Ferrum concretions forms in the mollic gley soils of Low (Male) Polissya

In the humid conditions, the most common ground forms are the ferruginous ones: ferrum concretions, marsh ore, ocher spots, etc. Mollic gley soils are widely spread along the periphery of marshes and are formed under the influence of mollic and gley processes on various soil-forming rocks under conditions of sporadically pulsating water regime and excessive moisture under the meadow and swamp biocenoses. The ferrum concretions are characteristic of all genetic horizons of mollic gley soils, except for the soil-forming rock, and their content ranges from 3.3% in the mollic to 47.1% in the lower transitional horizon. The gross iron content in the fine mollic gley soils, as well as in the ferrum concretions forms, increases with depth, and the maximum values are characteristic of the lower transition horizon. The lowest values of the gross iron content are characteristic of the fine soil-forming rock (16.0 mg / 100 g soil) and the mollic soil (66.4 mg / 100 g soil). It was established that the gross chemical content of the ferrum concretions forms is dominated by the iron oxides with the highest content in the ferrum concretions of the mollic soils (48.75%). Also the ferrum concretions forms of iron are characterized by a rather high content of aluminum oxides (5.59–7.92%). The highest values of the accumulation coefficient are characteristic of the iron oxide (Kx = 7.21–2.58), which confirms the hypothesis of the dominant role of its compounds in the formation of the ferrum concretions forms

Defining Priority Land Covers that Secure the Livelihoods of Urban and Rural People in Ethiopia: a Case Study Based on Citizens' Preferences

Securing land management systems that maintain land covers is important for sustaining human livelihoods in Africa; however, simultaneously maintaining a viable natural environment is a serious challenge. Aggravated by rapid population growth and biodiversity loss, Ethiopia is an illustrative example of this issue. Stressing the need for a bottom-up stakeholder perspective, we identify and map land covers that deliver multiple ecosystem services that are important for the livelihoods of rural and urban citizens in the southern part of Ethiopia's Rift Valley. First, we interviewed 400 urban and rural residents to identify the land covers that deliver desired ecosystem services in three agroecological zones, representing a steep gradient in the livelihood conditions. Second, to support the inclusion of priority land covers in spatial planning, we located spatial concentrations of individual land covers providing bundles of desired ecosystem services. The majority of urban respondents selected homegarden agroforestry (92% of respondents from this group), freshwater lake (82%), river (70%), agroforestry shade-grown coffee (65%), natural old-growth forest (59%), rural settlement (52%), Afromontane undifferentiated forest (52%), and urban areas (73%) as important for their livelihood. In contrast, the majority of rural respondents selected three land covers: homegarden agroforestry (80% of respondents from this group), agroforestry shade-grown coffee (58%), and urban areas (65%). To maintain the identified natural and semi-natural priority land covers, at least two land management strategies are crucial to sustain the provision of ecosystem services for the livelihoods of both urban and rural people, and biodiversity conservation: (1) maintaining traditional agroforestry land-use practices, and (2) enhancing the protection and sustainable management of natural forest ecosystems. Additionally, integrated spatial planning is needed that considers both rural local community-based resource management that focuses on local needs for employment and products, and global demands to conserve biodiversity

Multiple factors shape the interaction of people with urban greenspace: Sweden as a case study

This study identifies and analyses multiple factors that impact people's interactions with urban greenspace in Sweden. An unrestricted, self-selected online survey was used to collect the data. The survey questions were related to individual characteristics of respondents, including socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported nature connectedness, and self-reported constraints to greenspace usage; perceived characteristics of urban greenspace, including its availability, quality, and accessibility, and benefits and problems; and preferences of respondents regarding types of urban greenspace and activities. Additionally, several spatially explicit variables were included in the analysis. A total of 2806 respondents from 208 (of 290) municipalities completed the survey. Our findings indicate that greenspace users are highly heterogeneous and utilise diverse green spaces along the urban-peri-urban gradient for various benefits. The statistical analyses identified 61 explanatory variables that affect the frequency of interactions with urban greenspace. In addition, we identify key factors that shape critical differences between frequent and infrequent urban users, such as nature connectedness, perceptions of urban greenspace functions, and their perceived accessibility. Our results highlight the complex challenge facing urban planners and managers of green spaces, who have to consider and integrate a vast array of factors influencing the willingness of increasingly diverse urban populations to interact with greenspace

Meeting places and social capital supporting rural landscape stewardship : A Pan-European horizon scanning

Achieving sustainable development as an inclusive societal process in rural landscapes, and sustainability in terms of functional green infrastructures for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services, are wicked challenges. Competing claims from various sectors call for evidence-based adaptive collaborative governance. Leveraging such approaches requires maintenance of several forms of social interactions and capitals. Focusing on Pan-European regions with different environmental histories and cultures, we estimate the state and trends of two groups of factors underpinning rural landscape stewardship, namely, (1) traditional rural landscape and novel face-to-face as well as virtual fora for social interaction, and (2) bonding, bridging, and linking forms of social capital. We applied horizon scanning to 16 local landscapes located in 18 countries, representing Pan-European social-ecological and cultural gradients. The resulting narratives, and rapid appraisal knowledge, were used to estimate portfolios of different fora for social interactions and forms of social capital supporting landscape stewardship. The portfolios of fora for social interactions were linked to societal cultures across the European continent: “self-expression and secular-rational values” in the northwest, “Catholic” in the south, and “survival and traditional authority values” in the East. This was explained by the role of traditional secular and religious local meeting places. Virtual internet-based fora were most widespread. Bonding social capitals were the strongest across the case study landscapes, and linking social capitals were the weakest. This applied to all three groups of fora. Pan-European social-ecological contexts can be divided into distinct clusters with respect to the portfolios of different fora supporting landscape stewardship, which draw mostly on bonding and bridging forms of social capital. This emphasizes the need for regionally and culturally adapted approaches to landscape stewardship, which are underpinned by evidence-based knowledge about how to sustain green infrastructures based on both forest naturalness and cultural landscape values. Sharing knowledge from comparative studies can strengthen linking social capital

Diagnostic criteria for lessivage of profile-differentiated soils of the Precarpathian region (Ukraine)

Profile-differentiated soils of the Precarpathian region were formed due to the combined effect of such processes as podzolization, lessivage, gley-eluvium. For the diagnosis of these soils, researchers have used different diagnostic features. The most controversial is the diagnosis of the lessivage process. Based on our own field and analytical studies, it is suggested to use the granulometric composition compared to the contents of the horizon and the silt content in argillanes for the diagnosis of lessivage argillanes within the illuvial horizon. A reliable feature of lessivage is the equal distribution of the montmorillonite group minerals within the profile, which is diagnosed by the ratio of SiO2:Al2O3 in the silty fraction, the accumulation of Fe2O3 and R2O3 in the illuvial horizon in comparison with the rock and positive values of eluvial-accumulative coefficient of oxides in the silty fraction in the illuvial part of the soil profile

Landscape Approach towards Integrated Conservation and Use of Primeval Forests: The Transboundary Kovda River Catchment in Russia and Finland

Regional clear-felling of naturally dynamic boreal forests has left remote forest landscapes in northern Europe with challenges regarding rural development based on wood mining. However, biodiversity conservation with higher levels of ambition than what is possible in regions with a long forest history, and cultural heritage, offer opportunities for developing new value chains that support rural development. We explored the opportunities for pro-active integrated spatial planning based on: (i) landscapes' natural and cultural heritage values in the transboundary Kovda River catchment in Russia and Finland; (ii) forest canopy loss as a threat; and (iii) private, public and civil sector stakeholders' views on the use and non-use values at local to international levels. After a 50-year history of wood mining in Russia, the remaining primeval forest and cultural heritage remnants are located along the pre-1940 Finnish-Russian border. Forest canopy loss was higher in Finland (0.42%/year) than in Russia (0.09%/year), and decreased from the south to the north in both countries. The spatial scales of stakeholders' use of forest landscapes ranged from stand-scale to the entire catchment of Kovda River in Russia and Finland (similar to 2,600,000 ha). We stress the need to develop an integrated landscape approach that includes: (i) forest landscape goods; (ii) other ecosystem services and values found in intact forest landscapes; and (iii) adaptive local and regional forest landscape governance. Transboundary collaboration offers opportunities for effective knowledge production and learning

Knowledge production and learning for sustainable forest landscapes: the European continent's west and east as a laboratory

To support human well-being, green (or ecological) infrastructure policy stresses the need to sustain functional networks of representative terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for the sus- tainable provision of multiple ecosystem services. Implementing this means that the com- plexity of interactions between social and ecological systems at multiple spatial scales and levels of governance needs to be understood. Place-based knowledge production and learn- ing through integration of different research disciplines in collaboration with actors and stakeholders (i.e. transdisciplinary research) is a key feature to achieve this goal. Using a suite of local landscapes and regions on the European continent’s West and East as a labora- tory, we developed and applied a step-wise approach to produce knowledge and encourage learning towards functional green infrastructures. Our diagnoses of forest landscapes show that the functionality for wood production and biodiversity conservation was inversely relat- ed in the gradient from long to short forest management histories. In Europe’s West there is a need for increased quantity of, and more functional, protected areas; diversification of management methods; and landscape restoration. In NW Russia there are opportunities to intensify forest management, and to continue the land-sparing approach with zoning for different functions, thus reducing biodiversity loss. Examples of diagnoses of social systems included the evaluation of comprehensive planning in Sweden, outcomes for biodiversity conservation of forest certification in Lithuania, and learning from environmental managers. We conclude that the main challenge for securing functional green infrastructure is poor cross-sectoral integration. Treatment of social-ecological systems requires knowledge-based collaboration and learning. The diversity of landscape histories and governance legacies on the European continent’s West and East, including Russia, offers grand opportunities for both knowledge production about performance targets for green infrastructure functionality, as well as learning to adapt governance and management to regional contexts. Integrating project funding for both researchers and stakeholder collaboration is a necessary strategy to fill the transdisciplinary research agenda. However, formal and informal disciplinary and administrative barriers can limit team building despite self-reflection and experience

Gap analysis as a basis for strategic spatial planning of green infrastructure: a case study in the Ukrainian Carpathians

e-ISSN 2376-7626Increased demand for natural resources and economic transition threaten natural and biocultural capital and thus ecosystem services for human well-being. We applied an evidence-based approach to strategic planning of functional green infrastructure in a European biodiversity hotspot: the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains. We (1) described how potential natural vegetation types have been transformed, (2) applied evidence-based critical thresholds for each potential natural vegetation land cover, (3) measured how much of the potential natural vegetation land covers are protected, and (4) estimated the area of cultural landscapes that emerged. While only 2% of lowland land cover types were left, 55% of mountain forests and 94% of alpine land covers remained. Many mountain forests were transformed to valuable cultural landscapes. Beech and oak forests covered 42% of the study area but at low levels of protection (<5%). The highest protection level (12–17%) was in mixed beech–fir–spruce and in spruce forests. However, taking connectivity into account, only alpine land covers formed a functional habitat network. More areas need to be protected and planned to build a functional green infrastructure. Traditional village systems with biocultural values need support. We discuss how strategic analyses can encourage collaborative spatial planning and international development cooperationVytauto Didžiojo universitetasŽemės ūkio akademij

How to reconcile wood production and biodiversity conservation? The Pan-European boreal forest history gradient as an "experiment"

There are currently competing demands on Europe's forests and the finite resources and services that they can offer. Forestry intensification that aims at mitigating climate change and biodiversity conservation is one example. Whether or not these two objectives compete can be evaluated by comparative studies of forest landscapes with different histories. We test the hypothesis that indicators of wood production and biodiversity conservation are inversely related in a gradient of long to short forestry intensification histories. Forest management data containing stand age, volume and tree species were used to model the opportunity for wood production and biodiversity conservation in five north European forest regions representing a gradient in landscape history from very long in the West and short in the East. Wood production indicators captured the supply of coniferous wood and total biomass, as well as current accessibility by transport infrastructure. Biodiversity conservation indicators were based on modelling habitat network functionality for focal bird species dependent on different combinations of stand age and tree species composition representing naturally dynamic forests. In each region we randomly sampled 25 individual 100-km(2) areas with contiguous forest cover. Regarding wood production, Sweden's Bergslagen region had the largest areas of coniferous wood, followed by Vitebsk in Belarus and Zemgale in Latvia. NW Russia's case study regions in Pskov and Komi had the lowest values, except for the biomass indicator. The addition of forest accessibility for transportation made the Belarusian and Swedish study region most suitable for wood and biomass production, followed by Latvia and two study regions in NW Russian. Regarding biodiversity conservation, the overall rank among regions was opposite. Mixed and deciduous habitats were functional in Russia, Belarus and Latvia. Old Scots pine and Norway spruce habitats were only functional in Komi. Thus, different regional forest histories provide different challenges in terms of satisfying both wood production and biodiversity conservation objectives in a forest management unit. These regional differences in northern Europe create opportunities for exchanging experiences among different regional contexts about how to achieve both objectives. We discuss this in the context of land-sharing versus land-sparing. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Landscape approach towards integrated conservation and use of primeval forests: the transboundary Kovda River catchment in Russia and Finland

art. n. 144Regional clear-felling of naturally dynamic boreal forests has left remote forest landscapes in northern Europe with challenges regarding rural development based on wood mining. However, biodiversity conservation with higher levels of ambition than what is possible in regions with a long forest history, and cultural heritage, o er opportunities for developing new value chains that support rural development. We explored the opportunities for pro-active integrated spatial planning based on: (i) landscapes’ natural and cultural heritage values in the transboundary Kovda River catchment in Russia and Finland; (ii) forest canopy loss as a threat; and (iii) private, public and civil sector stakeholders’ views on the use and non-use values at local to international levels. After a 50-year history of wood mining in Russia, the remaining primeval forest and cultural heritage remnants are located along the pre-1940 Finnish-Russian border. Forest canopy loss was higher in Finland (0.42%/year) than in Russia (0.09%/year), and decreased from the south to the north in both countries. The spatial scales of stakeholders’ use of forest landscapes ranged from stand-scale to the entire catchment of Kovda River in Russia and Finland (~2,600,000 ha). We stress the need to develop an integrated landscape approach that includes: (i) forest landscape goods; (ii) other ecosystem services and values found in intact forest landscapes; and (iii) adaptive local and regional forest landscape governance. Transboundary collaboration o ers opportunities for e ective knowledge production and learningMiškų ir ekologijos fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta