In arid and semi-arid environments like the rest parts of South Africa, the state of vegetation density in catchments is an important indicator of the state of the environment. Climate variability coupled with different anthropogenic activities could affect vegetation cover at varying levels. The Upper Molopo River Catchment (UMRC) in the North West Province of South Africa is under this combin...

New boreholes have enabled, for the first time, extensive palynological sampling through entire Lopingian Zechstein sequence of northeast England. Palynomorph assemblages been recovered from throughout all five evaporation-replenishment cycles (EZ1–EZ5). These are dominated by pollen grains, with rare trilete spores, and even rarer marine forms such as acritarchs foraminiferal test linings. The...

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the primary results of the Semi-Arid Land–Surface–Atmosphere (SALSA) Program in the context of improvements to our overall understanding of hydrologic, ecologic, and atmospheric processes and their interactions in a semi-arid basin. The major findings and future research needs associated with the different core components of the program a...

arid and semi-arid lands cover around one-third of the world's terrestrial expanse and their widespread plantdistributions provide these areas with a high potential for sequestering carbon. vegetation management for developingshrub or tree species in arid and semi-arid regions is one inexpensive and multi-purpose approach for decreasing co2.this study assessed the potential of carbon sequestrat...

Some endemic shrubs in arid and semiarid ecosystems are in danger of extinction, and yet they can play useful roles in maintaining or restoring these ecosystems, thus practical efforts are needed to conserve them. The shrubs Amygdalus pedunculata Pall., Amygdalus mongolica (Maxim.) Ricker and Ammopiptanthus mongolicus (Maxim. ex Kom.) Cheng f. are endemic species in arid and semiarid regions of...

Since livestock production in Uzbekistan in arid and semi-arid zones is based on rangeland vegetation, contemporary studies have focused on improvement of low productive grazing lands and rehabilitation of degraded rangelands. Less interest has been given to the driving factors of land degradation and their interaction with other ecosystem components, e.g. response of vegetation to grazing indu...

     Roads have an important role in plants dispersal on different scales. Various plant species settle on roadsides, but some of them can enter the natural environments and threaten their biodiversity. Worldwide knowledge of roadside flora is necessary for local and global management of natural areas. Accordingly, the roadside flora of Northern Khorasan rangelands was studied along the 600 km ...

Drought is a major problematic phenomenon for the mostly semi-arid country of Iran. The north centralregions of Iran (north of Esfahan and Ghom province) have suffered from severe droughts several times duringthe last three decades. The frequent occurrence of drought in these regions is due to low and inconsistentprecipitation, abnormally high temperatures, increases in surface albedo and evapo...