The monitoring of desertification processes, and particularly the development of "early-warning" systems, is an increasingly important development in the management of drylands. It has been shown that the patch size distribution of dryland vegetation can be described using power laws and that deviations from such patterns may be used as an early-warning signal for the onset of desertification. ...

Germany has made the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) since its creation an instrument of choice for its policy to combat desertification and drought and for sustainable management of land. More then ten years after the Convention has entered into force in 1996, Germany continues to view it as a key reference point and strategic instrument of its development cooperation.

Vegetation dynamics are an important topic in the field of global environment change, which is of great significance to monitor temporal–spatial variability of desertification at regional or global scales. Following the reported desertification reversion in the late 1990s in the Horqin Sandy Land, an issue was concerned for desertification control by decreased water availability. To detect the ...

Desertification is a major human tragedy, affecting the daily lives of about 1 billion people. It is this aspect of desertification that deserves further consideration. As a humanitarian effort it is an opportunity, and an obligation, for the industrialized nations to transfer financial support and technical assistance to those countries worst affected by land degradation in all its forms. Dese...

This study investigated the effects of consolidated soil layer (CSL) composed fly ash (FA) and polyacrylamide (PAM) on growth Artemisia ordosica through plot experiments in Inner Mongolia, North China. It could provide a feasibility reference for ecological restoration combating desertification desert areas. The germination characteristics were studied control 6 kinds CSL, which formed with 3 a...

Desertification is a worldwide concern and the assessment of aeolian desertification has become one hotspot in global ecosystem research. In this paper, hyperspectral data acquired from modular OMIS-I imaging spectrometer, combined with ETM data and field survey data, was used to assess the aeolian desertification in Korqin Sand, Inner Mongolia, China by pixel-level. The results indicated that ...

Over many decades our understanding of the impacts of intermittent drought in water-limited environments like the West African Sahel has been influenced by a narrative of overgrazing and human-induced desertification. The desertification narrative has persisted in both scientific and popular conception, such that recent regional-scale recovery ("regreening") and local success stories (community...

Understanding institutional changes is crucial for environmental management. Here we investigated how institutional changes influenced the process and result of desertification control in northern China between 1949 and 2004. Our analysis was based on a case study of 21 field sites and a meta-analysis of additional 29 sites reported in the literature. Our results show that imposed knowledge-dri...