Conversion of rangelands into cultivated land is one of the main challenges affecting the management of rangelands in Ethiopia. In order to inform policy makers about trends in land-use conversion, this study examined the drivers, trends, and impacts of land conversions in five locations selected in the Borana rangelands of Southern Ethiopia. This study integrated survey interviews from agro-pa...

Floods are one of the major hazards worldwide. They are the source of huge risks in rural and urban areas, resulting in severe impacts on the civil society, industry and the economy. The Elbe River has suffered from many severe floods during recent decades. In this study, the zones flooded during 2011 were analyzed using TerraSAR-X images and a digital elevation model for the area in order to i...

Mercury methylation, where inorganic mercury (Hg) is converted to methylmercury (MeHg), can increase in soils when flooded. While effects of the initial flooding on MeHg production have been well studied, less known about impacts re-flooding production. Lake Perez, an impounded recreational reservoir Appalachian Highlands, was completely drained then re-filled 7 years later. We use a combinatio...

Wetlands, and especially their littoral zones, are considered to be CH4 emissions hotspots. The recent creation of reservoirs has caused a rapid increase in the area of the world's littoral zones. To investigate the effects of water depth and water level fluctuation on CH4 fluxes, and how these are coupled with vegetation and nutrients, we used static closed chamber and gas chromatography techn...

Inland valleys are becoming increasingly important agricultural production areas for rural households in sub-Saharan Africa due to their relative high and secure water availability and soil fertility. In addition, inland valleys are important as water buffer and biodiversity hot spots and they provide local communities with forest, forage, and fishing resources. As different inland-valley ecosy...

Three Gorges Project is the great project in the world, which accelerates economic development in the reservoir area of Three Gorges Project. In the process of development in the reservoir area of Three Gorges Project, cultivated land has become the important resources, a lot of cultivated land has been occupied and become the constructing land. In the same time, a lot of cultivated land has be...

BACKGROUND Tropical peat swamp forests (TPSF) are globally significant carbon stores, sequestering carbon mainly as phenolic polymers and phenolic compounds (particularly as lignin and its derivatives) in peat layers, in plants, and in the acidic blackwaters. Previous studies show that TPSF plants have particularly high levels of phenolic compounds which inhibit the decomposition of organic mat...

Abstract This study investigated, using the closed chamber method, impact of (1) vegetation community type (Typha latifolia, Cyperus papyrus and Phragmites mauritianus) in a natural tropical freshwater marsh wetland (marsh) (2) conversion into rice paddy (rice paddy), on nitrous oxide (N2O) emission. Both were continuously flooded, while was unfertilized. Average N2O emission from did not vary ...