The amount of arable land is limited, yet the demand for agricultural food products is increasing. This issue has led to the notion of precision farming, where smart city-based technologies (e.g., Internet of Things, digital twins, artificial intelligence) are employed in combination to cater for increased production with fewer resources. Widely used in manufacturing, augmented reality has demonstrated impactful solutions for information communication, remote monitoring and increased interaction. Yet, the technology has only recently begun to find a footing alongside precision farming solutions, despite the many benefits possible to farmers through augmenting the physical world with digital objects. Therefore, this article reflects on literature discussing current applied solutions within agriculture, where augmented realty has demonstrated a significant impact for monitoring and production. The findings discuss that augmented reality must be coupled with other technologies (e.g., simultaneous localization and mapping algorithms, global positioning systems, and sensors), specifically 9 are identified across 2 application domains (livestock and crop farming) to be beneficial. Attention is also provided on how augmented reality should be employed within agriculture, where related-work examples are drawn from in order to discuss suitable hardware approaches and constraints (e.g., mobility).

The notion of the smart city involves embedding Industry 4.0 technologies to improve the lives of inhabitants in urban environments. Within this context, smart city data layers (SCDLs) concern the integration of extra tiers of information for the purposes of improving communication potential. Under the Industry 4.0 technology grouping, advanced communication technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), further the opportunities to model, recreate, evaluate and communicate scenarios that potentially improve citizens lives at multiple SCDL scales in a smart cities context. The use of added contextual information in SCDLs is of special interest for emergency planning situations at the building scale. In this research, a literature review to understand the current approaches for the use, development and evaluation of VR applications in the context of emergency planning was conducted. The results indicated four main categories of relevant challenges for these types of applications, for which recommendations and a roadmap for VR development are presented. In total, the study identified 10 commonly occurring challenges (e.g., optimization and discomfort) and 19 solution directions (e.g., model construction and spatial directions) in related articles when considering the development of VR for spatial planning and emergency situations.

Biodiversity conservation is increasingly dependent on maintaining landscape connectivity, particularly in regions facing rapid habitat fragmentation due to expanding and intensifying urbanisation and agriculture. We applied a structured multi-species framework to model ecological connectivity between three mega-reserves ( Addo Elephant National Park, Baviaanskloof Mega-Reserve, Garden Route National Park) in South Africa, integrating expert-derived resistance surfaces with two widely used modelling approaches: circuit theory and least-cost path analysis. Resistance layers were parameterised through expert questionnaires for the nine selected species representing a range of ecological roles and requirements, capturing key landscape features influencing mammal mobility. A multi-species connectivity network was generated by integrating Circuitscape and Linkage Mapper outputs. The results identified 40 potential corridors, comprising areas with a low to moderate human footprint, though agriculture and roads remain significant anthropogenic barriers. Strong connectivity potential was observed among all mega-reserves, with neighbouring protected areas frequently acting as stepping stones. While some corridors align with the 2018 National Protected Area Expansion Strategy, others present previously unidentified connectivity pathways. However, significant challenges remain for the establishment and long-term sustainability of these corridors, including landowner participation and financial feasibility. This study provides a structured framework for multi-species corridor planning in South Africa, offering insights for conservation practitioners aiming to enhance landscape connectivity to achieve regional and national biodiversity conservation objectives.