Since the Oligocene, regions adjacent to the Red Sea have experienced major environmental changes, from tectonic movements and continuous geological activity to shifting climatic conditions. The effect of these events on the distribution and diversity of the regional biota is still poorly understood. Agamid members of the genus Pseudotrapelus are diurnal, arid-adapted lizards distributed around...

The analysis of vegetation dynamics and agricultural production is essential in semi-arid regions, in particular as a consequence of the frequent occurrence of periods of drought. In this paper, a multi-temporal series of the Normalized Difference of Vegetation Index (NDVI), derived from SPOT-VEGETATION (between September 1998 and August 2013) and TERRA-MODIS satellite data (between September 2...

Abrupt arid events in the post-glacial (w17.4–10 kyr BP) Dead Sea Basin (DSB) were recorded by significant lake level declines in Lake Lisan and massive deposition of gypsum and salt. Between 17.4 and 16 kyr cal BP, the lake level dropped from its late MIS2 stand of w260 m below mean sea level (m bmsl) to w330 m bmsl, depositing a thick sequence of gypsum. Between w16 and 15 kyr cal BP the lake...

In hot arid regions, cooling buildings by passive techniques is very important regarding energy saving and the need to keep clean the environment. In such areas, domed and vaulted roofs are widely used for centuries, such as in the Middle East region and central part of Iran. In this article analysis is made to explore east–west direction of wind flow around north–south vaulted roofs and flat r...

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...

isfahan province is located in the center of iran and has arid and semi-arid climate. in recent years, water shortage has increased in this region and has affected crop production. wheat is one of the most important crops of the province. in the present research, an index (dei) has been developed for drought evaluation using long term climatic data through application of principle components an...

abstract: the aim of this study is analysis of drainage basins neotectonic in the north slope of bozqoosh mountains by geomorphological methods. to attain this aim, it used of field observation, areal photographs and five geomorphic indexes in 20 basins of the north slope of bozqoosh mountains. indexes were calculated by topography maps (1: 50000), geological maps (1: 100000) and areal photogr...