Growth in the publication of scientific articles is occurring at an exponential rate, prompting a growing need to synthesise information in a timely manner to combat urgent environmental problems and guide future research. Here, we undertake a topic analysis of dryland literature over the last 75 years (8218 articles) to identify areas in arid ecology that are well studied and topics that are e...

New vegetation in barren areas offers possibilities for sequestering carbon in the soil. Arid and semi-arid areas (ASAs) are candidates for new vegetation. The possibility of agriculture in ASAs is reviewed, revealing the potential for cultivation by covering the surface with a layer of organic fibres. This layer collects more water from humidity in the air than does the uncovered mineral surfa...

salinity and flooding are as two very important factors of soil degradation. they often occur together and cancause severe damage to plants. however, plant response to environmental stresses may vary with growth stage atwhich exposure occurs. a pot study was conducted in 2005-2006 in northern aq qala (northern iran) to studycombine effects of waterlogging and soil salinity at different growth s...

salinity and flooding are as two very important factors of soil degradation. they often occur together and cancause severe damage to plants. however, plant response to environmental stresses may vary with growth stage atwhich exposure occurs. a pot study was conducted in 2005-2006 in northern aq qala (northern iran) to studycombine effects of waterlogging and soil salinity at different growth s...

Historical records and archaeological discoveries have shown that prosperous agricultural activities developed in the ancient Juyan Oasis of northwestern China, an important oasis that once flourished on the ancient Silk Road. However, how the irrigation canals were distributed in historical time was unknown. Here, we identified and mapped the spatial distribution of ancient abandoned irrigatio...

Commercialization, Office of Arid Lands Studies, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona, 250 E. Valencia Road, Tucson, Arizona 85706-6800, U.S.A. b Instituto de Quimica, Universidade Estadual Paulista, CP. 335, 14800-900, Araraquara-SP, Brazil c Departmento de Quimica, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil d Division of Plant Pathology and Microbi...

This paper reports the study of the effect of the length of the recorded data used for monthly rainfall forecasting. Monthly rainfall data for three periods of 5, 10, and 49 years were collected from Kermanshah, Mashhad, Ahvaz, and Babolsar stations and used for calibration time series models. Then, the accuracy of the forecasting models was investigated by the following year’s data. The follow...

Drought and salinity are major factors limiting agriculture in many regions in the world, and their importance is predicted to even increase in the near future in parallel with the ongoing global warming and climate changes. Soil and rhizosphere microbes are potential resources for counteracting such abiotic stresses in plants. The knowledge on the roles of root microorganisms in retaining soil...