The main challenge to restoration in Iceland is vast areas of severely degraded land that has limited resource retention and limited ecosystem functioning. These are often hostile environments for plant establishment and survival, due to unstable surfaces that are prone to intensive cryoturbation and erosion by wind and have limited water-holding capacity. Most of the degraded rangelands are op...

Deforestation and climate change are interconnected and represent major environmental challenges. Here, we explore the capacity of regional-scale restoration of marginal agricultural lands to savanna woodlands in Australia to reduce warming and drying resulting from increased concentration of greenhouse gases. We show that restoration triggers a positive feedback loop between the land surface a...

In the aftermath of the severe droughts and floods at the end of the 20th century, the Chinese government launched several ecological restoration projects, including the Natural Forest Protection Program in 1998 and the Grain-for-Green Program in 1999, to promote afforestation and reforestation to reduce surface runoff and consequent soil erosion nationwide. However, it is still unclear how veg...

Fire is one of the incorporate vegetation management practices for grasslands and semi-arid rangelands. It may affect symbiotic relationship between range plants and mycorrhiza. Accordingly, this research was aimed to investigate the effects of a spring prescribed fire on the symbiotic relationships between mycorrhiza and 6 plant species. The study was conducted in a semi-arid steppe rangeland ...

Faunal diversity is an indicator of soil amelioration. Estimating the population size or density of an animal species in an area is fundamental to understand its status and demography and to plan for its management and conservation. Considering this, faunal diversity in reclamed sodic land was monitored during rainy season 2000-01 at different locations of district viz., Aligarh, Etah, Fatehpur...

In the Loess Plateau, soil erosion has not only caused serious ecological and environmental problems but has also impacted downstream areas. Therefore, a model is needed to guide the comprehensive control of soil erosion. In this study, we introduced the WEPP model to simulate soil erosion both at the slope and watershed scales. Our analyses showed that: the simulated values at the slope scale ...

Degradation and restoration in remnant tallgrass prairie: Grazing history, soil carbon, and invasive species affect community composition and response to the fire-grazing interaction" (2008). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. Paper 11173.

Soil degradation is one of the greatest environmental issues our planet faces today, with over 33% Earth's soils currently degraded. Drylands are especially vulnerable to soil given their history intensive land use and desertification. Active restoration has been identified as a leading strategy combat promote ecosystem recovery. However, soil-based dryland techniques have shown varying success...

In this paper, we present two years of seasonal nitric oxide (NO), ammonia (NH3), and nitrous oxide (N2O) trace gas fluxes measured in a recovering riparian zone with cattle excluded and adjacent riparian zone grazed by cattle. In the recovering riparian zone, average NO, NH3, and N2O fluxes were 5.8, 2.0, and 76.7 ng N m(-2) S(-1) (1.83, 0.63, and 24.19 kg N ha(-1) y(-1)), respectively. Fluxes...