Rates of nitrogen (N) deposition have increased in arid and semiarid ecosystems, but few studies have examined the impacts of long-term N enrichment on ecological processes in deserts. We conducted a multiyear, nutrient-addition study within 15 Sonoran Desert sites across the rapidly growing metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona (USA). We hypothesized that desert plants and soils would be sensi...

The description of soil moisture dynamics is a challenging problem for the hydrological community, as it is governed by complex interactions between climate, soil and vegetation. Recent research has achieved significant advances in the description of temporal dynamics of soil water balance through the use of a stochastic differential equation proposed by Laio et al. (2001). The assumptions of t...

data mining enables generalization of data of soil to remote areas and which is able to up/down scale of data in wide ranges of level that facilitate the decision-making process of executives. cation exchange capacity (cec) is one of the most important parameters in soil database and shows the ability of a soil to retention of minerals and pollutants. due to low organic matter and specific mine...

Salt-impacted soils occur in floodplains, wetlands and backswamps in arid climates. These soils become sinks or temporary storage sites for soluble salts and contaminants including agricultural chemicals, industrial pollutants and radionuclides such as I. The vertical distribution of I in the Black Butte soil series along the Virgin river was assessed and the distribution of I between I , IO 3 ...

This article contains a statistically analyzed dataset of the heavy metals including Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb contents of near-surface (~30 cm depth) soils in a Cu-Ni prospecting field at Airstrip North, Central Botswana. The soils developed on paragneisses and amphibolites parent materials in a semi-arid environment with hardveld vegetation, "The geology of the Topisi area" (Key et al., 1994)...

This study was conducted to explore the changes in soil microbial populations, enzyme activity, and tuber yield under the rotation sequences of Potato-Common vetch (P-C), Potato-Black medic (P-B) and Potato-Longdong alfalfa (P-L) in a semi-arid area of China. The study also determined the effects of continuous potato cropping (without legumes) on the above mentioned soil properties and yield. T...

In the semi-arid part of northern Tanzania, the native tropical woodland is undergoing a rapid conversion into agricultural land. This has resulted in drastic ecological changes in the region. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of these changes in land use systems on the amount and composition of SOM in bulk soil samples and size separates. Samples were collected from the uppe...