land degradation due to soil erosion has been well pointed out as one of the most serious ecological and economic problems that some such south asian countries including iran are faced with. although high investment has been made, particularly in introduction of soil conservational mechanical practices, the level of acceptance of these practices has been low and while a high rate of erosion con...

Evidence is presented to show that there is a growing disparity between public perception and scientific evidence relating to the causes of floods, their impacts, and the benefits of mitigation measures. It is suggested that this disparity has arisen through the extensive promotion of certain land uses and engineering interventions by vested interest groups in the absence of any effective disse...

BACKGROUND Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is prevalent in those over the age of 65 years and the leading cause of spinal surgery in this population. Recent systematic reviews have examined the effectiveness of conservative management for LSS, but not relative to surgical interventions. The aim of this review was to systematically examine the effectiveness of land based exercise compared with deco...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expresse...

BACKGROUND Exposure to ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can cause adverse health effects, including premature mortality due to cardiopulmonary diseases and lung cancer. Recent studies quantify global air pollution mortality but not the contribution of different emissions sectors, or they focus on a specific sector. OBJECTIVES We estimated the global mortality burden of anthropogenic ...

Ways of increasing the production of wheat, the most widely grown cereal crop, will need to be found to meet the increasing demand caused by human population growth in the coming decades. This increase must occur despite the decrease in yield gains now being reported in some regions, increased price volatility and the expected increase in the frequency of adverse weather events that can reduce ...

As our urban environments are densifying, it is essential to extend traditional cadastral systems that are based on two dimensional representation of ownership to support 3D. With the need to define property ownership in vertical as well as horizontal dimensions becoming pertinent around the world, a practical solution to represent 3D cadastral data is needed. The Land Administration Domain Mod...

With the existence of mature technologies and modern urban planning necessities, there is a growing public demand to improve the efficiency and transparency of government administrations. This includes the formation of a comprehensive modern spatial land management (cadastre) system having the capacity to handle various types of data in a uniform way—above-terrain and below-terrain—enabling the...

Using a climate version of a regional atmospheric model, we show that the seasonal evolution of weather is dependent on the initial soil moisture and landscape specification. Coupling this model to a land-surface model, the soil moisture distribution and landscape are shown to cause a significant nonlinear interaction between vegetation growth and precipitation. These results demonstrate that s...