The effects of water erosion (including long-term historical erosion and single erosion event) on soil properties and productivity in different farming systems were investigated. A typical sloping cropland with homogeneous soil properties was designed in 2009 and then protected from other external disturbances except natural water erosion. In 2012, this cropland was divided in three equally siz...

In this study, we extend a model of daily dryland dynamics by parameterizing a modified version of a minimalistic annual model to examine how the statistical structure of annual rainfall and grazing intensity interact to influence dryland vegetation. With a Monte Carlo approach, an ensemble outcome provides a statistical description of likely dryland vegetation dynamics responding to variations...

Blanket peat covers the headwaters of many major European rivers. Runoff production in upland blanket peat catchments is flashy with large flood peaks and short lag times; there is minimal baseflow. Little is known about the exact processes of infiltration and runoff generation within these upland headwaters. This paper presents results from a set of rainfall simulation experiments performed on...

In the 1980s, there were numerous claims, based on estimates of the correlation dimension, that the variability of various geophysical processes, in particular rainfall, is generated by a low-dimensional deterministic chaos. Due to a recent attempt (Sivakumar et ai, 2001) to revive the same approach and with claims of an analogous result for the rainfall-runoff process, we think it is necessary...

It is widely recognised that the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) in south-eastern Australia has been in the grip of a serious drought for many years. Over the period 1997−2006, mean annual rainfall has been approximately 16 percent lower than the long-term (1895−2006) average across the MDB. Runoff has been 39 percent lower over the same period. The continuing drought in the MDB has brought the need...

• Across species, leaf lifespan (LL) tends to be correlated with leaf mass per area (LMA). Previously we found that Australian perennial species from low-rainfall sites had c . 40% shorter LL at a given LMA than high-rainfall species. • Here we relate indices of leaf strength (work to shear, W shear , and tissue toughness) to LL and LMA across the same suite of species. W shear is the work requ...

Basal area growth rates for Prosopis glandulosa were quantified for contrasting landscape elements in a subtropical savanna. We hypothesized that growth rates of P. glandulosa plants (1) are a function of seasonal or annual rainfall; and (2) vary with patch type and in the rank order observed for large trees. Prosopis glandulosa growth was responsive to changes in rainfall (!0)974 cm year!1 in ...

Timing of reproduction in birds is important for reproductive success and is known to depend on environmental cues such as day length and food availability. However, in equatorial regions, where day length is nearly constant, other factors such as rainfall and temperature are thought to determine timing of reproduction. Rainfall can vary at small spatial and temporal scales, providing a highly ...

The effect of row spacings and irrigation levels on the earliness of seed production of cotton was investigated under the Mediterranean environment of central Greece. This particular cotton growing area is exposed to risk of autumn rainfall that might cause low seed quality in fields allocated primarily for seed production. Two varieties of cotton, Celia and Hersi, were planted in two row spaci...