sustainable exploitation of land resources is directly affected by considering soil quality which finally will also conclude environmental protection. therefore, assessing different soil quality aspects which are sensitive to various land management practices seems too important. in this study, some selected soil quality indicators have been compared in five land use systems including untouched...

The role of urban agriculture in global food security is a topic of increasing discussion. Existing research on urban and peri-urban agriculture consists largely of case studies that frequently use disparate definitions of urban and peri-urban agriculture depending on the local context and study objectives. This lack of consistency makes quantification of the extent of this practice at the glob...

Rainfed agriculture is practised on 80% of the world’s agricultural area and generates 60–70% of the world’s staple food1 (FAOSTAT, 2005). In semi-arid and dry subhumid zones, rainfed agriculture dominates food production systems, and water is a key limiting factor to crop growth (SEI, 2005). Since approximately 70% of the world’s poor are women, the importance of rainfed sources of food weighs...

EPTD Discussion Papers contain preliminary material and research results, and are circulated prior to a full peer review in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment. It is expected that most Discussion Papers will eventually be published in some other form, and that their content may also be revised. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank Susanne Neubert and John Pender for h...

1. Agriculture is the predominant user (75-80%) of the available freshwater resource in many parts of the world. At present most of the water used to grow crops is derived from rainfed soil moisture, with non-irrigated agriculture accounting for some 60% of production in developing countries. Although irrigation provides only 10% of agricultural water use and covers just around 20% of the cropl...

Temporal NDVI signatures of the following land cover types in the Aral Sea Basin (ASB) were analyzed in MODIS data 2000–2012: Wetlands, bare land, water surfaces, natural vegetation and rainfed agriculture (in mountainous regions), low vegetation, rice cropping systems. Only the last class refers to cropland. All other classes were targeted to separate non-cropland or rainfed agriculture from t...

The forest soils are the key parts of the Earth system that are globally degraded through anthrop induced deforestation, mainly converting to other landuses. The present study was conducted in Gazafolya village located in Merek watershed, Kermanshah, Iran, in which the soil quality of the forest and converted forest (rainfed lands) with the same topographic and geologic conditions were compared...