This study presents preliminary results of the validation of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily LST products (MOD/MYD11A1, Version 5) using longwave radiation ground measurements obtained at 12 stations in the North Arid and Semi-Arid Area Cooperative Experimental Observation Integrated Research program. In this evaluation process, the broadband emissivity at each s...

Deserts occupy approximately 12% of the Earth's land surface, and are thought to have species poor but highly specialized biotas. However, few studies have examined the evolutionary origins of desert biotas and of diversity patterns along aridity gradients. Further, it is unclear if species occurring in more extreme conditions on a given niche axis (i.e., precipitation) are more specialized for...

northern khorasan province is located in north-east iran. according to demarton coefficient, it is a semiarid region. arid and semi-arid or subhumid zones are characterized by temperature variations, low and erratic rainfall, periodic droughts and different associations of vegetative cover and soils. this article looks at current dry lands and general guidelines for finding the best area for dr...

Underutilised crops represent an important component of agro-biodiversity with potential to contribute to climate change adaptation, food security and sovereignty in poor rural areas. However, despite emerging research interest, they continue to occupy the peripheries of mainstream agriculture. There is a need to consolidate the gains made and propose a coherent strategy for translating underut...

Increases in populations and in particular in developing countries are placing increased pressure on both natural and agricultural resources. In many cases, especially in semi-arid regions, the pressures are compounded by restricted agricultural lands. Reliable and relevant land evaluation is a requirement for land use policy and decision making to support sustainable rural development. Land ev...

In central Kenya, in the ecological transition zone from semi -humid to semi-arid, climatic and human induced land cover changes have an immense impact on the ecosystem. Therefore, investigations were made to analyse the potential to separate 10 detailed land use/land cover classes in this area from multitemporal ENVISAT ASAR data. Besides mean, different texture measures like variance, coeffic...

The evaluation of CHRIS data of the AquiferEx testsites in Tunisia concerning their information content for advanced land use classifications will be presented. As first essential step, the data need a careful atmospheric correction. A new approach is developed for the two test-sites where atmospheric measurements were missing. The atmospheric parameters i.e. the optical thickness and the water...

A new method of land cover mapping from satellite images using granulometric analysis is presented here. Discontinuous landscapes such as steppian bushes of semi arid regions and recently growing urban settlements are especially concerned by this study. Spatial organisations of the land cover are quantified by means of the size distribution analysis of the land cover units extracted from high r...

An interactive and participative approach to involve and mobilise rural communities in water quality control programmes was investigated. Agro-rural watersheds are experiencing serious environmental degradation mainly because of inappropriate land use practices due to various competing and opposing priorities in the community. The communities tend to concentrate on availability of land and wate...