China has the largest afforested area in the world (∼62 million hectares in 2008), and these forests are carbon sinks. The climatic effect of these new forests depends on how radiant and turbulent energy fluxes over these plantations modify surface temperature. For instance, a lower albedo may cause warming, which negates the climatic benefits of carbon sequestration. Here, we used satellite me...

The glycoprotein known as glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) is abundantly produced on the hyphae and spores of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soil and roots. Few studies have focused on its amount, composition and associations with soil properties and possible land-use influences, although the data hints at soil rehabilitation. By choosing a primary forest soil as a non-degraded refer...

Carbon (C) is stored by plantation forests either when ecosystems with a low C density (such as tropical grasslands) are afforested or when timber is converted to semipermanent products. If the afforestation rate is relatively constant and the plantations are not harvested immediately upon reaching maturity, the amount of C stored in trees as a result of afforestation can be calculated by a sim...

The forest shelterbelt (afforestation) project in northern China is the most significant ecosystem project initiated in China during the past three decades. It aims to improve and conserve the ecological environment in the project areas. The tree belt stands along the southern edge of the sandy lands, nearly paralleling to the Great Wall. This study used a regional climate model to simulate the...

The Nile River provides nearly 97% of Egypt's freshwater supply. Egypt's share of Nile waters is fixed at 55.5 billion cubic meters annually. As a result, Egypt will not be able to meet increasing water demand using freshwater from the Nile and has been developing non-conventional wastewater reuse strategies to meet future demands. The USAID Mission in Cairo began promoting strategies for water...

The expansion of non-industrial private forests (NIPF) in Ireland is unique in the European context in which the almost doubling of forest cover within the last thirty years has taken place largely on farmland. This is not surprising as Ireland has some of the highest growth rates for conifers in Europe and also has a large proportion of land which is marginal for agriculture but highly product...

China is investing immense resources for planting trees, totalling more than US$ 100 billion in the past decade alone. Every year, China reports more afforestation than the rest of the world combined. Here, we show that China's forest cover gains are highly definition-dependent. If the definition of 'forest' follows FAO criteria (including immature and temporarily unstocked areas), China has ga...

The Chinese Loess Plateau region has long been suffering from serious soil erosion. Thus, large-scale afforestation has continued during the past decades in order to control soil erosion. Afforestation can dramatically alter nutrient cycles, affect soil-carbon storage, and change hydrology. However, it is unknown how afforestation influences species diversity of the soil seed bank and understor...

Bottomland hardwood forests of the southeastern United States have declined in extent since European settlement. Forest restoration activities over the past decade, however, have driven recent changes in land use through an intensified afforestation effort on former agricultural land. This intense afforestation effort, particularly in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, has generated a deman...

Though carbon (C): nitrogen (N) stoichiometry has been widely studied in terrestrial ecosystems, little is known about its variation following afforestation. By synthesizing the results of 53 studies, we examined temporal and spatial variation in C: N ratios and in N-C scaling relationships of both the organic and the mineral soil horizons. Results showed that C: N ratios remained constant in t...