Influence Of Physical Attributes Research Articles

Mapping recreation as an ecosystem service: Considering scale, interregional differences and the influence of physical attributes

Methods to map nature-based recreation are increasingly used, especially in ecosystem services research and practice. Researchers that map nature-based recreation beyond local scales, however, have relied much on physical attributes, e.g. land cover and topography. In such instances the recreational potential of land is modeled based on expert judgement and not on public preferences. Participatory mapping data is based on public preferences and as such can be used to improve proxy-based methods to map the recreational potential of land. In this paper, we use data from an online mapping survey (the Hotspotmonitor/Greenmapper) to spatially analyze the recreational potential of land. We employed point pattern analyses to 1) investigate which physical attributes contribute to the recreational potential of land, at both a regional and a national scale, and 2) how preferences for such attributes differ between respondents from distinct geographical regions. We find that interregional differences, whereas prominent at the regional scale, are small at national scale, suggesting there is a shared understanding of what places are ‘hotspots’ for recreation within the Netherlands. These hotspots, however, are difficult to map using physical attributes alone. Discussing these discrepancies, our paper provides insights that contribute to a better understanding and mapping of the recreational potential of land.

Influence of physical attributes and pedotransfer function for predicting water retention in management systems

ABSTRACT The aims of this study were to evaluate the effects of the soil structural physical attributes on the water retention and to develop pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for the estimation of the soil water content (θ) at different matric potentials of a Dystrophic Red Latosol (Hapludox) under conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) soil management systems. The effects of long-term CT and NT (over 25 years) management on the soil bulk density (BD), total porosity (TP), macroporosity (Ma), microporosity (Mi) and water retention were investigated. The PTFs were developed to predict θ and used to evaluate the soil water retention curve only for the NT system. The NT system was characterized by smaller values of the soil BD and higher values of the soil TP and Mi than the CT system. The NT system exhibited a higher θ retained than the CT system for the pore-size interval of 0.2–30 μm. However, the CT system exhibited a large amount of water retention for pores smaller than 0.2 μm. The PTFs were utilized to estimate θ at matric potentials of -1, -3, -6, -10, -33, -100, -400, -800, and -1,500 kPa with adequate accuracy. The soil BD, Ma, Mi and sand content were the main variables considered to estimate θ for the different matric potentials evaluated.

Influence of physical attributes on the price of land: the case of the Province of Talca, Chile

J.L. Troncoso, M. Aguirre, P. Manriquez, V. Labarra, and Y. Ormazabal. 2010. The influence of physical attributes on the price of land: the case of the province of Talca, Chile. Cien. Inv. Agr. 37(3): 105-112. This study aims at estimating the percent impact on the price of farmland of the following physical attributes: size, soil quality, water rights, connectivity and location. To this effect, all the farm sales occurred in the province of Talca between 2003 and 2006 were examined, directly from the corresponding title deeds, at the Conservador de Bienes Raices (Property Register) of Talca, obtaining thus a total of 92 observations. Subsequently, a linear function was estimated, with price per hectare as the dependent variable and the physical attributes listed above, as explanatory variables. Analysis showed that the most influential variable is location (i.e. county) and in a very minor degree, connectivity (i.e. distance to the nearest paved road), water rights, soil quality and size. Talca is the preferred county, as location in other counties has negative impacts on price. Size and connectivity have negative impacts, while water rights and soil quality have positive impacts on price.