Mediterranean-type ecosystems constitute one of the rarest terrestrial biomes and yet they are extraordinarily biodiverse. Home to over 250 million people, the five regions where these ecosystems are found have climate and coastal conditions that make them highly desirable human habitats. The current conservation landscape does not reflect the mediterranean biome's rarity and its importance for...

Decentralizing natural resource management to local people, especially in tropical countries, has become a trend. We review recent evidence for the impacts of decentralization on the biodiversity values of forests and forested landscapes, which encompass most of the biodiversity of the tropics. Few studies document the impact of decentralized management on biodiversity. We conclude that there m...

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission only retrieved ~2.5 months of 3 km near surface soil moisture (NSSM) before its radar transmitter malfunctioned. NSSM remains an important area study, and multiple applications would benefit from data. With the goal creating a product, we developed algorithm to downscale SMAP brightness temperatures (TBs) using Cyclone Global Navigation Satelli...

Phytoplankton production drives marine ecosystem trophic-structure and global fisheries yields. Phytoplankton biomass is particularly influential near coral reef islands and atolls that span the oligotrophic tropical oceans. The paradoxical enhancement in phytoplankton near an island-reef ecosystem--Island Mass Effect (IME)--was first documented 60 years ago, yet much remains unknown about the ...

Fairy circles consist of isolated or randomly distributed circular areas devoid of any vegetation. They are observed in vast territories in southern Angola, Namibia and South Africa. We report on the formation of fairy circles, and we interpret them as localized structures with a varying plateau size as a function of the aridity. Their stabilization mechanism is attributed to a combined influen...

Land surface temperature plays an essential role in estimating radiation budgets, heat balance studies, as a control for climate dynamics and soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer modeling, studying the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) changes at regional level. This study provides comprehensive evaluation relationship between use (LST), through landscape assessment based on multi-source mult...

On degraded land in arid regions, cultivation of Apocynum species can provide significant environmental benefits by preventing soil erosion and desertification. Furthermore, venetum pictum , which are mainly distributed salt-barren lands the northwestern region China, traditionally used to produce natural fiber herbal tea. Direct sowing both may encounter various abiotic stresses such as drough...

Abstract The peri-urban regions of the Indian cities are growing at a rapid rate, engulfing all available lands in their vicinity. It is vital to map changes that occur green areas plan for sustainable urban environments and ecosystems. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) graphical indicator utilizes multispectral remote sensing techniques classification land cover. aim current study ...