A common misunderstanding is that desertification is linked to the presence of deserts. The truth is that desertification can and does occur far from any climatic desert, as the presence or absence of a nearby desert has no direct relation to desertification. Desertification is the result of human induced land degradation which can be accelerated under severe drought conditions, and can occur u...

[1] Hydrological and aeolian processes redistribute sediments and nutrients within arid landscapes with important effects on the composition and structure of vegetation. Despite the relevance of wind and water erosion to the dynamics of arid and semiarid ecosystems, the interactions between these two processes remain poorly understood. In this paper we present the results of an intensive set of...

Accurate assessment of soil loss is essential for sustainable agricultural production, 11 management and conservation planning, especially in productive rain-fed agro-ecosystems 12 and protected areas. The European Union considers soil as a non-renewable resource and 13 identifies that soil degradation has strong impacts on soil and water resources. In this work the 14 Revised Universal Soil Lo...

Soil degradation is one of the most serious ecological problems in the world. In arid and semi-arid northern China, soil degradation predominantly arises from wind erosion. Trends in soil degradation caused by wind erosion in northern China frequently change with human activities and climatic change. To decrease soil loss by wind erosion and enhance local ecosystems, the Chinese government has ...

a r t i c l e i n f o In soil-mantled landscapes, downslope sediment transport occurs via disturbance-driven processes that vary with climate and vegetation change. To help constrain the long-term (≫10 yr) pattern and rate of soil mixing and transport in forests, we analyzed the distribution of tephra grains in soil along a hillslope transect in the Blue Mountains, SE Washington. Deposited with...

[1] Little is known about the role of vegetated hillslope sediment transport in the soil C cycle and soil-atmosphere C exchange. We combined a hillslope sediment transport model with empirical soil C measurements to quantify the erosion and temporal storage of soil organic carbon (SOC) within two grasslands in central California. The sites have contrasting erosional mechanisms: biological pertu...

Many arid grassland communities are changing from grass dominance to shrub dominance, but the mechanisms involved in this conversion process are not completely understood. Aeolian processes likely contribute to this conversion from grassland to shrubland. The purpose of this research is to provide information regarding how vegetation changes occur in an arid grassland as a result of aeolian sed...

Motivation for learning a new language is both self and time-oriented. The language learner’s motivation experiences gradual fluctuation over time and the view of oneself is different on each timescale of the study. Interaction among different timescales throughout the Second Language Development (SLD) is a novel area of investigation (de Bot, 2015). In order to probe this interactive nature, t...

Land desertification is one of the most serious environmental and social-economic problems in the North China. The processes of desertification mainly have being controlled by the interaction of human activities and fragile eco-environment, that means the pattern and intension of landuse are major factors for development or reverse of desertification. Because of the increasing pressure of popul...

gully erosion constitutes a major problem in natural resources management and soil conservation, which causes severe land degradation in arid and semi-arid areas. therefore, determination of gully prone area and identification of gully conditioning factors can help to managers and decision makers to reduce the hazard of gully erosion. the aim of this study is to predictthe gully erosion suscept...