Determining the areas most suitable for urban land use while minimizing impact on natural areas. The case of the Machachi Valley, Ecuador.

Due to the impact of urban growth on the environment, especially in developing countries, decision-making tools are needed to help locate the ideal areas for urban use. This study aims to identify the areas most suitable for urban use, minimizing their impact on forest land use in an area with high urban sprawl. As a new development, the study also considers the connectivity between forest-use patches and the loss of forest area as decision variables.

Estimating the potential of wild foods for nutrition and food security planning in tropical areas: Experimentation with a method in Northwestern Colombia.

Wild foods contribute to the food security of multiple communities in tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, wild foods are not regularly considered in the planning of strategies for food and nutrition security mainly due to the lack of technical and/or scientific knowledge so that they can be considered suitable for human consumption. This paper proposes a multidisciplinary method that estimates the potential of wild foods as alternative resources when planning interventions in favour of food and nutrition security in tropical forest territories.

Sustainability assessment in forest management based on individual preferences.

This paper presents a methodology to elicit the preferences of any individual in the assessment of sustainable forest management at the stand level. The elicitation procedure was based on the comparison of the sustainability of pairs of forest locations. A sustainability map of the whole territory was obtained according to the individual's preferences.

Optimization of the resources management in fighting wildfires.

Wildfires lead to important economic, social, and environmental losses, especially in areas of Mediterranean climate where they are of a high intensity and frequency. Over the past 30 years there has been a dramatic surge in the development and use of fire spread models. However, given the chaotic nature of environmental systems, it is very difficult to develop real-time fire-extinguishing models.