Plant phenology models, especially leafing models, play critical roles in evaluating the impact of climate change on the primary production of temperate plants. Existing models based on temperature alone could not accurately simulate plant leafing in arid and semi-arid regions. The objective of the present study was to test the suitability of the existing temperature-based leafing models in ari...

tourism as a growing industry needs special attention in developing countries. during last decades, nature based tourism has been growing faster than other tourism fields and it seems to grow even faster. ever growing demand for nature based tourism emphasizes the necessity of a holistic planning for preserving environment against degradation. objective of this study is to present a nature base...

In arid and semi-arid environments, groundwater plays a significant role in the ecosystem. In the last decades, groundwater levels have decreased due to the increasing demand for water, weak irrigation management and soil damage. For the effective management of groundwater, it is important to model and predict fluctuations in groundwater levels. In this study, groundwater table in Kashan plain ...

Introduction Precipitation is one of the major factors in the water balance of a catchment and as such the water cycle is most sensitive to changes in rainfall (Petheram et al. 2002). In sub-humid, semi-arid and arid regions, evapotranspiration is the second largest component of the water balance, and is affected not only by the availability of water but also by any change in other aspects of c...

In arid and semi-arid rangelands, grazing as one of the natural or human induced processes has direct and indirect effects on structure and dynamics of plant community and ecosystems. A study was done to analyze the effects of grazing on plant species diversity and Plant Functional Types‘ (PFTs) diversity of arid and semi-arid rangelands. We analyzed plant richness and diversity data from 75 sa...

Laysa Mabel de O. Fontes, Francisco Milton Mendes Neto, Alexandre A. A. Pontes Postgraduate Program in Computer Science, University of State of Rio Grande do Norte, Federal University of Semi-Arid, Mossoró, Brazil; Superintendent of Information Technology and Communication, Federal University of Semi-Arid, Mossoró, Brazil. Email: {laysa, miltonmendes, alexandreadames}@ufersa.edu.br Received Oct...

interest in arid ecosystems as a source of food supply for rapidly increasing population of the world, on the one hand, and the problems pertaining to the climatic characteristics, water shortages and soil sensitivity for the inhabitants in such areas, on the other have prompted efforts at both national and international levels to develop a better understanding of these problems as well as to f...