This practical handbook bridges the gap between those scientists who study landscapes and the planners and conservationists who must then decide how best to preserve and build environmentally-sound habitats. Until now, only a small portion of the relevant science has influenced the decision-making arenas where the future of our landscapes is debated and decided. The authors explain specific tools and concepts to measure a landscape's structure, form, and change over time. Metrics studied include patch richness, class area proportion, patch number and density, mean patch size, shape, radius of gyration, contagion, edge contrast, nearest neighbor distance, and proximity. These measures will help planners and conservationists make better land use decisions for the future.

The emergence of rural land rental markets in Sub-Saharan Africa is recognized as a key component of the region’s ongoing economic transformation. However, the evidence base on land market participation relies on survey-derived measures, which do not always cohere when compared and triangulated, suggesting the possibility of non-trivial measurement error. We report the results of a priming and list experiments designed to shed light on a persistent mystery in rural household survey data from Africa: why there are so many fewer self-reported landlords (renters-out) than tenants (renters-in)? Our design addresses two hypotheses using experimental data from Ethiopia. First, rented-out and rented-in land may be systematically underreported because enumerators and respondents are typically primed to emphasize parcels that are actively managed/cultivated by the household. Second, rented or sharecropped-out land may be systematically underreported because of respondents’ reluctance to acknowledge an activity for which public disclosure may have negative repercussions. We address the first hypothesis with a priming experiment by exposing a random subset of respondents to a nudge that explicitly reminded them to fully account for all land, including rented/sharecropped-in and rented/sharecropped-out. We address the second hypothesis with a double-list experiment, designed to elicit true rates of land renting and sharecropping-out. We find that nudging induces about 4 percentage points increase (or 13% in relative terms) in the share of households participating in renting in or sharecropping-in practices but has negligible effects on reported rates of renting and sharecropping-out. Interestingly, our list experiment indicates much higher revealed rates of renting-out (14-15%) than is reflected in the nominal parcel-roster responses (3%). The magnitude of the latter finding fully explains the apparent difference in renting in versus renting-out rates derived from the regular parcel roster responses. These results indicate that efforts to document land market participation rate and associated impacts must overcome large systematic reporting biases.

This valuable book summarizes recent research by experts from both the natural and social sciences on the effects of population growth on land use. It is a useful introduction to a field in which little quantitative research has been conducted and in which there is a great deal of public controversy. The book includes case studies of African, Asian, and Latin American countries that demonstrate the varied effects of population growth on land use. Several general chapters address the following timely questions: What is meant by land use change? Why are ecological research and population studies so different? What are the implications for sustainable growth in agricultural production? Although much work remains to be done in quantifying the causal connections between demographic and land use changes, this book provides important insights into those connections, and it should stimulate more work in this area.

This book describes the emergence of landscape ecology, its current status as a new integrative science, and how distinguished scholars in the field of landscape ecology view the future regarding new challenges and career opportunities. Over the past thirty years, landscape ecology has utilized development in technology and methodology (e.g., satellites, GIS, and systems technologists) to monitor large temporal-spatial scale events and phenomena. These events include changes in vegetative cover and composition due to both natural disturbance and human cause—changes that have academic, economic, political, and social manifestations. There is little doubt, due to the temporal-spatial scale of this integrative science, that scholars in fields of study ranging from anthropology to urban ecology will desire to compare their fields with landscape ecology during this intellectually and technologically fertile time. History of Landscape Ecology in the United States brings to light the vital role that landscape ecologists will play in the future as the human population continues to increase and fragment the natural environment. Landscape ecology is known as a synthesized intersection of disciplines; but new theories, concepts, and principles have emerged that form the foundation of a new transdiscipline.

Climb a mountain and experience the landscape. Try to grasp its holistic nature. Do not climb alone, but with others and share your experience. Be sure the ways of seeing the landscape will be very different. We experience the landscape with all senses as a complex, dynamic and hierarchically structured whole. The landscape is tangible out there and simultaneously a mental reality. Several perspectives are obvious because of language, culture and background. Many disciplines developed to study the landscape focussing on specific interest groups and applications. Gradually the holistic way of seeing became lost. This book explores the different perspectives on the landscape in relation to its holistic nature. We start from its multiple linguistic meanings and a comprehensive overview of the development of landscape research from its geographical origins to the wide variety of today’s specialised disciplines and interest groups. Understanding the different perspectives on the landscapes and bringing them together is essential in transdisciplinary approaches where the landscape is the integrating concept.

This open access book represents a comprehensive review of available land-use cover data and techniques to validate and analyze this type of spatial information. The book provides the basic theory needed to understand the progress of LUCC mapping/modeling validation practice. It makes accessible to any interested user most of the research community's methods and techniques to validate LUC maps and models. Besides, this book is enriched with practical exercises to be applied with QGIS. The book includes a description of relevant global and supra-national LUC datasets currently available. Finally, the book provides the user with all the information required to manage and download these datasets.