In China, the arid area occupies a quarter of the total area of the land. It mainly distributes in five provinces: Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. In the arid area, oasis is the special landscape on the background of deserts. It is not only the most centralized area of human activities but also the largest area where human disturbances happen at the regional scale. Oasis c...

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The Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila L.) is one of the most commonly found tree species in arid areas of northeast Asia. To understand the morphological and physiological characteristics of Siberian elms in arid regions, we analyzed leaves from seven study sites (five arid or semi-arid and two mesic) in China, Mongolia and the Republic of Korea, which covered a wide range of average annual precipitat...

BACKGROUND Agrobiodiversity is said to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and food security. However, how this is achieved especially in smallholder farming systems in arid and semi-arid areas is rarely documented. In this study, we explored two contrasting regions in Benin to investigate how agroecological and socioeconomic contexts shape the diversity and utilization of ...

A minimum composite method was applied to produce a 15-day interval normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) dataset from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily 250 m reflectance in the red and near-infrared bands. This dataset was applied to determine lake surface areas in Mongolia. A total of 73 lakes greater than 6.25 km2in area were selected, and 28 of these lakes ...

Arid and semi-arid areas occupy one third of the total area of the world. This vast region is rich in natural resources. In recent times, desertification has become a world-wide phenomenon, due to human activities. China also suffers from this problem. Desertification is especially severe in the southeastern part of the arid and semi-arid region of the country. In this paper, the use of remote ...