water shortage crisis is an issue that has led to drastic changes in different agricultural policies, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. uncertainty in the amount of resources, e.g. water, used for agricultural production entails risk for farmers' income and cropping pattern changes. in the present study, the robust optimization model was used for optimal allocation of arable lands of khor...

soil surfaces in arid and semi-arid lands often lack photoautotrophic life but are covered by communities of soil surface covering organisms able to tolerate dehydration, and thus adapted to aridity. one important objective of multi-spectral remote sensing instruments is the detection of the optical characteristics of the earth’s surface using high spectral resolution bands. in this study aster...

Arid and semi-arid lands cover around one-third of the world's terrestrial expanse and their widespread plantdistributions provide these areas with a high potential for sequestering carbon. Vegetation management for developingshrub or tree species in arid and semi-arid regions is one inexpensive and multi-purpose approach for decreasing CO2.This study assessed the potential of carbon sequestrat...

Water shortage crisis is an issue that has led to drastic changes in different agricultural policies, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Uncertainty in the amount of resources, e.g. water, used for agricultural production entails risk for farmers' income and cropping pattern changes. In the present study, the robust optimization model was used for optimal allocation of arable lands of Khor...

Helminths cause great economic loss in livestock in Africa, and can be categorized as either direct or indirect losses. Arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) in Kenya comprise 71% of total land area and harbour the largest population of cattle, sheep and goats. However, little information on the distribution and impact of gastro-intestinal (GIT) parasitism in these animals is available. This survey w...

The exponential growth in world population is feeding a steadily increasing global need for arable farmland, a resource that is already in high demand. This trend has led to increased farming on subprime arid and semi-arid lands, where limited availability of water and a host of environmental stresses often severely reduce crop productivity. The conventional approach to mitigating the abiotic s...

Ecological processes in arid lands are often described by the pulse-reserve paradigm, in which rain events drive biological activity until moisture is depleted, leaving a reserve. This paradigm is frequently applied to processes stimulated by one or a fewprecipitation eventswithin a growing season.Here we expand the original framework in time and space and include other pulses that interact wit...

Soil salinization is a major threat to agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions, where water scarcity and inadequate drainage of irrigated lands severely reduce crop yield. Salt accumulation inhibits plant growth and reduces the ability to uptake water and nutrients, leading to osmotic or water-deficit stress. Salt is also causing injury of the young photosynthetic leaves and acceleration of t...

In the present study, in order to calculate the movement of sand dunes in the period between 2001 and 2010, the ASTER (Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) images were used. The training samples were obtained from the field, and the images of the years 2001 and 2010 were classified using maximum likelihood algorithm and decision making tree. The study area was classi...