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1
Turner, G. W., and R. M. C. Ruffio. "Environmental Auditing for Nonpoint Source Pollution Control in a Region of New South Wales (Australia)." Water Science and Technology 28, no. 3-5 (August 1, 1993): 301–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wst.1993.0431.
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The concept of environmental auditing of point source pollution has been adapted to nonpoint source pollution in rural lands. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other information technologies provide an effective environmental management tool for characterising nonpoint source (NPS) pollution in a regional context and thereby can assist the environmental auditing process. Nonpoint source pollution problems of rural watersheds in Australia, particularly those in the state of New South Wales, and the role of the state's environment protection agency are outlined. A case study that applies an auditing methodology using GIS in a study area within the Lachlan River catchment is presented. The suitability of the approach for land condition evaluation and the review of land use controls for nonpoint source pollution is discussed.
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Farrugia, David, Joanne Hanley, Meg Sherval, Hedda Askland, Michael Askew, Julia Coffey, and Steven Threadgold. "The local politics of rural land use: Place, extraction industries and narratives of contemporary rurality." Journal of Sociology 55, no. 2 (May 3, 2018): 306–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1440783318773518.
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This article contributes to discussions of place and social change in rural sociology with a focus on the local politics of rural land use. In particular, the article explores the way that one rural place is responding to changes in the local and regional economy connected with the arrival of extractive industries such as mining and coal seam gas (CSG). The article shows how attitudes towards extractive industries are formed through notions of place and community within broader narratives concerning rurality and global capitalism. The local politics of land use enrols complex and contradictory forms of place attachment into the articulation of competing narratives about rurality, and intervenes in the local social relationships of rural areas. The politics of extraction in rural Australia is therefore situated at the forefront of contemporary economic and cultural changes that are part of the reshaping of place amid the broader dynamics of contemporary global capitalism.
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Wilson, George R., Melanie J. Edwards, and Jennifer K. Smits. "Support for Indigenous wildlife management in Australia to enable sustainable use." Wildlife Research 37, no. 3 (2010): 255. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr09130.
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Wildlife managers could play a greater role in ensuring that Indigenous wildlife harvesting is sustainable and helping to address community health and employment challenges facing Indigenous Australians in remote and rural areas. Wildlife managers need to listen more to what Indigenous people say they want from their country and for their people, such as increased game to supplement their diet and security for totemic species, to maintain culture. In pre-colonial Australia, adherence to customary law maintained wildlife species Indigenous Australians wanted. Today the long-term sustainability of Indigenous wildlife harvesting is threatened. Where Indigenous communities lack leadership and other social problems exist, their capacity to apply customary land-and sea-management practices and to operate cultural constraints on wildlife use is reduced. The Indigenous right to hunt should coexist with responsible management. Improved wildlife management that combines science and traditional knowledge has implications for Indigenous people worldwide. Western science can support Indigenous passion for caring for the land. It can draw on traditional Indigenous practice and, through reciprocal learning, help reinstate Indigenous law and culture in communities. In Australia, wildlife managers could be more engaged in supporting Indigenous Australians in activities such as surveying populations and estimating sustainable yields, identifying refuge areas, maximising habitat diversity, controlling weeds and feral animals, and exchanging information across regions. Although support for Indigenous land and wildlife management has risen in recent years, it remains a minor component of current Australian Government resource allocation for addressing Indigenous need. Wildlife management could be a stronger focus in education, training and employment programs. Proactive wildlife management conforms to both the western concept of conserving biodiversity and Indigenous wildlife management; it can support sustainable harvesting, provide employment and income, create learning and training opportunities and improve Indigenous health. If greater expenditure were directed to Indigenous wildlife management, wildlife managers, especially Indigenous wildlife managers, could become more engaged in cultural initiatives across traditional and scientific practices and so contribute to programs that address the health and motivational challenges facing Indigenous communities.
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Pickard, John. "Post and Rail Fences: Derivation, Development, and Demise of Rural Technology in Colonial Australia." Agricultural History 79, no. 1 (January 1, 2005): 27–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00021482-79.1.27.
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Abstract Post and rail fences had a relatively minor role in England in the eighteenth century, primarily to protect young hedges. However, they rapidly became the most advanced form of fences in the new Australian colonies founded in 1788 and later. The key feature is that thinned tenons on the ends of rectangular split rails fit closely into mortises cut in the rectangular split posts. Post and rail fences were widespread but never common because of the high cost, lack of secure land tenure, and ubiquitous use of shepherds to guard against predatory dingoes. With the introduction of cheap iron wire in the mid-1850s, farmers and pastoralists gained many advantages from fencing their boundaries and paddocks. By 1900 post and rail fences were obsolete technologically, although farmers built decreasing numbers up to the 1960s. More recently, many people are relocating old post and rail fences onto peri-urban subdivisions and erecting new ones to create a rustic appearance. Post and rail fence use in advertisements and other media shows that they have achieved a new status as an icon of rural Australia.
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Le Marshall, John, Robert Norman, David Howard, Susan Rennie, Michael Moore, Jan Kaplon, Yi Xiao, et al. "Corrigendum to: Using global navigation satellite system data for real-time moisture analysis and forecasting over the Australian region I. The system." Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science 70, no. 1 (2020): 394. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/es19009_co.
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The use of high spatial and temporal resolution data assimilation and forecasting around Australia’s capital cities and rural land provided an opportunity to improve moisture analysis and forecasting. To support this endeavour, RMIT University and Geoscience Australia worked with the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to provide real-time GNSS (global navigation satellite system) zenith total delay (ZTD) data over the Australian region, from which a high-resolution total water vapour field for SE Australia could be determined. The ZTD data could play an important role in high-resolution data assimilation by providing mesoscale moisture data coverage from existing GNSS surface stations over significant areas of the Australian continent. The data were used by the BoM’s high-resolution ACCESS-C3 capital city numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems, the ACCESS-G3 Global system and had been used by the ACCESS-R2-Regional NWP model. A description of the data collection and analysis system is provided. An example of the application of these local GNSS data for a heavy rainfall event over SE Australia/Victoria is shown using the 1.5-km resolution ACCESS-C3 model, which was being prepared for operational use. The results from the test were assessed qualitatively, synoptically and also examined quantitatively using the Fractions Skills Score which showed the reasonableness of the forecasts and demonstrated the potential for improving rainfall forecasts over south-eastern Australia by the inclusion of ZTD data in constructing the moisture field. These data have been accepted for operational use in NWP.
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Marshall, John Le, Robert Norman, David Howard, Susan Rennie, Michael Moore, Jan Kaplon, Yi Xiao, et al. "Using global navigation satellite system data for real-time moisture analysis and forecasting over the Australian region I. The system." Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science 69, no. 1 (2019): 161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/es19009.
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The use of high spatial and temporal resolution data assimilation and forecasting around Australia’s capital cities and rural land provided an opportunity to improve moisture analysis and forecasting. To support this endeavour, RMIT University and Geoscience Australia worked with the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to provide real-time GNSS (global navigation satellite system) zenith total delay (ZTD) data over the Australian region, from which a high-resolution total water vapour field for SE Australia could be determined. The ZTD data could play an important role in high-resolution data assimilation by providing mesoscale moisture data coverage from existing GNSS surface stations over significant areas of the Australian continent. The data were used by the BoM’s high-resolution ACCESS-C3 capital city numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems, the ACCESS-G3 Global system and had been used by the ACCESS-R2-Regional NWP model. A description of the data collection and analysis system is provided. An example of the application of these local GNSS data for a heavy rainfall event over SE Australia/Victoria is shown using the 1.5-km resolution ACCESS-C3 model, which was being prepared for operational use. The results from the test were assessed qualitatively, synoptically and also examined quantitatively using the Fractions Skills Score which showed the reasonableness of the forecasts and demonstrated the potential for improving rainfall forecasts over south-eastern Australia by the inclusion of ZTD data in constructing the moisture field. These data have been accepted for operational use in NWP.
7
Leake, John E. "Investment in Land Restoration: New Perspectives with Special Reference to Australia." Land 10, no. 2 (February 3, 2021): 156. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land10020156.
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Environmental services of biodiversity, clean water, etc., have been considered byproducts of farming and grazing, but population pressures and a move from rural to peri-urban areas are changing land use practices, reducing these services and increasing land degradation. A range of ecosystem markets have been reversing this damage, but these are not widely institutionalized, so land managers do not see them as “real” in the way they do for traditional food and fiber products. There are difficulties defining and monitoring non-food/fiber ecosystem services so they can be reliably marketed, and those markets that do operate usually do so in a piecemeal single product way in the interest of simplicity for the buyer, and seldom adequately regulate or compensate land managers for non-market benefits. New profitable uses of degraded water and regenerating land are emerging, but they require technology transfer or supply chain development to facilitate adoption. There is a need for a transformational change in the way land and water are used to promote a broader approach, so environmental services become a mainstream activity for land managers. A far-sighted Philanthropist is required to support an International institution to take up the challenge of institutionalizing such a ‘brokerage’ system to operate globally.
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Blackmore, Don, and Daniel Connell. "Are rural land practices in the Murray-Darling Basin a threat to the environment?" Soil Research 35, no. 5 (1997): 1037. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/s96109.
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Over the last 150 years Australia has gained great economic rewards from the use of the natural resources of the Murray-Darling Basin. However, many of the methods used to gain those benefits are now seen as unsustainable. To maintain the region’s productivity in the future, a different approach to managing its natural resources is needed. This paper explains the economic and environmental importance of the Basin, describes the degradation that has occurred, and summarises the efforts being made to achieve sustainable management of the region.
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Brown, Geoff W., Andrew F. Bennett, and Joanne M. Potts. "Regional faunal decline - reptile occurrence in fragmented rural landscapes of south-eastern Australia." Wildlife Research 35, no. 1 (2008): 8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr07010.
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Many species of reptiles are sedentary and depend on ground-layer habitats, suggesting that they may be particularly vulnerable to landscape changes that result in isolation or degradation of native vegetation. We investigated patterns of reptile distribution and abundance in remnant woodland across the Victorian Riverina, south-eastern Australia, a bioregion highly modified (>90%) by clearing for agriculture. Reptiles were intensively surveyed by pitfall trapping and censuses at 60 sites, stratified to sample small (<30 ha) and large (>30 ha) remnants, and linear strips of roadside and streamside vegetation, across the regional environmental gradient. The recorded assemblage of 21 species was characterised by low abundance and patchy distribution of species. Reptiles were not recorded by either survey technique at 22% of sites and at a further 10% only a single individual was detected. More than half (53%) of all records were of two widespread, generalist skink species. Multivariate models showed that the distribution of reptiles is influenced by factors operating at several levels. The environmental gradient exerts a strong influence, with increasing species richness and numbers of individuals from east (moister, higher elevation) to west (drier, lower elevation). Differences existed between types of remnants, with roadside vegetation standing out as important; this probably reflects greater structural heterogeneity of ground and shrub strata than in remnants subject to grazing by stock. Although comparative historical data are lacking, we argue that there has been a region-wide decline in the status of reptiles in the Victorian Riverina involving: (1) overall population decline commensurate with loss of >90% of native vegetation; (2) disproportionate decline of grassy dry woodlands and their fauna (cf. floodplains); and (3) changes to populations and assemblages in surviving remnants due to effects of land-use on reptile habitats. Many species now occur as disjunct populations, vulnerable to changing land-use. The status of reptiles in rural Australia warrants greater attention than has been given to date. Effective conservation of this component of the biota requires better understanding of the population dynamics, habitat use and dispersal capacity of species; and a commitment to landscape restoration coupled with effective ecological monitoring.
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Fitzhardinge, Guy. "The Western Land Act post 2000." Rangeland Journal 23, no. 1 (2001): 25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/rj01012.
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In the past 100 years there have been substantial demographic changes in the Division, and in rural Australia in general. This has led to shifts in the political power base. Further, it has led to a split in the homogeneity between urban/rural understandings of landscape values and landscape usage. There is now a range of Acts apart from the Western Land Act that prescribes resource use in the Division. These Acts reflect a departure from the belief that the Western Division is somehow different from the rest of the State. There is also a range in international agreements that further impact on activities in relation to land use activities generally and thus in the Division. In today's global marketplace, the power and expectations of the consumer have begun to usurp the ability of Governments to control and direct change. Changes in farming systems and practices are now often generated as a response to consumer demands for a cleaner, greener or cheaper product, and not by legislation. Thc consumer push for 'clean and green' and for the implementation of demonstrable environmentally sound management systems will eventually force lessees in the 21st century to do what the Western Land Act failed to force them to do in the past 100 years. Where the Western Land Board procrastinated, forgave and through a benevolent attitude failed to enforce lease agreements or eject lessees who were in continual breach of these agreements, market forces will instead be ruthless. Given the changes in the domestic social and political climate, and the requirements of international customers for the products of the Division, it is hard to see any role for the Western Land Commission in the future, apart from the administration of an antiquated and scarcely relevant Act.
11
F. Bennett, Andrew, and Ralph Mac Nally. "Identifying priority areas for conservation action in agricultural landscapes." Pacific Conservation Biology 10, no. 2 (2004): 106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc040106.
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Farming for food, fibre and other products for human consumption is a dominant land-use throughout the world. Rural landscapes are also critical to the conservation of flora and fauna, and the maintenance of ecological processes on which all of life depends. In Australia, excessive clearing of native vegetation in the most productive agricultural landscapes has had profound environmental and social consequences. Restoration of these landscapes is an enormous challenge that offers the opportunity to shape the future of Australia, environmentally, socially and economically. In this paper we address the issue of identifying priority areas for conservation in agricultural landscapes. The spatial location of conservation actions in rural landscapes is important because it affects the degree of representation of the biota, the level of protection for rare and threatened species, the adequacy of habitats for species and communities and their future viability, the maintenance of ecological processes, and the integrity of habitats. However, because most land in agricultural regions is privately owned, effective implementation of restoration goals in preferred locations requires understanding of social processes, recognition of pragmatic issues in land management and financial commitment by the wider Australian society. We briefly review the strengths and limitations of some current approaches to determining priority locations for conservation action, including the use of general principles, species-based approaches, quantitative approaches for assessing representativeness, and "bottom-up" approaches based on landholder action. There is no single ?best? solution: the most effective approach or combination of approaches depends on the objectives for restoration and the circumstances in the area where restoration will occur. An important consideration is the quality of the data available for the area, particularly detailed vegetation maps and knowledge of the status and habitat requirements of species that occur there. We summarize five stages that form a logical sequence in restoration programmes and highlight some of the issues at each stage. As the outcomes of the present continent-wide experiment in restoration cannot be fully evaluated for many decades, it is prudent that a range of alternatives are trialed and monitored for their effectiveness and success.
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Sun, C., S. Choy, Z. Chua, I. Aitkenhead, and Y. Kuleshov. "GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR DROUGHT RISK MAPPING IN AUSTRALIA – DROUGHT RISK ANALYSER WEB APP." ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences XLIV-3/W1-2020 (November 18, 2020): 139–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-xliv-3-w1-2020-139-2020.
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Abstract. Australia frequently experiences extended periods of severe droughts which have a significant negative impact on populations and economy. To improve preparedness for drought, decision-support tools which provide comprehensive information about current dry conditions are essential. In this paper, we present a conceptual design for a Drought Risk Analyser (DRA) – web-based information App for drought risk mapping developed using geographic information system (GIS). The developed DRA is based on combining Drought Hazard/Vulnerability/Exposure Indices (DHI, DVI and DEI respectively) into a final Drought Risk Index (DRI) for total of 542 Local Government Areas (LGA) in Australia. Drought indicators selected to compute drought hazard – the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI), the Vegetation Health Index (VHI) and Soil Moisture – were obtained through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Space-based Weather and Climate Extremes Monitoring (SWCEM) international initiative. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) census data were used to develop the drought-related population vulnerability index – DVI. Australian national Digital Elevation Model and catchment scale land use data were used to calculate the DEI. Implemented functionality of the designed DRA is illustrated using a case study for the 2019 drought in Australia. The DRA App will be beneficial for Australian farmers and rural communities to assist with decision making, as well as for LGA planners to gain insights on current state of drought risk at both local and national levels. The developed methodology of using space-based observations for assessing drought hazard could be applied for developing similar web-based information tools in drought-prone areas of other countries.
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GUERIN, TURLOUGH F. "An Australian perspective on the constraints to the transfer and adoption of innovations in land management." Environmental Conservation 26, no. 4 (December 1999): 289–304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0376892999000417.
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There are numerous reasons why land users do not always adopt innovations even though all evidence may suggest that they should. The purpose of this study was to review the literature in the field of extension and technology transfer drawing upon the rural sector primarily in Australia. Australia is now recognized as a world leader in adopting new technology and ideas, particularly those relating to the management of the physical environment but there has been little assessment of the circumstances and constraints surrounding this adoption. The reasons for non-adoption range from complexity of the technology, land user's beliefs and opinions towards the innovation, attitude to risk and conflicting information. For different land-use enterprises and innovations, different constraints will apply and it is argued that these are in three broad categories, characterized by: the land user and the adoption process; the characteristics of, and issues associated with the developers of, the innovation; and the role of extension agents and the transfer process. It is apparent from the changing nature of technology transfer that commercial organizations have assumed a leading role in this field and land users are being recognized as key stakeholders in both the adoption and technology development processes. The study, however, reveals a shortage of data on the effectiveness of corporations and other commercial organizations in the technology transfer and adoption processes.
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Corey, B., G. J. W. Webb, S. C. Manolis, A. Fordham, B. J. Austin, Y. Fukuda, D. Nicholls, and K. Saalfeld. "Commercial harvests of saltwater crocodileCrocodylus porosuseggs by Indigenous people in northern Australia: lessons for long-term viability and management." Oryx 52, no. 4 (June 13, 2017): 697–708. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0030605317000217.
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AbstractSustainable commercial use of native wildlife is an alternative economic means of land use by Indigenous people in remote rural areas. This situation applies within large tracts of land owned by Indigenous people across northern Australia. The commercial use of saltwater crocodilesCrocodylus porosusis a growing industry in Australia's Northern Territory. Although Indigenous people sell crocodile eggs and hatchlings, the majority of harvesting and incubation is done by non-indigenous people from less remote areas. One Indigenous community has been heavily involved in this industry and now manages its own harvest and incubation programme. We present a case study of this programme, which has transitioned from outside agencies managing the harvest, to complete local ownership and management. Egg harvests and incubation success rates declined by 40% following the switch to local management. Income increased, as did production costs; in particular, royalty payments made to Indigenous landowners. The declines reflect the community's motives for engaging in the industry, which have been socially rather than commercially driven, and damage to nesting habitat by feral animals. The increase in royalties reflects the need to compete with non-indigenous harvesters from outside the township, who are strictly commercially driven. Harvesting, incubation and trade in crocodile eggs and hatchlings can form a viable and sustainable enterprise for remote Indigenous communities. However, efficiency needs to be improved to fulfil the need for a reliable and dependable supply chain, and regulatory institutions should give Indigenous harvesters sufficient freedom to pursue innovative and viable livelihood options.
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Williams, Kathryn J. H., and Jacki Schirmer. "Understanding the relationship between social change and its impacts: The experience of rural land use change in south-eastern Australia." Journal of Rural Studies 28, no. 4 (October 2012): 538–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2012.05.002.
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Seidl, Irmi, Clement A. Tisdell, and Steve Harrison. "Environmental Regulation of Land Use and Public Compensation: Principles, and Swiss and Australian Examples." Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 20, no. 5 (October 2002): 699–716. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/c01103s.
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The authors discuss the regulation of rural land use and compensation for property-rights restrictions, both of which appear to have become more commonplace in recent years but also more contested. The implications of contemporary theories in relation to this matter are examined, including: the applicability of new welfare economics; the relevance of the neoclassical theory of politics; and the implications of contemporary theories of social conflict resolution and communication. Examination of examples of Swiss and Australian regulation of the use of rural properties, and the ensuing conflicts, reveals that many decisions reflect a mixture of these elements. Rarely, if ever, are social decisions in this area made solely on the basis of welfare economics, for instance social cost-benefit analysis. Only some aspects of such decisions can be explained by the neoclassical theory of politics. Theories of social conflict resolution suggest why, and in what way, approaches of discourse and participation may resolve conflicts regarding regulation and compensation. These theories and their practical application seem to gain in importance as opposition to government decisions increases. The high degree of complexity of most conflicts concerning regulation and compensation cannot be tackled with narrow economic theories. Moreover, the Swiss and Australian examples show that approaches involving conflict resolution may favour environmental standards.
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Spooner, Peter G., and Ian D. Lunt. "The influence of land-use history on roadside conservation values in an Australian agricultural landscape." Australian Journal of Botany 52, no. 4 (2004): 445. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/bt04008.
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We investigated the influence of land-use history on roadside conservation values in a typical agricultural landscape of southern New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Historical information on the development of rural road reserves was collated from recently digitised 19th and 20th century pastoral and parish maps, such as road-reserve age and original survey width, as well as data relating to locations of old fence lines, county or parish boundaries, previous reserves, stock routes and road re-alignments. Ordinal regression statistics showed that road-reserve age and road width were significant predictors of roadside conservation values. Importantly, analyses showed that the first roads surveyed during the pastoral era (1840–1860s) were often of lower conservation value than roads surveyed in the 1870s, when major clearing of these landscapes commenced. Most roads were surveyed at one-chain width (20.12 m); however, pre-1870s historic roads, traveling stock routes (TSRs) and county or parish boundaries were significantly wider, decisions that have indirectly led to higher present-day conservation values. In separate analyses, historical data also formed a useful model to predict the absence of short-lived shrub species. These results highlight the influence and prevailing imprint of historical land-use on current roadside conservation values.
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Waller, Lisa, Emma Mesikämmen, and Brian Burkett. "Rural radio and the everyday politics of settlement on Indigenous land." Media, Culture & Society 42, no. 6 (October 15, 2019): 805–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443719876620.
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Country Hour radio programmes are produced regionally and promote specific understandings of rurality. This article presents an analysis that shows Indigenous people and issues are rarely sources or topics in Country Hour, and that stories about Indigenous land use are generally broadcast only if the land is used in a way that is seen as ‘productive’ through settler colonial eyes. It also argues the programme should include Indigenous voices and understandings of the land in imagining this space. It makes a theoretical contribution to media studies by extending on concepts of the ‘rural imaginary’ and ‘settler common sense’ to argue that the programme perpetuates a discourse that legitimates and valorises the use of ‘rural’ space for non-Indigenous people, concepts and activities. Indigenous people are noticeably absent and silent. Country Hour is therefore conceptualised as a media space that continues to transmit settler colonialism and its attendant myths.
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F. Bennett, Andrew, and Leigh A. Ford. "Land use, habitat change and the conservation of birds in fragmented rural environments: a landscape perspective from the Northern Plains, Victoria, Australia." Pacific Conservation Biology 3, no. 3 (1997): 244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc970244.
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Studies of the effects of habitat fragmentation on birds have mainly been carried out at the patch scale, by censusing birds in patches of different size, shape or composition. Here, we use data collected by observers for the Atlas of Australian Birds from 10' latitude/longitude grid cells (landscapes), each 277 km2 in size, to examine the effects of land use and habitat change at the landscape scale in the Northern Plains region of Victoria, Australia. Land birds were tallied for 63 such landscapes and species were classed as "woodland" or "other" species. Attributes measured for each landscape represented natural environmental variation, tree cover and the intensity of human settlement. The Northern Plains has experienced profound environmental change over the last century of agricultural settlement and tree cover now occupies only 6.2% of the region, mostly as large riverine forests. Eighty per cent of landscapes have less than 10% tree cover. Woodland birds showed substantial variation in richness between landscapes and, after accounting for sampling effort, species richness was best predicted by total tree cover and measures of environmental variation (e.g., number of streams). "Other" birds were more evenly distributed between landscapes. Species richness was best predicted by the environmental gradient in rainfall and temperature, although this accounted for only a small amount of variance after correcting for sampling effort. The predictive model for woodland birds indicates that this group is sensitive to habitat change, and implies a substantial loss of species in landscapes that have been almost entirely cleared of woodland habitat. The logarithmic nature of the relationship means that the rate of change in species richness is greatest during the final stages of habitat depletion. With median tree cover of 3.7% for landscapes in the region, this relationship supports the contention that a major decline in woodland birds is underway and that species are being lost from whole landscapes across the region. Attributes associated with landscapes of high conservation value for birds include: extensive overall tree cover, large blocks of woodland habitat, and stream systems with associated habitat connectivity. In this region, these attributes are more likely to occur in areas with broad-acre agriculture rather than intensive irrigation. The analysis suggests that at least 10% tree cover is a minimum goal for an infrastructure of natural vegetation in rural landscapes to prevent serious decline and loss in the woodland avifauna.
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Valbuena, Diego, Arnold K. Bregt, Clive McAlpine, Peter H. Verburg, and Leonie Seabrook. "An agent-based approach to explore the effect of voluntary mechanisms on land use change: A case in rural Queensland, Australia." Journal of Environmental Management 91, no. 12 (December 2010): 2615–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.07.041.
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Hughes, Michael, and Roy Jones. "From productivism to multi-functionality in the Gascoyne - Murchison Rangelands of Western Australia." Rangeland Journal 32, no. 2 (2010): 175. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/rj09079.
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A sustainability assessment of the Western Australian (WA) rangelands identified a range of issues associated with regional economic decline typical of many marginal rangeland regions in Australia. As part of a regional rejuvenation strategy, the WA state government purchased selected pastoral lease properties for incorporation into the conservation estate. It was intended as a means of land-use transition from mono-functional productivism to multi-functionality incorporating protection of significant rangeland bioregions and development of tourism. A 1-year project was conducted to assess the issues relating to this transition. Archived information was obtained from government relating to the characteristics of the lease properties at the time they were purchased. Site visits were undertaken to purchased leases acquired by the government as well as neighbouring leases. During site visits, interviews with pastoralists and purchased lease managers were conducted. A series of facilitated community discussion groups in the region was held to ascertain the views of landholders and managers, government representatives, indigenous interests and commercial operators in the region. This paper describes how the transition to a combination of protection and consumption exchanged one set of problems for another. This was due partly to the intrinsic character of the land, in terms of previous overgrazing, isolation, large distances, and limited infrastructure and services. More importantly, the top-down approach to land transition failed to allocate adequate management resources to replace those lost when the former pastoral leaseholders left. The consequences of inadequate management included theft and rapid degradation of assets, inadequate control of pests and weeds; inadequate fire prevention management and poor communication between the government and other stakeholders over management decisions. This paper discusses the dynamics of this WA rangeland transition with reference to the multi-functional rural transition concept.
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Bramley, R. G. V., and C. H. Roth. "Land-use effects on water quality in an intensively managed catchment in the Australian humid tropics." Marine and Freshwater Research 53, no. 5 (2002): 931. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf01242.
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The minimization of environmental degradation that might arise as a result of agricultural production requires a detailed knowledge of the off-site effects of rural land use. This paper reports the results of an assessment of the effect of land use on water quality in the lower part of the catchment of the Herbert River, an intensively managed part of the humid tropics in north Queensland, where the major land uses are sugarcane production, cattle grazing and forestry. Compared with grazing and forestry, sugarcane production was found to have a significant impact on riverine water quality as evidenced by higher concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and total suspended solids (TSS) in stream-waters draining land under sugarcane, a finding that was unaffected by the inclusion of sampling sites dominated by upper-catchment grazing. However, land use had no significant effect on the partitioning of N and P between mineral, organic and particulate phases in stream-waters, although the proportion in particulate form tended to be least for sugarcane-dominated sites. Irrespective of land use, the concentrations of both total N and P were dominated by soluble fractions, particularly in organic combination. These results suggest that, irrespective of the ecological impact of these nutrient and sediment loadings on freshwaters and the near-shore zone, there is considerable room for improvement in land management in the Australian humid tropics in terms of minimizing off-site export of both nutrients and sediment.
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Florec, Veronique, Michael Burton, David Pannell, Joel Kelso, and George Milne. "Where to prescribe burn: the costs and benefits of prescribed burning close to houses." International Journal of Wildland Fire 29, no. 5 (2020): 440. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wf18192.
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Prescribed burning is used in Australia as a tool to manage fire risk and protect assets. A key challenge is deciding how to arrange the burns to generate the highest benefits to society. Studies have shown that prescribed burning in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) can reduce the risk of house loss due to wildfires, but the costs and benefits of different arrangements for prescribed burning treatments have rarely been estimated. In this study, we use three different models to explore the costs and benefits of modifying the spatial arrangement of prescribed burns on public land, using the south-west of Western Australia as a case study. We simulate two hypothetical scenarios: landscape treatments and WUI treatments. We evaluate the long-term costs and benefits of each scenario and compare the results from the three models, highlighting the management implications of each model. Results indicate that intensifying prescribed burning treatments in public land in the WUI achieves a greater reduction in damages compared with applying the majority of the treatments in rural areas. However, prescribed burning in the WUI is significantly more expensive and, despite additional benefits gained from this strategy, in most cases it is not the most economically efficient strategy.
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Lawrence, David M., Keith W. Oleson, Mark G. Flanner, Christopher G. Fletcher, Peter J. Lawrence, Samuel Levis, Sean C. Swenson, and Gordon B. Bonan. "The CCSM4 Land Simulation, 1850–2005: Assessment of Surface Climate and New Capabilities." Journal of Climate 25, no. 7 (March 28, 2012): 2240–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-11-00103.1.
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Abstract This paper reviews developments for the Community Land Model, version 4 (CLM4), examines the land surface climate simulation of the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4) compared to CCSM3, and assesses new earth system features of CLM4 within CCSM4. CLM4 incorporates a broad set of improvements including additions of a carbon–nitrogen (CN) biogeochemical model, an urban canyon model, and transient land cover and land use change, as well as revised soil and snow submodels. Several aspects of the surface climate simulation are improved in CCSM4. Improvements in the simulation of soil water storage, evapotranspiration, surface albedo, and permafrost that are apparent in offline CLM4 simulations are generally retained in CCSM4. The global land air temperature bias is reduced and the annual cycle is improved in many locations, especially at high latitudes. The global land precipitation bias is larger in CCSM4 because of bigger wet biases in central and southern Africa and Australia. New earth system capabilities are assessed. The present-day air temperature within urban areas is warmer than surrounding rural areas by 1°–2°C, which is comparable to or greater than the change in climate occurring over the last 130 years. The snow albedo feedback is more realistic and the radiative forcing of snow aerosol deposition is calculated as +0.083 W m−2 for present day. The land carbon flux due to land use, wildfire, and net ecosystem production is a source of carbon to the atmosphere throughout most of the historical simulation. CCSM4 is increasingly suited for studies of the role of land processes in climate and climate change.
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Perera, Kithsiri, Ryutaro Tateishi, Kondho Akihiko, and Srikantha Herath. "A Combined Approach of Remote Sensing, GIS, and Social Media to Create and Disseminate Bushfire Warning Contents to Rural Australia." Earth 2, no. 4 (October 6, 2021): 715–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/earth2040042.
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Bushfires are an integral part of the forest regeneration cycle in Australia. However, from the perspective of a natural disaster, the impact of bushfires on human settlements and the environment is massive. In Australia, bushfires are the most disastrous natural hazards. According to the records of the Parliament of Australia, the recent catastrophic bushfires in NSW and Victoria burnt out over 10 million hectares of land, a figure more significant than any previous bushfire damage on record. After the deadly 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, which killed 173 people in Victoria, public attention to bushfires reached a new peak. Due to the disastrous consequences of bushfires, scientists have explored various methods to mitigate or even avoid bushfire damage, including the use of bushfire alerts. The present study adds satellite imagery and GIS-based semi-real-time bushfire contents to various bushfire warnings issued by government authorities. The new product will disseminate graphical bushfire contents to rural Australians through social media, using Google Maps. This low-cost Media GIS content can be delivered through highly popular smartphone networks in Australia through social media (Facebook and Twitter). We expect its success to encourage people to participate in disaster mitigation efforts as contributors in a participatory GIS network. This paper presents a case study to demonstrate the production process and the quality of media GIS content and further discusses the potential of using social media through the mobile network of Australia while paying attention to mobile blackspots. Media GIS content has the potential to link with the public information systems of local fire management services, disseminate contents through a mobile app, and develop into a fully automated media GIS content system to expand the service beyond bushfires.
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Gerritse, RG, JA Adeney, GM Dimmock, and YM Oliver. "Retention of nitrate and phosphate in soils of the Darling plateau in Western-Australia - Implications for domestic septic-tank systems." Soil Research 33, no. 2 (1995): 353. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/sr9950353.
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Streams in mixed rural and residential areas on the Darling Plateau near metropolitan Perth in Western Australia were monitored for nitrate and phosphate. Concentrations of nitrate in streams are proportional to surveyed rates of inputs of nitrogen in water catchments dominated by agricultural land use. In catchments dominated by unsewered residential land use, stream concentrations of nitrate are much lower than expected from rates of input. A comparison of mass balances of inorganic nitrogen and bromide, added as a conservative tracer, indicates that at least 80% of nitrogen leaching from domestic septic tank systems into soils is lost within a distance of 10 m from the leach drain. Concentrations of dissolved phosphate in streams are low (mostly <5 �g/L P-PO4) and are not significantly related to type of land use. Adsorption of phosphate to soils was measured after batch equilibration of soil slurries for periods up to 12 months and the isotherms were described by a time-dependent Freundlich type adsorption equation. Adsorption capacities for phosphate are high and reflect high levels of iron and aluminium oxides in the soils. Soil adsorption data together with data from leaching experiments in small columns of soil were fitted to an empirical equation, describing the effect of flow rate and distance travelled on the mobility of phosphate in a saturated soil. A minimum travel time for a distance of 5 m in these soils of between 1 and 8 years is predicted with this equation for phosphate leaching from a septic tank. Monitoring of ground water near 6-7 year old domestic septic tank systems showed that phosphate had not yet moved beyond 5 m from the leach drain.
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Hayman, Peter, Lauren Rickards, Richard Eckard, and Deirdre Lemerle. "Climate change through the farming systems lens: challenges and opportunities for farming in Australia." Crop and Pasture Science 63, no. 3 (2012): 203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/cp11196.
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Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change in Australian agriculture has included research at the plant, animal, and soil level; the farming system level; and the community and landscape level. This paper focuses on the farming systems level at which many of the impacts of a changing climate will be felt. This is also the level where much of the activity relating to adaptation and mitigation can usefully be analysed and at which existing adaptive capacity provides a critical platform for further efforts. In this paper, we use a framework of nested hierarchies introduced by J. Passioura four decades ago to highlight the need for research, development and extension (RDE) on climate change at the farming systems level to build on more fundamental soil, plant, and animal sciences and to link into higher themes of rural sociology and landscape science. The many questions asked by those managing farming systems can be categorised under four broad headings: (1) climate projections at a local scale, (2) impacts of climate projections on existing farming systems, (3) adaptation options, and (4) risks and opportunities from policies to reduce emissions. These questions are used as a framework to identify emerging issues for RDE in Australian farming systems, including the complex balance in on-farm strategies between adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas concentrations. Climate is recognised as one of the defining features of different farming systems in Australia. It follows that if the climate changes, farming systems will have to shift, adapt, or be transformed into a different land use. Given that Australian farming systems have been adaptive in the past, we address the question of the extent to which research on adaptation to climate change in farming systems is different or additional to research on farming systems in a variable climate.
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Robinson, B. J. "Protection of Passive Bands in Australia, India, and Japan." International Astronomical Union Colloquium 112 (1991): 189. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0252921100003973.
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ABSTRACTThe problems of protecting passive bands in Australia, India, and Japan reflect the variety of research activities and radio telescopes in those countries, colored by the degree of user friendliness of the frequency management authorities.In India, it is important to protect frequencies below 1400 MHz (for high redshift hydrogen line absorption or emission) and continuum bands at 327 MHz and 150 MHz (the latter currently allocated to cordless phones, paging systems, and rural communication).In Japan, protection from harmful interference has been sought and refused at 4.8 and 5 GHz (microwave network), 10 and 15 GHz (mobile relay service), and 22 GHz (mobile data relay service). But extensive radio astronomy usage of mm to sub-mm bands has established priority for their use and allocation.In Australia, there are major problems at 408 MHz (telephone links), 1.6 GHz (GLONASS, RDSS, and Land Mobile Service), 4.9 to 5 GHz (RDSS), and 22 GHz (satellite broadcasting and high definition TV service).The degree of user friendliness of the frequency management administration appears to rate: 1. Australia, 2. India, 3. Japan on a diminishing scale of cooperation and concern. This affects the awareness of the radio astronomy community of conflicting allocations and the level of input into CCIR and the WARC.
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Cocks, P. S. "Land-use change is the key to protecting biodiversity in salinising landscapes." Australian Journal of Botany 51, no. 6 (2003): 627. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/bt03004.
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This paper argues that the loss of biodiversity in salinising landscapes will be reversed only by addressing the source of the problem: farming systems that leak into the water table. Existing farming systems based on annual crops and pastures will need to be replaced by farming systems that have a significant element of perenniality. The literature suggests that 50–80% of the agricultural landscape needs to include perennial plants.The options are perennial pasture plants or trees, the latter for bioenergy, wood products and fuel. Because of the complexities of introducing new industries, the greatest short-term impact will be achieved by using perennial pastures for existing livestock industries. However, the need to introduce trees and shrubs is such that governments and entrepreneurs should be encouraged to see that new industries are an imperative in rural Australia. To achieve this we need substantial private and public investment, both on and off farms.Techniques are available to value biodiversity and these should be used to fortify the moral and philosophical arguments commonly used to protect biodiversity. It is suggested that a financial value placed on biodiversity, however inadequate, may, in time, be persuasive to governments. Contingent valuing and other non-market methods should be developed and, most importantly, used to bolster the moral and philosophical arguments if governments and the community are to respond to the perceived crisis in biodiversity management.The paper warns of possible tradeoffs between water quality and runoff. We have become dependent on high levels of runoff, and reductions are likely to cause problems both in terms of environmental flows and for the irrigation industries. Yet many of our solutions to dryland salinity will reduce runoff. Location will be all important in the development of perennial-based farming systems, avoiding, where possible, the areas of greatest runoff. Therefore, there are no blanket solutions. Policy will need to distinguish areas with high payoffs or low costs of abatement.Finally, the paper outlines some of the initiatives that are open to government and industry to reverse the trend towards dryland salinity. Emphasis is given to the provision of incentives and the removal of disincentives.
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Raisin, G. W., and D. S. Mitchell. "The use of wetlands for the control of non-point source pollution." Water Science and Technology 32, no. 3 (August 1, 1995): 177–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wst.1995.0139.
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There is increasing interest in the use of wetlands to intercept nutrients in diffuse run-off from rural catchments. However, the scientific basis for this strategy is far from secure. While research in several countries provides support for this approach, there is a general lack of rigorous data sets of nutrient balances showing the real effect of such wetlands on the quality of run-off emanating from rural catchments. Research being conducted on two natural and one constructed wetlands in south-eastern Australia will contribute to filling this gap. In each of these three wetlands, volume of inflow and outflow is being measured at 15 minute intervals. Automatic water samplers connected to the flow measurement device are measured and are triggered to take samples at appropriate intervals during run-off events. All these water samples are analysed chemically and the total loads of selected chemicals entering and leaving a wetland are calculated for several storm events over the winter and spring period during 1993. Results for Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus show that during winter there is a net release of these nutrients from the linear wetlands with greater flows resulting in greater flushing. However, in spring and early summer there was a net retention of nutrients in the wetlands despite similar hydrological loadings. These results were affected by the size of the wetland relative to the catchment (and therefore retention time), land use of the catchment, any intrusion of ground water and the nature of the wetland in terms of its shape and vegetation.
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MacHunter, Josephine, Wendy Wright, Richard Loyn, and Phil Rayment. "Bird declines over 22 years in forest remnants in southeastern Australia: Evidence of faunal relaxation?" Canadian Journal of Forest Research 36, no. 11 (November 1, 2006): 2756–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/x06-159.
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Declines in Australia's forest avifauna are largely attributed to loss of native vegetation. Many studies have examined patches of remnant vegetation, but few have considered changes over many years. In our study, bird data were collected 22 years apart (survey period A (SPA), 1980–1983; survey period B (SPB), 2002–2005) in 20 forest remnants in a rural landscape in southeastern Australia. Initial modelling (SPA) predicted a decline of nine species per patch in the 100 years following fragmentation. Our data showed that average species richness declined by nine species per patch in just 22 years between SPA and SPB, perhaps representing an example of faunal relaxation. Observer variation, changes in climate, changes in land use, and interspecific competition from an aggressive edge-adapted native bird (the noisy miner, Manorina melanocephala (Latham, 1802)) did not appear to be the main drivers of this decline. However, noisy miners were strongly associated with high turnover of forest species where they occurred above a threshold of six birds per count. Revisiting sites after an interval of many years has shed new light on the dynamics of a fragmented ecosystem, and indicates that further bird declines are likely as a result of past habitat loss.
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Rolls, Mitchell. "“‘More fun than the locals’: Cultural Differences and Natural Resources”." Transcultural Studies 13, no. 1 (May 25, 2017): 1–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/23751606-01301001.
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In the latter half of the 1990s there was a long-running but unreported conflict over use of a coastal rock platform on the Central Coast of New South Wales, just to the north of Sydney. This multifaceted dispute was between poor Korean Australians from the inner suburbs of Sydney and locals. The source of this conflict was the manner in which the rock platform was being used, how its resources were exploited and the type of social life that accompanied these activities. Different peoples brought different understandings to the rock platform, and they acted in accordance with those understandings.For many older settler Australians, and for the diminishing number of those ‘on the land’, the essence of what it is to be Australian is found outside of urban environments. Colloquially referred to as ‘the bush’, this can mean virtually any rural, remote, regional, or non-urban setting. For those living in cities, and for more recent immigrants to Australia, national parks are one site that provides ready access to ‘the bush’. As with the coastal rock platform, different peoples bring different understandings to their encounters with national parks and ‘the bush’, and their use of these places changes accordingly.This paper begins with a description of the rock platform incident, before moving on to discuss the response of different immigrant groups to national parks and other open public spaces.
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Ruttledge, A., R. D. B. Whalley, I. Reeve, D. A. Backhouse, and B. M. Sindel. "Preventing weed spread: a survey of lifestyle and commercial landholders about Nassella trichotoma in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia." Rangeland Journal 37, no. 4 (2015): 409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/rj15010.
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Nassella trichotoma (Nees) Hack. ex Arechav. (common name, serrated tussock) occupies large areas of south-eastern Australia and has considerable scope for expansion in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. This highly invasive grass reduces pasture productivity and has the potential to severely affect the region’s economy by decreasing the livestock carrying capacity of grazing land. Other potential consequences of this invasion include increased fuel loads and displacement of native plants, thereby threatening biodiversity. Rural property owners in the Northern Tablelands were sent a mail questionnaire that examined use of measures to prevent new outbreaks of the weed. The questionnaire was sent to professional farmers as well as lifestyle farmers (owners of rural residential blocks and hobby farms) and 271 responses were obtained (a response rate of 18%). Key findings were respondents’ limited capacity to detect N. trichotoma, and low adoption of precautions to control seed spread by livestock, vehicles and machinery. This was particularly the case among lifestyle farmers. There have been considerable recent changes to biosecurity governance arrangements in New South Wales, and now is an ideal time for regulators and information providers to consider how to foster regional communities’ engagement in biosecurity, including the adoption of measures that have the capacity to curtail the spread of N. trichotoma.
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D. Kirkland, Peter. "Epidemic viral diseases of wildlife ? sudden death in tammar wallabies, blind kangaroos, herpesviruses in pilchards ? what next?" Microbiology Australia 26, no. 2 (2005): 82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ma05082.
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In Australia the impact of European settlement on the indigenous human population and on flora and fauna is inevitably the subject of ongoing speculation. Major changes have occurred as a result of urban and rural developments and the introduction of agricultural practices which collectively impact on the environment and ecosystems especially through land clearing, water use and modification of water courses and water catchments. From both a human and animal health perspective, the changes as viewed by the general public are perhaps not always apparent but the impacts are no less significant. A range of microbial pathogens, parasites and other pests have been introduced to populations that often have not encountered these challenges before. Our indigenous wildlife populations have not been immune from these threats. And, if we include aquatic as well as terrestrial species of ?wildlife?, and venture to our immediate coastline, in recent years there has been profound evidence of the impact that follows the introduction of an exotic pathogen.
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McDougall, Robert, Paul Kristiansen, and Romina Rader. "Small-scale urban agriculture results in high yields but requires judicious management of inputs to achieve sustainability." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 1 (December 24, 2018): 129–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809707115.
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A major challenge of the 21st century is to produce more food for a growing population without increasing humanity’s agricultural footprint. Urban food production may help to solve this challenge; however, little research has examined the productivity of urban farming systems. We investigated inputs and produce yields over a 1-y period in 13 small-scale organic farms and gardens in Sydney, Australia. We found mean yields to be 5.94 kg⋅m−2, around twice the yield of typical Australian commercial vegetable farms. While these systems used land efficiently, economic and emergy (embodied energy) analyses showed they were relatively inefficient in their use of material and labor resources. Benefit-to-cost ratios demonstrated that, on average, the gardens ran at a financial loss and emergy transformity was one to three orders of magnitude greater than many conventional rural farms. Only 14.66% of all inputs were considered “renewable,” resulting in a moderate mean environmental loading ratio (ELR) of 5.82, a value within the range of many conventional farming systems. However, when all nonrenewable inputs capable of being substituted with local renewable inputs were replaced in a hypothetical scenario, the ELR improved markedly to 1.32. These results show that urban agriculture can be highly productive; however, this productivity comes with many trade-offs, and care must be taken to ensure its sustainability.
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Singh, Achyut Man. "An Environmentally Friendly Integrated Development Approach for Nepal (Experiences from Irrigation Sector Projects)." Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment 20 (January 27, 2017): 31–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v20i0.16486.
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Nepal has distinctly three ecological regions: (i) high mountain, (ii) mid-hills, and (iii) terai with their varying climatic and physiographic features. The experiences gathered from Irrigation Sector Projects implemented under various donor agencies such as the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and UN/ILO have shown that successful irrigation projects must be defined and planned according to specific ecological regions and pertinent to the local environment. An integrated development approach considers the land use, roads, market, and other economic activities as they relate to prospects for poverty alleviation. Land evaluation and subsequent land use planning according to the soil, climate, land profile, and suitability of agriculture practices should be considered in the development works to ensure true benefit to the rural populations. The integrated approach as such will provide long term sustainability through environmentally sound practices. This approach has been widely applied in the European countries, Korea, Japan, and Sri Lanka.This paper primarily focuses on the irrigation and development approaches most suitable to Nepal’s three ecological regions. High mountain regions should be developed with pasture land, horticulture, organic vegetable farming, and tourism. Irrigation technology in these areas should be simple pipe conveyance, and tank irrigation. In the mid-hills horticulture on the sloping terrain and cereal crops in the river valleys with other diversified cropping systems should be applied. The Terai region is the ‘Bread Basket’ of Nepal, and has high potential for diversified agriculture and industrial development.For development in these regions to succeed, road networks and transportation facilities are essential to economic growth. Road transportation maximizes opportunity for tourism and other economic activities. Development work must be planned in an integrated approach, which should be based on appropriate land use patterns for environmentally sustainable practices. An ideal solution would be to envision the watershed as the unit for eco-friendly sustainable development planning involving all the stakeholders under the watershed purview. As an example, the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management Planning (IWRMP), and Integrated Watershed Management Plan (IWMP) have been successfully applied in the USA and Australia (Box 1). It has illustrated that vegetative covered catchment stores large amount of rain water, increases groundwater table, reduces erosion of soil, and lastly decreases the intensity of flood hazard. Whereas, the naked catchment areas are highly erodible, does not store rain water, susceptible to high erosion and landslides, and increases the flood intensity by three fold than a vegetative covered one. The vegetative cover increases the water resources availability for over all development for agriculture. HYDRO Nepal JournalJournal of Water Energy and EnvironmentIssue: 20Page: 31-40
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Schneider, P., A. Davison, A. Langdon, G. Freeman, C. Essery, R. Beatty, and P. Toop. "Integrated water cycle planning for towns in New South Wales, Australia." Water Science and Technology 47, no. 7-8 (April 1, 2003): 87–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wst.2003.0675.
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Integration means different things to different people and as a consequence appears to only partially deliver on promised outcomes. For effective integrated water cycle management these outcomes should include improved water use efficiency, less waste, environmental sustainability, and provide secure and reliable supply to meet social and economic needs. The objective of integration is the management and combination of all these outcomes as part of a whole, so as to provide better outcomes than would be expected by managing the parts independently. Integration is also a consequence of the Water Reforms embarked on by the NSW State Government in 1995. The key goals of the reforms are clean and healthy rivers and groundwaters, and the establishment of more secure water entitlements for users. They are also essential for meeting the Council of Australian Government (COAG) water management strategies. The policies and guidelines that formed the NSW Water Reforms were the basis of the Water Management Act 2000 (NSW) (WMA) which is the legislative framework for water management in NSW. The NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation has developed an approach to integrated water cycle management for rural centres in NSW based on a catchment and policy context. This approach includes consideration of catchment wide needs and issues, environmental sustainability, government policy and community objectives in the development of an integrated water cycle plan. The approach provides for a transparent assessment of priorities and how to deal with them, and while specific to urban centres, could easily be expanded for use in the management of the whole of the catchment water cycle. Integration of the water cycle is expected to offer benefits to the local environment, community and economy. For instance, any unused proportion of an urban centre's water entitlement, or an offset against this entitlement created through returned flows (such as via good quality sewage effluent discharge to a river), can provide a surplus which is available to be traded on an annual basis. Further, improved demand management within an urban centre can be expected to result in a reduction in abstraction against the licence entitlement. This may result in the increased availability of in-stream water for environmental or other purposes and is expected to increase the economic value of returned water. Improved water use efficiencies are also expected to result in reduced capital works (and their associated costs) as the efficiency of service delivery and resource use improves. In this paper an example of the application of this process is provided and the outcomes discussed.
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Raftery, David. "Producing value from Australia's vineyards: an ethnographic approach to 'the quality turn' in the Australian wine industry." Journal of Political Ecology 24, no. 1 (September 27, 2017): 342. http://dx.doi.org/10.2458/v24i1.20877.
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Abstract This article provides a detailed ethnographic intervention to the phenomenon of value-added agriculture, a discourse that has attained several concrete forms in Australian wine industry policy, and which is routinely presented as a legitimate rural future in wider agricultural and social science research. The legal and policy architecture of 'Geographical Indications' purports to value the regional distinctiveness of agricultural areas, by creating legally-defined wine regions. Producers from these wine regions enjoy privileged access to the use of regional descriptors that apply to their products, and the constitution of such wine regions can also codify the relationships between this regional identity and concrete viticultural and winemaking practices. This article draws on ethnographic research within the Clare Valley region of South Australia, one of the first Australian wine regions to be formally constituted as a legal entity, to examine in close detail the relationships that this region's wine producers have with their own discrete areas of operation. These ethnographic illustrations highlight that the creation of economic value within the premium wine industry cannot be reduced to the technical aspects of viticulture and oenology, nor the legal and policy means by which relationships between products and land are codified. Rather, the nuanced social understandings of landscape that wine producers are consistently developing is a critical element of cultural and commercial infrastructure that affords any wine producer or grape grower the possibility of achieving monopolistic relationships over discrete vineyard areas and the wine that is produced from them. These social understandings have a specifically egalitarian character that acts as a hedge against the chronic uncertainties arising from the global economic environment in which premium wine industry is inescapably a part. This resistance to codification, I argue, is a productive space that constitutes a form of resilience against chronically unstable sets of commercial and environmental conditions. Keywords: monopoly, regional rents, occupational discourse, intellectual property, Geographic Indications, Australian agrarian futures
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Diehl, Jessica Ann. "Growing for Sydney: Exploring the Urban Food System through Farmers’ Social Networks." Sustainability 12, no. 8 (April 20, 2020): 3346. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su12083346.
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Growing urban populations’ increased demand for food coupled with the inherent risks of relying on the global food system has spurred planning strategies by city governments for implementing urban agriculture at different scales. Urban agriculture manifests in a variety of different forms, often with different functions. However, within each type, embeddedness in the socio-ecological urban system can vary substantially as a result of specific characteristics and actors involved. This has a profound impact on the feasibility and sustainability of individual farm practices and, consequently, when scaled up to the urban food system as a whole. In this paper, I apply the concept of social networks to understand how commercial urban farmers gain access to and make use of tangible and intangible resources available to them in the context of the urban food system. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 farmers in Sydney, Australia. The question guide, developed based on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, captured farm traits and access to resources through social networks. Findings illustrate three emergent patterns leveraging urban-local, rural-local, and urban-global networks as farmers pursued sustainable livelihoods. In conclusion, land is only one driver, among many, of the sustainability of the local food system.
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Agboola, I. S., J. A. George-Onaho, J. A. Ete, and A. E. Ayandokun. "Contribution of apiculture in social and economic development of Nigeria." Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management 25, no. 9 (December 28, 2021): 1559–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v25i9.2.
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There is urgent need to rescue Nigerian economy from deluge of crisis it is been confronted with atthe present time. To achieve this, it is pivotal to explore various potentials available in the country to solve her problem. Therefore, this paper examines the potential of apiculture industry in social and economic development of the nation. Hive products such as beewax, propolis, pollen and royal jelly are known to have contributed largely to the economic development of advanced countries like China, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Hungary, Australia and Canada. While the practice provides job opportunities for people of all classes, it also boosts productivity of other agricultural crops. Honey from Nigeria will command higher demand and prices in the world market for its medicinal and antimicrobial qualities, thereby serving as a good foreign exchange commodity in international market. As part of its contribution to economic growth, apiculture is a good source of income for beekeepers, it involves the use of little land. It empowers small scale farmers and also does not damage the environment. The paper also stressed that apiculture is not only important for generating income, it also curbs against rural migration. Apiculture protects the environment and also an important non-timber forest product.
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Archibald, S., R. J. Scholes, D. P. Roy, G. Roberts, and L. Boschetti. "Southern African fire regimes as revealed by remote sensing." International Journal of Wildland Fire 19, no. 7 (2010): 861. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wf10008.
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Here we integrate spatial information on annual burnt area, fire frequency, fire seasonality, fire radiative power and fire size distributions to produce an integrated picture of fire regimes in southern Africa. The regional patterns are related to gradients of environmental and human controls of fire, and compared with findings from other grass-fuelled fire systems on the globe. The fire regime differs across a gradient of human land use intensity, and can be explained by the differential effect of humans on ignition frequencies and fire spread. Contrary to findings in the savannas of Australia, there is no obvious increase in fire size or fire intensity from the early to the late fire season in southern Africa, presumably because patterns of fire ignition are very different. Similarly, the importance of very large fires in driving the total annual area burnt is not obvious in southern Africa. These results point to the substantial effect that human activities can have on fire in a system with high rural population densities and active fire management. Not all aspects of a fire regime are equally impacted by people: fire-return time and fire radiative power show less response to human activities than fire size and annual burned area.
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Huxtable, C. H. A., T. B. Koen, and D. Waterhouse. "Establishment of native and exotic grasses on mine overburden and topsoil in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales." Rangeland Journal 27, no. 2 (2005): 73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/rj05006.
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Native grasses have an important role to play in mine rehabilitation throughout Australia, but there have been few scientifically designed studies of field establishment of native grasses from sown seed in this country. Current recommendations for rehabilitation of open-cut coal mines in the Hunter Valley involve the sowing of exotic pasture species to reinstate mined land to Class IV and V under the Rural Land Capability System. Despite the importance of native grasses in the pre-mined landscape, they are currently not widely included in mine rehabilitation. To address this issue a project was conducted between 1994 and 2000 to research the use of native grasses for rehabilitation of open-cut coal mines in the Hunter Valley. This paper reports on 2 mine site experiments that aimed to assess establishment and persistence of a broad range of native and exotic grass species from an autumn sowing in both topsoil and raw spoil over a period of 61 months. The most promising natives in terms of early establishment, persistence and spread over time, included six C3 accessions (five Austrodanthonia spp. and Austrostipa bigeniculata) and one C4 accession (Cynodon dactylon). Persistence of these accessions was better in raw spoil than topsoil, despite initial low numbers, due to a lack of weed competition and their ability to spread by self-seeding. In topsoil, and in the absence of any biomass reduction, native species were mostly out-competed by vigorous exotic perennial grasses which were sown in these experiments and from seed influx from adjacent rehabilitation areas or from the soil seed bank. The effects of climatic conditions and differences in soil physical, chemical and seed bank characteristics at the 2 mine sites are also discussed.
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Timms, W. A., R. R. Young, and N. Huth. "Implications of deep drainage through saline clay for groundwater recharge and sustainable cropping in a semi-arid catchment, Australia." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 8, no. 6 (November 15, 2011): 10053–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hessd-8-10053-2011.
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Abstract. The magnitude and timing of deep drainage and salt leaching through clay soils is a critical issue for dryland agriculture in semi-arid regions (<500 mm yr−1 rainfall), such as parts of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). In this unique study, hydrogeological measurements and estimations of the historic water balance of crops grown on overlying Grey Vertosols were combined to estimate the contribution of deep drainage below crop roots to recharge and salinization of shallow groundwater. Soil sampling at two sites on the alluvial flood plain of the Lower Namoi catchment revealed significant peaks in chloride concentrations at 0.8–1.2 m depth under perennial vegetation and at 2.0–2.5 m depth under continuous cropping indicating deep drainage and salt leaching since conversion to cropping. Total salt loads of 91–229 t ha−1 NaCl equivalent were measured for perennial vegetation and cropping, with salinity to ≥10 m depth that is not detected by shallow soil surveys. Groundwater salinity varied spatially from 910 to 2430 mS m−1 at 21 to 37 m depth (N = 5), whereas deeper groundwater was less saline (290 mS m−1) with use restricted to livestock and rural domestic supplies in this area. The Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) software package predicted deep drainage of 3.3–9.5 mm yr−1 (0.7–2.1% rainfall) based on site records of grain yields, rainfall, salt leaching and soil properties. Predicted deep drainage was highly episodic, dependent on rainfall and antecedent, and over a 39 yr period was restricted mainly to the record wet winter of 1998. During the study period, groundwater levels were unresponsive to major rainfall events (70 and 190 mm total), and most piezometers at about 18 m depth remained dry. In this area, at this time, recharge negligible due to low rainfall and large potential evapotranspiration, transient hydrological conditionsafter changes in land use and a thick clay dominated vadose zone. This is in contrast to regional groundwater modelling that assumes annual recharge of 0.5% of rainfall. Importantly, it was found that leaching from episodic deep drainage could not cause discharge of saline groundwater in the area, since the water table was several meters below the incised river bed.
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Timms, W. A., R. R. Young, and N. Huth. "Implications of deep drainage through saline clay for groundwater recharge and sustainable cropping in a semi-arid catchment, Australia." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 16, no. 4 (April 11, 2012): 1203–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-1203-2012.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract. The magnitude and timing of deep drainage and salt leaching through clay soils is a critical issue for dryland agriculture in semi-arid regions (<500 mm yr−1 rainfall, potential evapotranspiration >2000 mm yr−1) such as parts of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). In this rare study, hydrogeological measurements and estimations of the historic water balance of crops grown on overlying Grey Vertosols were combined to estimate the contribution of deep drainage below crop roots to recharge and salinization of shallow groundwater. Soil sampling at two sites on the alluvial flood plain of the Lower Namoi catchment revealed significant peaks in chloride concentrations at 0.8–1.2 m depth under perennial vegetation and at 2.0–2.5 m depth under continuous cropping indicating deep drainage and salt leaching since conversion to cropping. Total salt loads of 91–229 t ha−1 NaCl equivalent were measured for perennial vegetation and cropping, with salinity to ≥ 10 m depth that was not detected by shallow soil surveys. Groundwater salinity varied spatially from 910 to 2430 mS m−1 at 21 to 37 m depth (N = 5), whereas deeper groundwater was less saline (290 mS m−1) with use restricted to livestock and rural domestic supplies in this area. The Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) software package predicted deep drainage of 3.3–9.5 mm yr−1 (0.7–2.1% rainfall) based on site records of grain yields, rainfall, salt leaching and soil properties. Predicted deep drainage was highly episodic, dependent on rainfall and antecedent soil water content, and over a 39 yr period was restricted mainly to the record wet winter of 1998. During the study period, groundwater levels were unresponsive to major rainfall events (70 and 190 mm total), and most piezometers at about 18 m depth remained dry. In this area, at this time, recharge appears to be negligible due to low rainfall and large potential evapotranspiration, transient hydrological conditions after changes in land use and a thick clay dominated vadose zone. This is in contrast to regional groundwater modelling that assumes annual recharge of 0.5% of rainfall. Importantly, it was found that leaching from episodic deep drainage could not cause discharge of saline groundwater in the area, since the water table was several meters below the incised river bed.
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Muradin, Roldan, Michael Webber, Becky Mansfield, Neil Ward, Paul Robbins, and Chris Cocklin. "Reviews: Greening Trade and Investment: Environmental Protection without Protectionism, Workfare States, the Social Construction of the Ocean, Environmental Policy in the European Union, Knowledge of the Land: Land Resources Information and its Use in Rural Development, a Future for Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 34, no. 7 (July 2002): 1319–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a3407rvw.
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Kireyenka, N. V. "Models of agrarian business development in international practice." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Agrarian Series 59, no. 1 (February 9, 2021): 22–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.29235/1817-7204-2021-59-1-22-40.
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In conditions of the world economy globalization, regional trade and economic integration of countries, and increased sectoral competition, agricultural business remains a strategically important branch of the national economy of any state. Its activities are based on the regulatory legal framework for creation and functioning of agro-industrial complex entities, state regulation and support of agriculture, development of rural areas, food export incentive, formation of external and internal trade infrastructure. The world agrarian economy demonstrates the use of various models of efficient agro-industrial production management, providing for solution of national food security and increasing the export potential of the industry. The paper presents typology of agriculture by types of land use at various levels of social and economic development of countries, identifies the main world producers, exporters and importers of agri-food products. Review of the state regulation system and support of commodity producers in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Canada, China, Russia, and the United States has been carried out taking into account implementation of the international rules of the World Trade Organization. Various types of agricultural business models, sales systems, depending on production specialization of individual states, regions, enterprises and aimed at development of vertical integration, combination of marketing and logistics functions within one company, changes in the commodity structure along the sales channels in the domestic and foreign markets, have been systematized. The competitive advantages of the Republic of Belarus in the context of development of priority areas of agricultural business have been substantiated and the key risks having significant impact on the strengthening of production, sales and export potential have been analyzed. The issues Covered in the paper are of interest in preparation of draft state programs for social and economic development of the national agro-industrial complex, strategy in the field of export of agricultural products and food products for the period up to 2025.
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Erickson, Donna L. "Rural land use and land cover change." Land Use Policy 12, no. 3 (July 1995): 223–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0264-8377(95)00005-x.
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Farrier, David. "Regulation of Rural Land Use." Current Issues in Criminal Justice 2, no. 1 (July 1990): 95–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10345329.1990.12036472.
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Duffey, Eric. "Rural land use of skye." Biological Conservation 49, no. 3 (1989): 232–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(89)90041-4.
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Trenberth, Kevin E. "Rural land-use change and climate." Nature 427, no. 6971 (January 2004): 213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/427213a.
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