Institutional settings play a key role in shaping land cover and land use. Our goal was to
understand the effects of institutional changes on agricultural land abandonment in different …

Droughts have devastating effects on various sectors and are difficult to quantify and track
because of the invisible and slow but prevalent propagation. This dilemma is more …

Land use change is a principal force and inherent element of global environmental change,
threatening biodiversity, natural ecosystems, and their services. However, our ability to …

Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is the main cause of the global biodiversity crisis
and protected areas are critical to prevent habitat loss. Rapid changes in institutional and …

Grain production in the countries of the former USSR sharply declined during the past two
decades and has only recently started to recover. In the context of the current economic and …

The collapse of socialism in 1989 triggered a phase of institutional restructuring in Central
and Eastern Europe. Several countries chose to privatize forests or to return them to pre …

We present an approach to regional environmental monitoring in the Northern Eurasian
grain belt combining time series analysis of MODIS normalized difference vegetation index …

Persistence in landscapes is determined by land cover types that remain unchanged over a
certain period of time. Mapping and analyzing landscape persistence brings a new view to …

As an important part of soil and water conservation, ecological stability, and climate
regulation, vegetation is sensitive to climate change and human disturbance. At present …

Ukraine has experienced immense environmental and institutional changes during the last
three decades. We have conducted this study to analyze important land surface dynamics …