The study examines the changes in climatic elements and agronomic parameter (maize hectarage and output) for maize production in different ecological zones of Nigeria from 1980 2002. The study also evaluated the degree of variability in these parameters. To achieve these objectives, secondary data on climatic elements and agronomic parameters for 22years were analysed using two – way Analysis o...

The Most Expected Rainfall Regime – MERR in a certain region is composed of various parameters regarding the annual rainfall regime in that region. The present study examines several parameters of the MERR, such as: the rainfall TOTAL, the Date of Accumulated Percentage-DAP, the Rainy Season Length-RSL, the Number of Rain-Spells-NRS, the Rain-Spell Yield-RSY, the ratio between Average and Media...

We completed a meta-analysis of regional and global climate model simulations (n=96) of the impact of Amazonian deforestation on Amazon basin rainfall. Across all simulations, mean (±1σ) change in annual mean Amazon basin rainfall was 12 ± 11%. Variability in simulated rainfall was not explained by differences in model resolution or surface parameters. Across all simulations we find a negative ...

The Spreadsheet Tool for the Estimation of Pollutant Load (STEPL) can be used for Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) processes, since the model is capable of simulating the impacts of various best management practices (BMPs) and low impact development (LID) practices. The model computes average annual direct runoff using the Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) method with average rainf...

Land-use change is widely considered to be a major factor affecting soil carbon (C) sequestration (ΔCs). This paper studied changes to soil C stocks (Cs) following the conversion of farmland to forest, shrub and grassland across the key area for implementing China's "Grain for Green"--the Loess Plateau. The results are based on a synthesis of 44 recent publications (including 424 observations a...

We update the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) analysis of Sahelian vegetation dynamics and trends using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI; version 3g) 1981 to 2012 data set. We compare the annual NDIV3g and July to October growing season averages with the three rainfall data sets: the Africa Rainfall Climatology from 1983 to 2012, the Variability Analyses of...