Freshwater ecosystems are essential for biodiversity, livelihoods, as well as human well-being, and their condition is strongly influenced by land-use pressures within surrounding catchments. Land-use/land-cover (LULC) change can alter catchment proc...
Driven by the rapid expansion of the new energy industry and the growing demand for photovoltaic (PV) power plant construction, optimizing site selection to ensure operational efficiency and stability has emerged as a critical imperative. Addressing...
Earthworms are ecosystem engineers that are sensitive to land-use intensification and edaphic conditions, yet their ecology remains poorly understood in transformed semi-arid landscapes. We hypothesized that, in recently colonized agroecosystems, lan...
Irrigation of calcareous soil with saline–sodic water can modify the composition of the soil solution and exchange complexes in agricultural land of arid and semi-arid regions with low water resources. The objective of this study was to monitor...
Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of land surface phenology is important to understanding changes in landscape ecological processes of semi-arid savannas in Southern Africa. The aim of the study was to determine the influence of variation in...
Soil fertility must be viewed as a dynamic concept that involves the constant cycling of nutrients between organic and inorganic forms. In this context, it refers also to supply adequate amounts of water and aeration for plant growth. Soil fertility...
Most grazing lands in Mediterranean ecosystems that support extensive sheep farming systems are characterized by unfavorable edapho-climatic conditions, especially in semi-arid areas. Often, though, their use is far from sustainable, causing erosion...
Spectral confusion among land cover classes is quite common, let alone in a complex and heterogenous system like the semi-arid Mediterranean environment; thus, employing new developments in remote sensing, such as multispectral imagery (MSI) captured...
Land-use and land cover (LULC) change is a key driver of environmental dynamics in semi-arid Mediterranean watersheds, strongly influencing hydrological processes, soil degradation, and ecosystem stability. In this context, understanding and predicti...
In desertified regions, monitoring vegetation phenology and elucidating its relationship with climatic factors are of crucial significance for understanding how desertification responds to climate change. This study aimed to extract the spatial-tempo...
Estimating the on-site and off-site impacts of soil erosion as a function of land use and climate conditions in semi-arid basins is key for soil and water conservation strategies. However, a research gap exists in the theme, requiring further investi...
This study examines the behavior of land surface temperature (LST) and surface urban heat island (SUHI) from MODIS data over Ahmedabad city, Gujarat state (India), from 2003 to 2018. Summer and winter LST patterns were analyzed, both daytime and nigh...
Documenting underexplored local fruit germplasms is essential for biodiversity conservation and establishing baseline records of genetic resources naturally persisting in dryland environments. This study presents a baseline morpho-pomological and sta...
24 January 2019
In this study, the spatio-temporal changes of urban heat island (UHI) in a mega city located in a semi-arid region and the relationships with normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference built-up index (NDBI) are appraised...
Aridity conditions in semi-arid lands with warm climates are key variables that must be assessed to properly manage water and plan to minimise the threat of desertification. This study analyses the spatial distribution of aridity in Extremadura, sout...
This study focuses on land cover and land management changes in relation to food security and environmental services in a semi-arid area of East Nusa Tenggara (ENT), Indonesia. The study was conducted in the Central Sumba District of ENT province. A...
Semi-arid ecosystems play a key role in global agricultural production, seasonal carbon cycle dynamics, and longer-run climate change. Because semi-arid landscapes are heterogeneous and often sparsely vegetated, repeated and large-scale ecosystem ass...
Urbanization is a major driver of land-use change and ecological shifts, especially in semi-arid regions with high environmental sensitivity. This study examined urban land growth and its ecological impacts in Astana, Kazakhstan, from 2000 to 2020 an...
In arid and semi-arid areas, soil moisture (SM) plays a crucial role in land-atmosphere interactions, hydrological processes, and ecosystem sustainability. SM data at large scales are critical for related climatic, hydrological, and ecohydrological r...
Drought persistence and delayed recovery remain major challenges for drought monitoring in semi-arid environments, where precipitation variability interacts with slowly evolving land-surface conditions. Although precipitation-based indicators effecti...
Investigating the urban heat island (UHI) effect and its driving factors is crucial for supporting future climate mitigation actions and human adaptation strategies. Due to the unique climatic characteristics and vulnerable ecological environment of...
The agri-pastoralist communities of the semi-arid region of Chile, with their unusual common land ownership, have not escaped economic neo-liberalism. The general pattern of insatiable demand of land for agricultural production, mining, energy genera...
Land management strategies play a pivotal role in the sustainable development of a region. Integrating space syntax into the ecological–social perspective to assess habitat services and optimize multi-scenario simulations and evaluations is cru...
Mapping land cover helps with the management of environmental, agricultural and urban areas; however, it is challenging in semi-arid regions, where several classes have similar spectral responses. The research offers a combination of new SWIN with Se...
Remote sensing provides an efficient approach for monitoring ecosystem dynamics in the arid and semi-arid regions of Xinjiang, yet traditional forest-land extraction methods (e.g., spectral indices, threshold segmentation) show limited adaptability i...
In recent years, Africa has seen much construction of large-scale hydrological infrastructures in the arid and semi-arid regions of numerous countries. This paper aims to quantify the effects of this form of hydrological infrastructure, especially th...
In a modeling study we examine vulnerability of income from mobile (transhumant) pastoralism and sedentary pastoralism to reduced mean annual precipitation (MAP) and droughts. The study is based on empirical data of a 3410 km2 research region in sout...
Rapid urbanization threatens the ecological environment and quality of life by significantly altering land use and land cover (LULC) and heat distribution. One of the most significant environmental consequences of urbanization is the urban heat islan...
This study evaluated the individual and interactive effects of straw management, tillage systems, and wheat growth stages on surface energy balance (SEB) dynamics in a semi-arid wheat production system, with particular focus on net radiation (Rn), se...
Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) have a significant impact on urban planning and environmental dynamics, especially in regions experiencing rapid urbanization. In this context, by leveraging the Google Earth Engine (GEE), this study evaluate...
Total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) concentration in the soil are an indicator of soil degradation. To understand how land-use may impact these concentrations in seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF), we analyzed the effect of four la...
Pastoral livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa are under an increasing threat from climate change with arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) being especially vulnerable. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is widely promoted as a strategy for enhancing resilience...
Urban heat stress and deteriorating air quality are environmental risks in semi-arid cities, positioning urban forests as vital nature-based solutions for climate adaptation. Despite growing recognition of urban greening imperatives, South Africa&rsq...
The Brazilian northeast has a characteristic relationship with water resources because, in this region, water scarcity is associated with natural factors and accentuated by anthropic actions that interfere with water quality. The present work aimed t...
Groundwater is often the main source of available water, and precipitation is one of the main recharge sources of groundwater in arid and semi-arid regions. This paper studies a fixed dune in Mu Us Sandy Land in China, establishes a numerical model,...
13 September 2024
Caatinga is a typical Brazilian biome facing severe threats despite its ecological and socio-economic importance. Conservation strategies are essential in protecting ecosystems and ensuring natural resource sustainability. Mata da Pimenteira State Pa...
Urban heat islands (UHIs) intensify thermal stress in cities, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions undergoing rapid urban expansion. The main objectives of this study are to quantify and compare UHI intensity in six major Saudi Arabian cities (...
The study was conducted to assess the long-term effects of predominant land uses on physicochemical properties, nutrient status and their interactions in soils of south-western Punjab representing the semi-arid soils of India. From each site, soil sa...
Agricultural irrigation leachate is often the largest source for aquifer recharge in semi-arid groundwater basins, but contamination from fertilizers and other agro-chemicals may degrade the quality of groundwater. Affected communities are frequently...
Satellite based land cover classification for Africa’s semi-arid ecosystems is hampered commonly by heterogeneous landscapes with mixed vegetation and small scale land use. Higher spatial resolution remote sensing time series data can improve classif...
The objective of this study is to define groundwater management zones for a complex deformed and fissured Precambrian karst aquifer, which underlies one of the most important agricultural areas in the semi-arid region of Irecê, Bahia, Brazil. I...
Although nocturnal surface urban heat islands, which impede physiological recovery during rest, have been characterized in many cities worldwide, Syria’s capital, Damascus, situated in the Eastern Mediterranean region, remains without a quantit...
Open and analysis-ready data, as well as methodological and technical advancements have resulted in an unprecedented capability for observing the Earth’s land surfaces. Over 10 years ago, Landsat time series analyses were inevitably limited to...
Detailed Land-Use and Land-Cover (LULC) information is of pivotal importance in, e.g., urban/rural planning, disaster management, and climate change adaptation. Recently, Deep Learning (DL) has emerged as a paradigm shift for LULC classification. To...
Soil organic carbon influences several landscape ecological processes, and soils are becoming recognized as a mechanism to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. There is a need to define methods and technologies for addressing soils’...
Land degradation is a growing concern in arid and semi-arid regions, posing severe threats to ecosystem stability, agricultural productivity, and rural livelihoods due to the combined effects of natural processes and human activities. This study exam...
Over semi-arid agricultural areas, the surface energy balance and its components are largely dependent on the soil water availability. In such conditions, the land surface temperature (LST) retrieved from the thermal bands has been commonly used to r...
Land surface temperature (LST) can fully reflect the water–heat exchange cycle of the earth surface that is important for the study of environmental change. There is little research on LST in the semi-arid region of Abha-Khamis-Mushyet, which h...
Global soils are under extreme pressure from various threats due to population expansion, economic development, and climate change. Mapping of land degradation vulnerability (LDV) using geospatial techniques play a significant role and has great impo...
Outdoor water use for irrigation constitutes a substantial urban water flux yet its impact on the land surface remains poorly quantified. This study analyzes the impact of irrigation on land surface temperatures and the hydrologic regime of a large,...
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