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The realities of Climate change and its untold implications on the livelihood of man are no longer new worldwide. In attempts to subdue the negative implications of Climate change scenario globally, several measures have being suggested and being put in place. One of such measures is urban reforestation especially in the developing nations where forest resources have extremely and uncontrollably exploited. Most of cities in developing nations are almost devoid of regularly maintained trees for whatever purpose. Thus, the enormous roles which urban tree performs are lacked in most cities. In order to subdue excessive heat in cities arising from exposure of urban land areas urban reforestation exercise needs to be embarked upon. The investigation was carried out through desk studies and review of relevant publications to examine what it entails to have a sustainable reforestation programme in cities. The study revealed that several factors need to be taken into consideration if sustainable urban reforestation will be achieved, especially in developing countries. These factors include urban soil nutrients status investigation, appropriate tree type study, public perception about the tree types, relevant legal instrument to achieve successful reforestation exercise in cities among others were found to be salient to this exercise. Urban reforestation has enormous potentials to subdue Climate change consequences, including urban renewal if adequate provision is made for its sustainability, especially in developing countries. To ensure this is realized it is recommended that relevant ministry/agency could be put in charge for the maintaining, cutting and replanting of urban tree and all that are involved in urban tree sustainability.

A plant community is a group of populations that coexist in space and interact directly or indirectly with the environment. In this paper, we determined the pattern of tree species composition in response to soil variables in Khadimnagar National Park (KNP), which is one of the least studied tropical forests in Bangladesh. Soil and vegetation data were collected from 71 sample plots. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) with associated Monte Carlo permutation tests (499 permutations) was carried out to determine the most significant soil variable and to explore the relationship between tree species distribution and soil variables. Soil pH and clay content (pH with p＜0.01 and Clay content with p＜0.05) were the most significant variables that influence the overall tree species distribution in KNP. Soil pH is related to the distribution and abundance of Syzygium grande and Magnolia champaca, which were mostly found and dominant species in KNP. Some species were correlated with clay content such as Artocarpus chaplasha and Cassia siamea. These observations suggest that both the physico-chemical properties of soil play a major role in shaping the tree distribution in KNP. Hence, these soil properties should take into account for any tree conservation strategy in this forest.

This study was conducted at Sitakunda coastal afforestation range, comprised of four beats- Bansbaria, Bakkhali, Baterkhil and Bogachattar, in Chittagong. Afforestation effects on soil physicochemical properties in comparison to adjacent barren land were analysed. In the study area, an area of 3277.33 ha was planted with Sonneratia apetala, Avecinnia officinalis, Excoecaria agallocha, Bruguiera sexangula, Ceriops decandra from 1968 to 2011. We found positive soil physicochemical changes in plantations in comparison to adjacent barren land. Soil bulk density of plantation was lower than the adjacent barren land. Soil pH and soil salinity were significantly higher in barren land whereas soil organic matter, organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium of plantations were higher in afforested land. Soil texture ranged from clay loam to sandy loam in different depth of these two types of land. However, this study concludes that there is clear evidence that afforestation has positive impacts on all soil properties in different location and soil depths in the study area.

The interspecific hybrid of Salix caprea and Salix gracilistyla has never been identified or studied in Korea. Accordingly, this study investigated the flower morphological characteristics of the interspecific hybrid between S. caprea and S. gracilistyla and compared the interspecific hybrid with S. caprea and S. gracilistyla, respectively. The female flowers were investigated for 12 characteristics and the male flowers were investigated for nine. For the female flowers, those of the hybrids were larger than those of S. caprea and S. gracilistyla in terms of catkin length (CL), bract length (BL), and bract width (BW). The hybrids are intermediates between S. caprea and S. gracilistyla in terms of ovary length, width, and stipitate length as well as gland length (GL). For the male flowers, those of the hybrids were bigger than those of S. caprea and S. gracilistyla in terms of CL, BL, and BW. The hybrids are intermediates between S. caprea and S. gracilistyla in terms of catkin width and stamen length (SL). A principal component analysis (PCA) of the female data showed that the first principal component (PC) explained 57.5% of the total variation. The first PC highly correlated the ovary stipitate and pistil style lengths. The analysis was divided into three groups of S. caprea, S. gracilistyla, and the hybrid by the first PC. The results of a PCA of the male data showed that the first PC explained 35.7% of the total variation. The first PC highly correlated with the adelphous SL and was divided into three groups of S. caprea, S. gracilistyla, and the hybrid. The results of the discriminant analysis showed that S. caprea, S. gracilistyla, and the hybrid were distinguishable by flower morphological characteristics. Therefore, the hybrid was distinctly separated from S. caprea and S. gracilistyla by flower characteristics.

Rapid urbanization and population growth have caused substantial land use land cover (LULC) change in the Kathmandu valley. The lack of temporal and geographical data regarding LULC in the middle mountain region like Kathmandu has been challenging to assess the changes that have occurred. The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in LULC in Chandragiri Municipality between 1996 and 2017 using geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing. Using Landsat imageries of 1996 and 2017, this study analyzed the LULC change over 21 years. The images were classified using the Maximum Likelihood classification method and post classified using the change detection technique in GIS. The result shows that severe land cover changes have occurred in the Forest (11.63%), Built-up areas (3.68%), Agriculture (-11.26%), Shrubland (-0.15%), and Bareland (-3.91%) in the region from 1996 to 2017. This paper highlights the use of GIS and remote sensing in understanding the changes in LULC in the south-west part of Kathmandu valley.

Decay fungi can decompose plant debris to recycle carbon in the ecosystem. Still, they can also be fungal pathogens, which can damage living trees and/or wood material and cause a large amount of timber loss. We isolated and identified basidiomycetous fungi from the decayed bark of Mongolian oak wrapped with sticky roll traps. The degrading enzyme activities were then tested for all fungal isolates. The decay ability of selected isolates was assessed based on the weight loss of wood discs after inoculating with culture suspension of decay fungi under the different humidity levels. A total of 46 basidiomycetous fungal isolates belonged to 12 species, and 10 genera were obtained from Jong Myo (16 isolates), Chang Kyung palace (7 isolates), Cheong Gye (10 isolates), and Gun Po (13 isolates). Gymnopus luxurians was the most dominant fungus in the present study, and this species distributed in all survey sites with 9 isolates in Jong Myo, followed by 3 isolates in Chang Kyung palace, while Cheong Gye and Gun Po had only 1 isolate each. Among 46 isolates, 44 isolates secreted at least one enzyme, while 25 isolates produced both cellulase and phenol oxidase enzymes, and 2 isolates produced neither. The assessment of decay ability by artificial inoculation indicated that the weight loss of wood discs was significantly influenced by humidity conditions when inoculated with bark decay fungi. The percent weight losses by G. luxurians inoculation in RH of 90-100% and RH of 65-75% were 4.61% and 2.45%, respectively. The weight loss caused by Abortiporus biennis were 6.67% and 0.46% in RH of 90-100% and RH of 45-55%, respectively. The humidity reduction approach should be applied for further studies to control the growth and spread of bark decay fungi on the trunks wrapped with sticky roll traps.

Despite numerous efforts on reducing road-kill worldwide, the collisions have been occurring continuously. Many factors are affecting road-kill occurrences and the effect is various by species. We investigated Hydropotes inermis argyropus road-kill characteristics on the national highway. We examined 9,099 H. i. argyropus road-kill points with distance to the gaps on road (interchange and intersection) and distance to six natural land-cover types as explanatory variables. We also examined the number of road-kill occurrences according to temporal variation using chi-square test with 9,658 events. In general, H. i. argyropus road-kill location tended to occur close to the gaps on road, agricultural lands and forests. The average distance from road-kill to the gap was 694.7 m and 78.6% of the collisions were occurred within 1 km from the gaps. In addition, Kruskal-Wallis test showed the distance between road-kill points and each land cover and the gaps was significantly different. The temporal analyses showed that the differences of the H. i. argyropus road-kill frequency are significant in both month and season. Our results implies H. i. argyropus road-kill location tended to occur close to the gaps on road, agricultural lands and forests in general, especially during May and June, according to their seasonal behavior. Thus, we suggest there is a need of concentrated management on the roads with specific characteristics for both wildlife and human safety.

This study aims to verify a difference between the years 2014 and 2019 of Uiryeong-Gil, which is operated by the Visitor-Reservation System, in terms of the cognition of system, operational effectiveness, and behavioral intention. The analysis is as follows. First, among the overall cognition of the Visitor-Reservation System, the satisfaction from - prevention for safety for accident, expansion to other parks, number of visitor restriction, and satisfaction with reservation method - increased compared to 2014. Second, among the effects of the Visitor-Reservation System operation, satisfaction shows differences in year-to-year levels in terms of resource protection, resource damage mitigation efficiency, natural experience opportunity, comfort of visit-environment, and prevention of illegal activities. Third, the analysis of the differences in the behavior of the Visitor-Reservation System showed that the satisfaction of visitors, revisit intention, and overall satisfaction differed per year. The results of this study are meaningful in that the Visitor-Reservation System is no longer the restriction, but the change in cognition for the protection of ecosystems and sustainable visiting in order to expand the Visitor-Reservation System into a sustainable policy.

Cement bonded boards of 10 mm in thickness were produced from the mixture of Gmelina arborea sawdust and corn cob particles. The strength and dimensional stability of cement bonded composites produced from these two mixtures were examined. A total of thirty experimental boards were produced at density level of 1,000 kg/m3 with cement to fibre ratio of 2.5:1 and 3:1 and five (5) blending proportions of G. arborea sawdust to corn cob particles of 100:0; 75:25; 50:50; 25:75 and 100:0. The effect of the cement to fibre ratio and blending proportion on the Water Absorption (WA), Thickness Swelling (TS), Modulus of Rupture (MOR), and Modulus of Elasticity (MOE) were determined. The result indicates that as the mixing ratio of cement to fibre and blending proportion of maize cob (75%) to G. arborea (25%) increased, the thickness swelling, water absorption decreased, whereas the MOR and MOE increased. It also shows that most dimensionally stable and flexural strength boards were produced at the highest level of mixing ratios (3:1) and blending proportion of G. arborea to corn cob 25:75. However, the analysis of variance shows that TS and WA were significantly different, whereas, MOE and MOR were not significantly affected by mixing ratios and blending proportions. Finding of this study has shown that maize cob particles are suitable for cement bonded board production.