Seasonal changes in soil respiration (SR), soil temperature (ST) and soil moisture (SM) were compared between a barren land with no vegetation (control) and grassland dominated by Heteropogon contortus (L.) of a semi-arid eco-system during 2005-2006. A statistically significant (p<0.001) seasonal change in SR was observed between the two sites. The variation characteristics of soil CO2 effiux r...

Few studies have investigated the influence of water availability on plant population spatial patterns. We studied changes in the spatial patterns of Caragana stenophylla along a climatic drought gradient within the Inner Mongolian Plateau, China. We examined spatial patterns, seed density, "nurse effects" of shrubs on seedlings, transpiration rates and water use efficiency (WUE) of C. stenophy...

     Roads have an important role in plants dispersal on different scales. Various plant species settle on roadsides, but some of them can enter the natural environments and threaten their biodiversity. Worldwide knowledge of roadside flora is necessary for local and global management of natural areas. Accordingly, the roadside flora of Northern Khorasan rangelands was studied along the 600 km ...

Severe range degradation was critically extended in many region of Iran and caused many rangelands were restricted and interwoven with croplands in a complex system. Therefore, rangeland planning and inventory as an isolated activity has become almost impossible. Current landscape planning involves contributions of different social organizations often with different interests and with different...

At the beginning of twenty-first century, the water crisis in the priority policy andmanagement is inside and outside of the country as principle thoroughly human, social,economic and political rulers of the country is considered abundant. The World Bank hasannounced that during 1960 and 2025, water resources in Middle East, from 3430 m3 for theeach person in year reach to 667 m3 because of pop...

In this study, the performance of three empirical methods for estimating reference evapotranspiration (ET0): Makkink (Mak) and PriestleyeTaylor (PT) (radiation-based) and HargreaveseSamani (HARG) (temperature-based) were assessed in semi-arid regions. The values of ET0 derived using these three methods were compared to those estimated using the reference FAO PenmaneMonteith (FAO-PM) method unde...

Northeastern Brazil, an example of vulnerable semi-arid regions on the earth, is characterised by water scarcity and vulnerability of .natural resources, pronounced climatic variability and social stress situations. Integrated studies involving hydrology, ecology, meteorology, climatology, pedology, agronomy, and social and economic sciences are required not only for analysing consequences of t...

Understanding the dynamics of semi-arid rangelands is a prerequisite for their proper management and long-term enclosure experiments are an important tool to investigate grazing impact. Hein (2006) presents findings from a 10 year enclosure experiment in the semi-arid Ferlo, Senegal. His main conclusion is that current high grazing pressure (0.15–0.20 TLU/h) negatively affects rain use efficien...