Salinity of soil and water is the most important agricultural hazard in arid and semi-aridregions. In saline soils, yield production directly influences by soluble salts in the root zone aswell as by shallow water table depth. The first step for reclamation of such soils is reducingsalinity to optimum level by leaching. The objective of this study was to develop a practicalmodel to estimate wat...

Natural and cultural heritage sites frequently have nonoverlapping or even conflicting conservation priorities, because human impacts have often resulted in local extirpations and reduced levels of native biodiversity. Over thousands of years, the predictable winter rains of northwestern Baja California have weathered calcium from the clam shells deposited by indigenous peoples in middens along...

The mechanisms underlying the retention of inorganic N in acidic forest soils in southern China are not well understood. Here, we simultaneously quantified the gross N transformation rates of various subtropical acidic forest soils located in southern China (southern soil) and those of temperate forest soils located in northern China (northern soil). We found that acidic southern soils had sign...

Afforestation, settled before 60–90 years and adjacent solonetzic grasslands, representing the natural vegetation cover were compared in this study based on their basic soil characteristics (pH, CaCO3 content, organic carbon (SOC), exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP)) up to 2 m depth. The assumption was that plantings of arbour can change sodic soils not only superficial layers but even larger...

the shanghai cooperation organization (sco) is developing into a major regional institution in the heart of central eurasia. to make any predictions about the sco, one must examine factors contributing to russian and chinese foreign policy behaviors in central asia. does the seductive presumption of a looming battle for control of eurasia smell of a new “great game” and great power rivalry? ans...

Salt-affected soils, those on which plant growth is limited by an excess of salts, are of three types: (i) saline soils in which electrical conductivity is > 4 dSm 1; (ii) sodic soils in which the exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) is > 15; and (iii) saline-sodic in which the electrical conductivity (EC) is > 4 dSm 1 and ESP is > 15. Salt-affected soils are most common in aridic moisture regi...