Volume 10 (2017): Issue 1 (January 2017)

Natural landscape is an important resource for mountainous regions and play crucial role in tourism development. Tourism play a key role in economic development of a country. Developing tourist areas is the key to meet the expectations of mountain inhabitants, tourists, and the general public outside of mountainous areas. In order to know tourist perception, problems, and role of landscape & horticulture plants in the field of tourism. A research study entitled “Role of facilities available and un-available in attracting of tourist in swat valley Pakistan “The data was collected from the respondents through a questionnaire survey and analyzed using percentages, frequencies and Chi-square test (where applicable). The analyzed data revealed that most of the respondent (55 %) considered natural green environment as a reason for their visit and 67 % respondents wanted to visit with their friends and were satisfied with the tourist area, respectively. Most of the respondent (39 %) observed throwing of surplus food as major waste materials which turned the beautiful green environment into unattractive environment. Most of the visitors (52 %) dislike un-cleanliness of the locality, 74% respondents felt ill effect due to deforestation.53 % tourist disagree with the current maintenance of the locality by tourism department. The most missed facilities were non availability of dustbins and children playing areas. 75 % respondents agreed with the fact that most of the people (local inhabitants as well as tourist) were unaware with regard to maintenance activities of the area 15.7 % respondent agreed that road system should be improved to access most of the greenery in the locality, respectively to aware local people and tourist regarding maintenance of the locality will improve tourism in Swat valley. The studies need to be develop for the improvement of existing as well as artificial landscape of the tourist area (Kalam and Malamjabba) of Swat valley.

Extending the Landscape Pattern Metric (LPM) model analysis in Smith et al. (2001) into a LPM decision model, decadal scale prediction of fecal coliform compromised South Carolina watersheds is developed. The model’s parameter variability identifies the greatest contributors to a compromised watershed’s prediction. The complete set of model parameters include Land Cover Land Use (LCLU) & slope, along stream proportion, Fourier Metric of Fragmentation (FMF), Fourier Metric of Proportion (FMP), and Least Squares Fourier Transform Fractal Dimension (LsFT). The 1992 National Land Cover Data (NLCD) Land Cover Land Use (LCLU) within fecal coliform compromised watersheds is used to train the model parameters, and the 2001 NLCD LCLU is used to test the LPM model. The most significant model parameters are along stream bare rock LsFT, FMF between urban/recreational grasses and evergreen forests, and FMF between deciduous forests and high density residential areas. These metrics contribute significantly more than the best proportion descriptor: proportion of urban/recreational grasses. In training, the proposed model correctly identified 92 % of the compromised watersheds; while the Smith et al. (2001) model 94 % of the compromised watersheds were correctly identified. This study reveals the ability of Fourier metrics to interpret ecological processes, and the need for more appropriate landscape level models.

This article deals with the relationship between humans and waste in the Bronze Age. Based on selected examples of waste management strategies from the European Bronze Age, it presents an overview of different strategies. In comparison with the preceding Stone Age, a new type of material began to appear: metal. The process involved in producing metal objects, however, brought with it the appearance of a specific type of waste material that is indelibly linked to the production of metal. This article also deals with the significance of ritualized social activities in the Bronze Age, which materialized in waste and waste management strategies.

This article describes examples of waste management systems from archaeological sites in Europe and the Middle East. These examples are then contextualized in the broader perspectives of environmental history. We can confidently claim that the natural resource use of societies predating the Lower Palaeolithic was in equilibrium with the environment. In sharp contrast stand communities from the Upper Palaeolithic and onwards, when agriculture appeared and provided opportunities for what seemed like unlimited expansion.

This article focuses on comparison of the landscape of two National Parks (Bavarian and Bohemian Forest), which together create the largest area of wilderness in Central Europe. The article shows how different they are in social-economic and physical-geographical perspective. Social and economic conditions were introduced from perspective of path dependency and recent situation and its perception. Furthermore, we integrated social-economic and environmental perspective in the ecosystem services concept. Despite the lesser number tourists arriving to the Bavarian part of the area, perception is better than among mayors of municipalities on the Czech side. Different history, management and top-down and bottom-up approaches usage can explain these differences. The typologies of environmental conditions help us to distinguish differences between both National Parks. In the Bavarian Forest we can find more equal share of forests (coniferous, broad-leaved, mixed) and surprisingly, thanks to large unmanaged part bigger relative share of regenerating forest landscapes than in the Bohemian Forest. Physical-geographical typology distinguishes five classes. Relative distribution of the classes is similar, but we can determine area of high plateau mainly on Czech side and on the other hand class of steeper terrain is located mainly in Bavarian Forest. Ecosystem services was presented by integrating landscape capacity analysis showing small differences between both National Parks in this case and no relation between land cover and attractiveness for tourism.

Nazinga Game Ranch (NGR) is a reserve in Burkina Faso involving local communities for securing biodiversity through sustainable management. Yet, its ecosystems are threatened by increasing number of elephants and illegal human activities. Renowned as a model of wildlife participatory management, NGR has mainly been studied for its animal wildlife only. The aim of this study was to uncover ecological effects of recent land management on savanna habitats including tourism, and to conclude on more sustainable options, land use/land cover (LULC) changes and vegetation dynamics in NGR were analyzed. This was accomplished with multi-temporal change detection using Landsat images of 1984, 2002 and 2013 to map seven representative LULC classification categories, and quantitative indices of landscape metrics. The results showed that the LULC dynamics in NGR from 1984 to 2013 was mainly characterized by an expansion of gallery forest, tree savanna and agricultural area and a reduction of shrub savanna, woodland and bare soils. From 2002 to 2013, fragmentation in all land cover types increased at the landscape level, whereas at the class level, it decreased for woodland. Our findings provided evidence of habitat degradation in NGR, due to extensive agriculture, tourism and growing of elephants’ population. According to the original management goals and the purposes of the reserve, both fauna and tourism are to be maintained and sustained in a sustainable way. Adaptation of land use and targeted wildlife management are the main requirements for avoiding further degradation of vegetation and thus of the existence basis of local inhabitants, animals and tourism.

In ecological studies, the population of interest is often spread over a large area. In these studies, obtaining a sample with good spatial coverage is an important feature in the design of a survey. In most cases adjacent, or neighbouring, units are more similar than units further apart and the resulting spatial autocorrelation should be taken into account.

Two dimensional systematic sampling (grid-based sampling) is one conventional method that has been used in environmental studies to achieve spatial coverage of the area.

Balanced Acceptance Sampling (BAS) is a new method for selecting well spread out sampling units over the study area.

In this paper we will compare the BAS design and two dimensional systematic sampling for selecting samples (quadrats) from a large area, using a case study of a crab species from an intertidal marine zone in Qatar.

Species on the Earth are under increasing human pressure, according to some authors, the current rate of extinction occurred only a few times in the past, for the last time in the Cretaceous Period in the Mesozoic Era. The main goal of current nature conservation is to maintain the highest native biological diversity and to preserve and enhance life-supporting ecosystem processes, functions and services with the best possible use of financial resources. The areas where can be found the highest concentrations of endemic species and that also face the highest loss of natural habitats are called biodiversity hotspots. Globally, now there are 36 hotspots, covering 2.4 % of the Earth’s land area and harbouring about 50 % of endemic plant species and 42 % of endemic terrestrial vertebrate species in the world. The areas can be compared in terms of species richness, endemism, natural habitat loss or territorial protection and nature conservation can be carried out in the most efficient way. The most important hotspots are Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands and Sundaland.