Search results for " monitoring"
showing 10 items of 3129 documents
From USSR to EU: 20 years of rural landscape changes in Vidzeme, Latvia
2012
Landscape changes have been observed throughout rural Europe over the past decades in relation to intensifying agriculture and land marginalisation. This is particularly true for Central and Eastern Europe as drastic political and socio-economic changes have taken place over the past century, as is the case for Latvia. Using a detailed time series of high-resolution remotely sensed images spanning from 1988 to 2007, the landscape structure (composition and configuration) in Vidzeme, central Latvia, is examined and compared between periods. Major recent events for the country, such as independence and entry into the European Union are covered. The effect on landscape structure of various soc…
Social vulnerability to climate policies: Building a matrix to assess policy impacts on well-being
2021
In this article, we address the social vulnerability of people to climate mitigation policies and contribute to assessing the social impacts of climate policies by introducing a matrix tool for conducting vulnerability assessments and participatory climate policy planning. The matrix serves as a methodological tool for identifying social groups in their social spaces. First, we lay the foundation for the matrix by linking social vulnerability to equality and justice, demonstrating the importance of addressing social vulnerability in climate policy design and research. Next, we introduce the ways in which social vulnerability has been addressed in the integration of social and climate policy…
New research in the methods and applications of sclerochronology
2017
Abstract Because the instrumental record is short and does not extend to periods before the initiation of significant human impacts, full understanding of the processes and dynamics involved in the modern phase of very rapid global change depends on the interpretation of high resolution and precisely dated proxy archives. The identification of very long-lived species of bivalve mollusc in the extratropical marine environment has been a crucial recent advance. These molluscs form patterns of periodic (usually annual) banding in their shells that are synchronous within populations, so that long (centennial and millennial) stacked chronologies can be built by crossdating from live collected to…
Recent advances in paleoflood hydrology: From new archives to data compilation and analysis
2018
8 pags, 4 figs
Economic Conditions in the Area Around the Sea of Galilee in Pre-Hellenistic Times
2017
Abstract In a landscape archaeology project all the fertile fields around the Sea of Galilee (an area of 50 × 30 km) were mapped. The whole territory was subdivided in 5 regions: Jordan valley, Lower Galilee, Upper Galilee, Golan and Transjordanian Hill Country. Additionally all ancient sites from the Neolithic to the Persian period, which are mentioned in archaeological literature, were collected – all together more than 300 sites. These data allow a reconstruction of the economic conditions in antiquity in the area around the Sea of Galilee. Landscape archaeology clearly demonstrates that the economic basis may have been completely diverse in the five sub-regions, and also during differen…
Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents
2016
Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Large-scale analyses have generally focused on the impacts of climate change on the geographic ranges of species, and on phenology, the timing of ecological phenomena. Here, we use long-term monitoring of the abundance of breeding birds across Europe and the USA to produce, for both regions, composite population indices for two groups of species: those for which climate suitability has been either improving or declining since 1980. The ratio of these composite indices, the Climate Impact Indicator (CII), reflects the divergent fates of species favored or disadvantaged by climate change. The trend in CII is positive and similar in the …
Do environmental diversity approaches lead to improved site selection? A comparison with the multi-species approach
2008
This paper suggests a new approach to select conservation areas cost-effectively according to the concept of complementarity and representation of focal natural features. The suggested environmental diversity (ED) site selection model maximizes ecological diversity, measured via ordination of the chosen taxa communities. Given their fundamental role in ecosystem functioning, vascular plants are chosen as the indicator taxa. We test the ED indicator model by contrasting it to the conventional site selection indicator (MS model), which maximizes the representation of species number in the indicator taxa. We demonstrate that the ED model is more cost-effective than the MS model. More important…
Conflicting objectives in production forests pose a challenge for forest management
2017
Conflicts among different ecosystem services have been shown to be common and potentially exacerbated by management interventions. In order to improve the sustainability of natural resource use, the occurrence of these conflicts and the effects that management actions have on them need to be understood. We studied the conflicts between ecosystem services and the potential to solve them by management choices in boreal production forests. Our study area consisted of nearly 30,000 forest stands which were simulated for 50 years into the future under alternative management scenarios. The study included four ecosystem services – timber production, bilberry production, carbon storage, and pest re…
Changes in the Spatial Structure of the Landscape of Isolated Forest Complexes in the 19th and 20th Centuries and Their Potential Effects on Supporti…
2020
This study assesses the changes in the spatial structure of the landscape between 1825 and 2019 in the isolated, protected forest complex of the Niemodlin Forests. Based on the analysis of changes in this structure, a change the supporting ecosystem services related to the protection of biodiversity was proposed. The landscape metrics were used separately for the analysis of the structure of the whole landscape, and individual types of ecosystems were used in the research. There were no major changes in the share of individual types of ecosystems during the period under review. At the same time, a very large increase in built-up areas and tree stands was found in 1825. Landscape metrics poi…
What are the effects of even-aged and uneven-aged forest management on boreal forest biodiversity in Fennoscandia and European Russia? : A systematic…
2019
Abstract Background Biodiversity is vital for human well-being, but is threatened by human actions world-wide. In the boreal zone, harvesting and management of forests on an industrial scale is the most important factor driving habitat change and degradation. Over time different forest management regimes have been implemented but their impact on biodiversity at different spatial and temporal scales has not been systematically reviewed although non-systematic reviews on the topic exist. The aim of this article is to describe a protocol for a systematic review to synthesise and compare the impacts of two different forest management systems on biodiversity at different spatial and temporal sca…