Water harvesting is the collection of runoff for productivity purposes, instead of runoff being left to cause erosion. In arid and semi-arid drought-prone areas, micro-catchments are widely used as a water harvesting method to improve rangeland condition. The aim of present study was to investigate the effects of micro-catchment on ecological indices of rangeland health in Ghick-Sheikhha, Jirof...

Management of desert grasslands requires rapid, low technology, coarse assessment methods that provide a triage-like prioritization for the manager. Such approaches necessitate the ability to quickly and effectively identify coarse-scale plant communities that provide guidance for this prioritization. Complex, computer intensive digital image classification of Landsat TM data, while marginally ...

In previous papers we have considered the optimal mix of biodiversity in semi-arid rangelands, focusing on the steady state. This paper addresses the question of conservation in the optimal use of rangelands, where conservation is understood to mean maintenance of the system in a ‘natural’ state. We consider a rangeland that may exist in one of two states. In the ‘natural’ state, its dynamics a...

Remote sensing technology is very useful in getting synoptic estimates of grass bio-parameters which is important for rangeland monitoring . The retrieval of bio-parameters is usually realized by developing empirical regression formula. However, it is less convincing if the regression line is built on limited observations from one growth stage . In this research, three field surveys were carrie...

Nomadism is found mostly in marginal areas which support only relatively sparse populations, particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia. It is a traditional form of society that allows the mobility and flexibility necessary for relatively even use of vegetation over large areas of low quality rangeland. It also facilitates more social interaction than would be possible am...

soil moisture is one of the critical parameters in climatic, ecological and hydrological modeling and vegetation growth. soil moisture is important for environmental studies but due to ground-based point measurement of soil moisture is expensive and impractical for watershed measurement, this parameter is not be used widely to simulate and predict models. overall and uniform view on different p...

Severe range degradation was critically extended in many region of Iran and caused many rangelands were restricted and interwoven with croplands in a complex system. Therefore, rangeland planning and inventory as an isolated activity has become almost impossible. Current landscape planning involves contributions of different social organizations often with different interests and with different...

At the beginning of twenty-first century, the water crisis in the priority policy andmanagement is inside and outside of the country as principle thoroughly human, social,economic and political rulers of the country is considered abundant. The World Bank hasannounced that during 1960 and 2025, water resources in Middle East, from 3430 m3 for theeach person in year reach to 667 m3 because of pop...