The grasslands of Central Anatolia in Türkiye, including the steppes and forest-steppes, are often mischaracterized as degraded ecosystems due to long-standing human activities, particularly agriculture and domestic grazing. However, palaeoecological evidence and recent research suggest that these grasslands are ancient, biodiversity-rich systems that have persisted through various climatic changes and disturbance regimes. This manuscript challenges the conventional view that Central Anatolian grasslands are secondary and degraded, arguing instead that they represent old-growth ecosystems that coexisted with forests as alternative biome states throughout history. We emphasize the need to re-evaluate current land management practices, particularly afforestation efforts, which may undermine the resilience of these ecosystems to climate change. By recognizing the ecological value of these old-growth grasslands and adopting a comprehensive conservation strategy, the conservation and restoration of these vital ecosystems can be improved, ensuring their resilience and biodiversity in the face of future environmental challenges.

We demonstrate an application evaluating carbon sequestration benefits from federal policy alternatives. Using detailed forest inventory data, we projected carbon sequestration outcomes in the coterminous 48 states for a baseline scenario and three policy scenarios through 2050. Alternatives included (1) reducing deforestation from development, (2) afforestation in the eastern United States and reforestation in the western United States, and (3) reducing stand-replacing wildfires. We used social cost of carbon estimates to evaluate the present value of carbon sequestration benefits gained with each policy. Results suggest that afforestation and reforestation would provide the greatest marginal increase in carbon benefit, far exceeding policy cost.

Studies were conducted in 2007 and 2008 to evaluate herbicides having both PRE and POST activity for selective weed control in bald cypress plantings. Five herbicides were applied at two or three rates at two different timings. The first timing was to dormant seedlings without foliage and prior to weed emergence (i.e., PRE). The second timing was to foliated seedlings with established weed seedlings present (i.e., POST). Herbicide treatments included aminopyralid at 70 and 120 g ae ha−1, hexazinone at 420 and 560 g ai ha−1, imazapyr at 140 and 210 g ae ha−1, sulfometuron methyl at 110, 160, and 210 g ai ha−1, and flumioxazin at 290 and 430 g ai ha−1. Herbicide rate had little effect on vegetation control. PRE-applied sulfometuron methyl was most effective, providing nearly complete control of graminoids and broadleaves at 60 d after treatment (DAT). POST-applied treatments were generally less effective, though in the 2008 study imazapyr and sulfometuron methyl resulted in approximately 60% bare ground at 60 DAT. Growth of bald cypress seedlings was enhanced by both PRE- and POST-applied sulfometuron methyl, flumioxazin, or hexazinone and by PRE imazapyr. The best bald cypress growth response followed POST-applied sulfometuron methyl at 210 g ha−1, which resulted in 63 cm3 mean volume index, more than fivefold greater than the nontreated check. Aminopyralid caused severe and lasting seedling injury. POST-applied imazapyr resulted in fasciculation and no growth benefit, despite providing the most efficacious weed control among POST treatments. Survival and growth of bald cypress can be greatly enhanced with a single selective herbicide treatment using sulfometuron methyl, flumioxazin, or hexazinone applied before or following foliation in the spring.

Despite the contemporary importance of the Ridge forest to the city of Delhi as its most important ‘green lung’, the concept of urban forestry has been explored neither by urban historians studying Delhi nor by environmental historians. This article places the colonial efforts to plant a forest on the Delhi Ridge from 1883 to 1913 within the context of the gradual deforestation of the countryside around Delhi and the local colonial administration's preoccupation with encouraging arboriculture. This project of colonial forestry prioritized the needs of the white colonizers living in Delhi, while coming into conflict repeatedly with indigenous peasants. With the decision to transfer the capital to Delhi in 1911, the afforestation of the Delhi Ridge received a further stimulus. Town planners' visions of a building the capital city of New Delhi were meant to assert the grandeur of British rule through imposing buildings, with the permanence of the British in India being emphasised by the strategic location of the ruins of earlier empires within the city. The principles of English landscape gardening inspired the planning of New Delhi, with the afforestation of the Delhi Ridge being undertaken to provide a verdant backdrop for—the Government House and the Secretariat—the administrative centre of British government in India. Imperial notions of landscaping, which were central to the afforestation of the Delhi Ridge epitomised colonial rule and marginalized Indians.

A description is given of the hydrological regime and associated surface water quality recorded at a multi-disciplinary long-term investigation into the effects of acid precipitation and afforestation. The study catchment at Loch Dee is situated on the margins of the Loch Doon granite complex in SW Scotland. Annual rainfall is in excess of 2200 mm. The three main tributary burns exhibit a rapid response to rainfall with a high percentage of direct runoff. The loch with an average volume of 3650 M1 and a contributing catchment area of 15·6 km2 has an average turn-over of approximately forty days but this has varied from 15 to 100 days. Local physical variations are shown to influence both hydrological response and surface water quality. Generally stream water during spate conditions reflects rainfall chemistry. Occasionally, however, moderately acid rainfall containing large concentrations of sea salts has produced highly acidic runoff through a process of ion-exchange within the surface horizons of the soils. The quality of base flows shows a spatial variation which reflects various lithologies to the extent that pH values ranging from 4·9 to 6·9 have been observed.

As part of the joint British-Scandinavian Surface Waters Acidification Programme, the Institute of Hydrology is establishing catchment studies in Scotland. Data from these catchment studies are being used to develop a range of models for investigating short-term and long-term changes in catchment acidity. Information on the modelling techniques available at the Institute of Hydrology is presented together with applications of the models to catchments in Scotland.

Outputs of suspended sediment and bedload from the 7·7 km2 moorland Monachyle basin and the 6·8 km2, 40%-forested Kirkton basin near Balquhidder, and inputs from tributary streams and mainstream bank erosion, are compared. Sediment yield is about three times higher in the forested basin and varies more sensitively with streamflow, suggesting greater availability of erodible sediment. The output is predominantly of suspended sediment and is derived mainly from tributary streams. Initial observations following partial moorland ploughing and forest clearfelling in 1986 indicate that erosion of timber loading areas and logging roads is the main sediment source.

This paper reports on the progress to date of a long-term investigation of the effects of drainage and afforestation on the hydrology of a peat bog near Edinburgh based on the use of runoff plots and other related equipment. The hydrology of the area immediately after ploughing is described and recently collected data are presented to show how this has changed over a six-year period. The main changes appear to be a substantial reduction in water yield and a move towards a less flashy runoff regime. Data are presented to show that these are most probably due to an increase in the amount of rainfall intercepted by the vegetation now covering the area and to a deterioration in the hydraulic efficiency of the drainage network.