Agricultural crops take up water, but not salt, and evaporation from irrigated land does likewise. The result is increasing salt levels in soils. Just as cities cannot ignore urban wastewater collection and treatment, irrigating farmers and irrigation districts cannot ignore what to do with the salt in agricultural drainage water. Although salt management techniques can seem straightforward, th...

Ji-yi Zhang 1, Peng-cheng Yin 2, Gang Li 1,*, He-he Gu 1, Hua Zhao 1 and Jian-chun Fu 1 1 School of Environmental Science and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221008, China; [email protected] (J.-Y.Z.); [email protected] (H.-H.G.); [email protected] (H.Z.); [email protected] (J.-C.F.) 2 Bureau of Land and Resources of Xuzhou, Xuzhou 221006, China; [email protected] * C...

Land degradation is a major threat to the sustainability of human habitation, and it is essential to assess it quantitatively. Assessment of the human-induced aspect is especially important for planning appropriate prevention measures. This paper used the Three-North Shelter Forest Program region as the study area, and assessed the land degradation dynamic using a time series of summed normaliz...

Attempts to alleviate land degradation and water scarcity in arid/semi-arid regions of India have historically been carried out within the ambit of government schemes implemented disparately by concerned departments. These sectoral methods are being increasingly replaced by a watershed-based approach in which local communities are encouraged to assume ownership of development programs, albeit w...

Water has become increasingly scarce in northwestern China due to climate change, economic growth and burgeoning population. Improving agriculture water use efficiency is of strategic significance in promoting socio-economic water productivity for arid and semi-arid inland river basins. Based on the household-level data collected in Zhangye City, which is located in the middle reaches of Heihe ...

Soils with pedogenic carbonate cover about 30% (3.44 10 km) of China, mainly across its arid and semiarid regions in the Northwest. Based on the second national soil survey (1979–1992), total soil inorganic carbon (SIC) storage in China was estimated to be 53.3 6.3 PgC (1 Pg5 10 g) to the depth investigated to 2 m. Soil inorganic carbon storages were 4.6, 10.6, 11.1, and 20.8 Pg for the depth r...

The identification of the suitable areas for common oat (Avena sativa L.) and naked oat (Avena nuda L.) in China using Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) approach based on GIS is presented in the current article. Climate, topography, soil, land use and oat variety databases were created. Relevant criteria, suitability levels and their weights for each factor were defined. Then the criteria maps we...

This paper presents the potential of the four-image spectral endmember (EM) space comprising sand (SL), green vegetation (GV), saline land (SA), and dark materials (DA), unmixed from Landsat TM/ETM+ to map dryland agricultural soil alkalinity and salinity (i.e., soil alkalinity (pH) and soil electrical conductivity (EC)) in the shallow root zone (0–20 cm) using partial least squares regression ...

A better understanding of the effects of climate change and land use/cover change (LUCC) on streamflow promotes the long-term water planning and management in the arid regions of northwestern China. In this paper, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and a separation approach were used to evaluate and separate the effects of climate change and LUCC on streamflow in the Xiying River basin. ...