetation plays major roles in carbon storage and ecosystem functioning by modifying the rate of carbon fluxes thereby mitigating climate change. However, the focus of assessing the potentials for different vegetation on climate change mitigation has for so long been conducted outside cities,...

Using imagery available through Google Earth Pro and a point sampling methodology, changes in land cover for three U.S. cities were assessed, beginning during the Great Recession (2007) and extending through to 2018. The cities were Buffalo (New York), Denver (Colorado), and San Diego (California), ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the vegetation cover of alder and broadleaved coniferous forests of alder, maple and oak and compare it with natural forest in Ramsar Ridge. 96 sample plots of 400 square meters were collected by regular random sampling. The bio-spectrum of plants was...

Revealing the spatial differentiation of ecosystem service (ES) trade-offs and their responses to land-use change along precipitation gradients are important issues in the Loess Plateau of China. We selected three watersheds called Dianshi (300 mm < MAP (mean annual precipitation) < 400 mm), Ansai (400 mm < MAP < 500 mm), and Linzhen (500 mm < MAP < 600 mm). A new ES trade-off quantification index was proposed, and quantile regression, piecewise linear regression, and redundancy analysis were used. The results were as follows. (1) Carbon sequestration (TC) and soil conservation (SEC) increased, but water yield (WY) decreased in the three watersheds from 2000 to 2018. (2) The effect of forests on trade-offs was positive in three...

Background: Biodiversity data is crucial for sustainable development and making decisions regarding natural resources and its conservation. The study goal was to use quantitative ecological approaches to determine the species richness and diversity of wild flora and the ultimate impact of...

Robinia pseudoacacia, invaded many countries a long time ago and is now a common part of the Central European landscape. Positive economic but negative environmental impacts of Robinia result in conflicts of interest between nature conservation, forestry, urban landscaping, beekeepers and the...

The United States' implementation of the Montréal Process indicator of forest fragmentation presents a case study in the development and application of science within a criteria and indicator framework to evaluate forest sustainability. Here, we review the historical evolution and status of the...

The existing approaches to vegetation productivity assessment have been discussed. A challenge for the creation of new science-based tools for assessment and prediction of vegetation productivity and dynamics has been pointed out. The simulation (numerical, dynamic) models of grass, agronomic and ...