Sustainable water resources management assessment frameworks (SWRM-AF) with associated indicators and benchmarks have appeared widely during the last decades to improve or maintain resources. Examination evaluation of their appropriateness refinement for particular arid semi-arid regions is a relatively unexplored area. To fill this gap in knowledge, systematic review relevant 21st century stud...

Drought is a major problematic phenomenon for the mostly semi-arid country of Iran. The north centralregions of Iran (north of Esfahan and Ghom province) have suffered from severe droughts several times duringthe last three decades. The frequent occurrence of drought in these regions is due to low and inconsistentprecipitation, abnormally high temperatures, increases in surface albedo and evapo...

Relatively little research has been expended on developing plants for use in urban desert landscapes or “xeriscapes.” However, because of reduced availability and increased cost of water, water conservation needs, and concerns for our environment, increased awareness and demand for arid-adapted landscape plants have developed. An especially important need is for groundcover requiring little wat...

BACKGROUND Although semi-arid and arid regions account for about 40% of terrestrial surface of the Earth and contain approximately 10% of the global soil organic carbon stock, our understanding of soil organic carbon dynamics in these regions is limited. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A field experiment was conducted to compare soil organic carbon dynamics between a perennial grass community ...

The ongoing changes in vegetation spring phenology in temperate/cold regions are widely attributed to temperature. However, in arid/semiarid ecosystems, the correlation between spring temperature and phenology is much less clear. We test the hypothesis that precipitation plays an important role in the temperature dependency of phenology in arid/semiarid regions. We therefore investigated the in...

Due to growing demand and reduction of water resources increasing pollution water, driven by dramatic population economic growth, arid semi-arid land’s imminent problems are nowadays aggravating. This study aims determine the most appropriate management strategies for balancing Abhar plain aquifer using SWOT coupled with AHP technique. The results indicate that weaknesses prevail over strengths...

soil is one of the most important natural resources covering a large area of the land surface. soil plays a vital role in biosphere processes, such as energy balance, hydrology, biochemistry, and biological productivity. it supports plants that supply foods, fibers, drugs, and some other human needs. conversely, desert regions include about one third of earth lands and these regions have increa...

evaporation from the soil surface has an important role in the water balance model in nature, so that the major part of rain fall and irrigation water in arid and semi-arid regions is lost via evaporation from the soil surface. in such areas, there are some regions with high water table and because of evaporation from the soil surface, salts accumulation also occur in the soil surface. so evapo...