The transition from a command to a market economy resulted in widespread cropland abandonment across the former Soviet Union during the 1990s. Spatial patterns and determinants of abandonment are comparatively well understood for European Russia, but have not yet been assessed for the vast grain belt of Western Siberia, situated in the Eurasian forest steppe. This is unfortunate, as land-use change in Western Siberia is of global significance: Fertile black earth soils and vast mires store large amounts of organic carbon, and both undisturbed and traditional cultural landscapes harbor threatened biodiversity. We compared Landsat images from ca. 1990 (before the break-up of the Soviet Union) and ca. 2015 (current situation) with a supervised classification to estimate the extent and spatial distribution of abandoned cropland. We used logistic regression models to reveal important determinants of cropland abandonment. Ca. 135,000 ha classified as cropland around 1990 were classified as grassland around 2015. This suggests that ca. 20% of all cropland remain abandoned ca. 25 years after the end of the Soviet Union. Abandonment occurred mostly at poorly drained sites. The likelihood of cropland abandonment increased with decreasing soil quality, and increasing distance to medium-sized settlements, roads and railroads. We conclude that soil suitability, access to transport infrastructure and availability of workforce are key determinants of cropland abandonment in Western Siberia.

Abstract. Mui Ca Mau at the southern tip of Vietnam supports a large area of mangroves and has a high value for biodiversity and scenic beauty. This area is affected by erosion along the East Sea and accretion along the Gulf of Thailand, leading to the loss of huge stretches of mangroves along the East Sea and, in some cases, loss of environmental and ecosystem services provided by mangroves. In this study, we used remotely sensed aerial (1953), Landsat (1979Landsat ( , 1988Landsat ( and 2000 and SPOT (1992SPOT ( , 1995SPOT ( , 2004SPOT ( , 2008SPOT ( , 2009SPOT ( and 2011 images and the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) to quantify the rate of mangrove shoreline change for a 58 yr period. There were 1129 transects sampled at 100 m intervals along the mangrove shoreline and two statistical methods, namely end point rate (EPR) and linear regression rate (LRR), were used to calculate the rate of change of mangrove shorelines and distance from 1953 to 2011. The study confirms that erosion and accretion, respectively, are significant at the East Sea and Gulf of Thailand sides of Mui Ca Mau. The East Sea side had a mean erosion LRR of 33.24 m yr −1 . The accretion trend at the Gulf of Thailand side had an average rate of 40.65 m yr −1 . The results are important in predicting changes of coastal ecosystem boundaries and enable advanced planning for specific sections of coastline, to minimize or neutralize losses, to inform provincial rehabilitation efforts and reduce threats to coastal development and human safety.

Coastal wetlands in the Mekong Delta (MD), Vietnam, provide various vital ecosystem services for the region. These wetlands have experienced critical changes due to the increase in regional anthropogenic activities, global climate change, and the associated sea level rise (SLR). However, documented information and research on the dynamics and drivers of these important wetland areas remain limited for the region. The present study aims to determine the long-term dynamics of wetlands in the south-west coast of the MD using remote sensing approaches, and analyse the potential factors driving these dynamics. Wetland maps from the years 1995, 2002, 2013, and 2020 at a 15 m spatial resolution were derived from Landsat images with the aid of a hybrid classification approach. The accuracy of the wetland maps was relatively high, with overall accuracies ranging from 86–93%. The findings showed that the critical changes over the period 1995/2020 included the expansion of marine water into coastal lands, showing 129% shoreline erosion; a remarkable increase of 345% in aquaculture ponds; and a reduction of forested wetlands and rice fields/other crops by 32% and 73%, respectively. Although mangrove forests slightly increased for the period 2013/2020, the overall trend was also a reduction of 5%. Our findings show that the substantial increase in aquaculture ponds is at the expense of mangroves, forested wetlands, and rice fields/other crops, while shoreline erosion significantly affected coastal lands, especially mangrove forests. The interaction of a set of environmental and socioeconomic factors were responsible for the dynamics. In particular, SLR was identified as one of the main underlying drivers; however, the rapid changes were directly driven by policies on land-use for economic development in the region. The trends of wetland changes and SLR implicate their significant effects on environment, natural resources, food security, and likelihood of communities in the region sustaining for the long-term. These findings can assist in developing and planning appropriate management strategies and policies for wetland protection and conservation, and for sustainable development in the region.

Spatiotemporal analysis and monitoring of vegetation help us investigate ecological health and guide better forest conservation and land management practices for sustainable development. This paper proposes the use of spatial analysis approaches (i.e., ordinary least squares [OLS] and the Hurst exponent) combined with time-series analysis using enhanced vegetation index (EVI) data, derived from LANDSAT via the Google Earth Engine, to estimate the trends and sustainability of vegetation dynamics in the Tra Vinh Province in the Mekong River Delta. We also assessed the EVI changes connected to land change issues to examine the influence of land use conversion on vegetation dynamics. Results show that a large portion of the study area was covered by abundant vegetation (over 50% of the total area), and the increased EVI area was about 5.5-times greater than the area of EVI reduction. Additionally, vegetation sustainability was being seriously compromised (e.g., a decrease in the total area of 8,275 ha) due to several land conversion drivers such as shrimp farming, urbanisation, and industrialisation. Furthermore, results obtained from this research provide insight into the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation coverage and reveal the consistency of future vegetation trends. Moreover, the study also quantitatively assessed the positive impacts of Buddhist doctrines on reducing the negative trend of vegetation change in the study area. These findings can lay the ground to formulate sustainable land and environmental plans that meet the 11th, 13th and 15th Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (i.e., the sustainable cities and communities, the climate actions, and the life on land). Besides, the analytical procedure adopted in this study can also be applicable to any other coastal areas that require the accurate assessment of vegetation status over time.