Interest in arid ecosystems as a source of food supply for rapidly increasing population of the world, on the one hand, and the problems pertaining to the climatic characteristics, water shortages and soil sensitivity for the inhabitants in such areas, on the other have prompted efforts at both national and international levels to develop a better understanding of these problems as well as to f...

Flood simulation and forecasting in various types of watersheds is a hot issue in hydrology. Conceptual hydrological models have been widely applied to flood forecasting for decades. With the development of economy, modern China faces with severe flood disasters in all types of watersheds include humid, semi-humid semi-arid and arid watersheds. However, conceptual model-based flood forecasting ...

Rapid economic development has spurred land use change in China since the Chinese government initiated its economic reform in 1978. Although many papers have analyzed the characteristics of land use change, especially cropland conversion to non-agricultural use affected by economic development in the developed regions of China, relatively less attention has been paid to studying the characteris...

Global warming has greatly stimulated vegetation growth through both extending the growing season and promoting photosynthesis in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Analyzing the combined dynamics of such trends can potentially improve our current understanding on changes in vegetation functioning and the complex relationship between anthropogenic and climatic drivers. This study aims to analyze the...

Eco-geomorphology and vegetation patterns in arid and semi-arid regions P. M. Saco, G R. Willgoose, and G. R. Hancock School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, 2308, Australia School of Environmental and Life Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, 2308, Australia Received: 13 June 2006 – Accepted: 30 June 2006 – Published: 30 Aug...

Drought forecasting plays a crucial role in drought mitigation actions. Thus, this research deals with linear stochastic models (autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA)) as a suitable tool to forecast drought. Several ARIMA models are developed for drought forecasting using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) in a hyper-arid climate. The results reveal that a...

The McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica are a cold hyperarid polar desert that present extreme challenges to life. Here, we report a culture-independent survey of multidomain microbial biodiversity in McKelvey Valley, a pristine example of the coldest desert on Earth. We demonstrate that life has adapted to form highly-specialized communities in distinct lithic niches occurring concomitantly with...

Forty-eight water samples (30 groundwater and 18 surface samples) were collected from the study region. Physical chemical examinations performed on to determine values of various variables. Several graphs, sheets, statistical measures, including sodium solubility percentage (SSP), absorption ratio (SAR), Piper’s diagram, used plot concentration principal ions chloride mass balance (CMB). The co...

The recent delineation of a vastly expanded Holocene paleo-lake (the Northern Darfur Megalake which was originally mapped as the West Nubian Paleolake and here will be referred to as WNPL–NDML) in Darfur in northwestern Sudan has renewed hopes for the presence of an appreciable groundwater resource in this hyper-arid region of Eastern Sahara. This paleolake which existed within a closed basin p...