Plant adaptations to the environment are limited, and therefore plants in similar environments may display similar functional and physiological traits, a pattern termed functional convergence. Evidence was examined for functional convergence among 28 evergreen woody shrubs from three plant communities of the semi-arid winter rainfall region of southern California. Both leaf and water relations ...

Introduction ‘Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it’, said Mark Twain. But this famous quote is decidedly inaccurate: people have long contemplated weather modification, and both adapt or adjust to weather conditions, and move towards or away from certain climatic regimes. Southern Africa generally has a high coefficient of rainfall variation, making droughts a fr...

one of the characteristics in iranian model of desertification potential assessment (imdpa) is vegetation. sincevegetation is very important factor in the degradation of land, so some indices were determined for this item in order toevaluate desertification potential of arid, semi arid and arid sub humid areas of iran. the indices included vegetationcondition, exploit and revegetation. to calib...

Knowledge about the long-term influences of climate change on the amount of potential carbon (C) sequestration in forest ecosystems, including age-related dynamics, remains unclear. This study used two similar age-sequences of black locust forests (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) in the semi-arid and semi-humid zones of China's Loess Plateau to assess the variation in C stocks and age-related dynamics...

This paper examines the effects of urbanization on the flood hazard in semi-arid/arid southern California using traditional hydrograph, frequency-magnitude and statistical analysis augmented with GIS-based variable parameterizations and visualizations. It was found that the peak flood discharges were significantly increased in urban watersheds in conjunction with increasing mean baseflow in the...

an agroecological zones (aez) map is an essential tool for agricultural planning. by integrating the key components of the agricultural environments, it offers a bird's-eye view of internal diversity, agricultural potential and constraints that decision-makers find easier to understand than a pile of single-theme maps. in this study, aez map of the karkheh river basin has been prepared usi...

Arid and semi-arid lands constitute a large proportion of available agricultural and rangeland in the world. These lands are characterised by low and unreliable rainfall, low land productivity, and low socioeconomic status of the inhabitants. Livestock plays a very significant role in their economies. Leguminous trees and shrubs, which dominate the natural rangelands, are often higher in crude ...

Kenyan farmers’ livelihoods are closely linked to climate conditions. Almost three-quarters of the labor force depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and almost all farmers depend on timely and adequate rainfall for crop production and husbandry, as only 2 percent of cultivated area is equipped for irrigation. Thus, climate variability and change will have an increasing impact on agricult...