Modern geographic information system (GIS) tools have allowed a more careful examination of how the physical characteristics of a property’s neighborhood and surrounding land uses are capitalized into property values. The ArcGIS Viewshed tool is a case in point: it identifies the cells in an input raster that can be seen from one or more observation points. In this study, we use the tool in a h...

The relationship between vegetation and soil moisture deserves attention due to its scientific importance and practical applications. However, the effects of soil moisture on vegetation development and succession are poorly documented. Here we study soil water storage in Yanhe watershed at northern Shaanxi on five different land uses, namely shrubland, farmland, natural grassland, woodland, and...

Groundwater resources are becoming the primary factor for maintaining life in arid areas. Understanding land use/cover change and its effect on groundwater depth would enhance land use and groundwater management for typical desert-oasis transition zones. Reduction of groundwater recharge and increase of groundwater exploitation during 1985 and 2010 led to the decrease of groundwater depth in Li...

Transportation activities can contribute to accumulation of heavy metals in roadside soil and grass, which could potentially compromise public health and the environment if the roadways cross farmland areas. Particularly, heavy metals may enter the food chain as a result of their uptake by roadside edible grasses. This research was conducted to investigate heavy metal (Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb) conce...

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component of the surface energy balance and hydrological cycle. In this study, the eddy covariance technique was used to measure ET of the semi-arid farmland ecosystem in the Loess Plateau during 2010 growing season (April to September). The characteristics and environmental regulations of ET and crop coefficient (Kc) were investigated. The results showed...

Reclamation of abandoned farmland is crucial to a sustainable agriculture in arid regions. This study aims to evaluate the impact of different reclamation treatments on abandoned salinized farmland. We investigated four artificial reclamation treatments, continuous cotton (CC), continuous alfalfa (CA), tree-wheat intercropping (TW) and trees (TS), which were conducted in 2011–2012 in the Manasi...

Privately owned forests, wetlands, and crop-lands in the United States are disappearing at alarming rates due to development and erosion , according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on 7 December 1999. The report, which summarizes the USDA's 1997 National Resources Inventory (NRI), reveals that development has doubled during the last decade to-more than three mi...

Farmland scale management is an important approach for developing countries to ensure food security in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. At present, realization farmland through path use rights trading encounters obstacles practice; moreover, new model has rarely been systematically discussed. Considering trusteeship practice implemented Shandong Province China as research case, this study discuss...