In China, the arid area occupies a quarter of the total area of the land. It mainly distributes in five provinces: Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. In the arid area, oasis is the special landscape on the background of deserts. It is not only the most centralized area of human activities but also the largest area where human disturbances happen at the regional scale. Oasis c...

Water storage depletion is a worsening hydrological problem that limits agricultural production in especially arid/semi-arid regions across the globe. Quantifying water storage dynamics is critical for developing water resources management strategies that are sustainable and protective of the environment. This study uses GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), GLDAS (Global Land Data A...

A brief analysis on the distribution range of some of the species dominating in the arid and extra arid regions of North Africa and Arabian Peninsula is presented. These species are belonging to three phytogeographical categories namely: Saharo-Sindian, Sudano-Deccanian and Tropical African-Indian elements. Species included for this study are either disjunct or they have a wider distribution, s...

Two new species of Psychodinae, Psychodidae, from the semi-arid region of Brazil are described and illustrated: Arisemus rubeni sp. nov. and Lepidiella olgae sp. nov. Only nine psychodid species were previously known from that region.

Estimating actual crop water requirement and irrigation schedule are essential for designing of the irrigation systems, storage construction and water conveyance structures. Many models have developed for estimating crop water requirement. Although most of these methods need different climatic parameters, providing and forecasting all of these parameters always are not available. Most of the ti...

Accurate estimation of evaporation is important for design, planning and operation of water systems. In arid zones where water resources are scarce, the estimation of this loss becomes more interesting in the planning and management of irrigation practices. This paper investigates the ability of artificial neural networks (ANNs) technique to improve the accuracy of daily evaporation estimation....

This study determined some spectral characteristics and relationship between Landsat spectral reflectance and soil surface color in the arid region of Iran (Kashan). The study carried out in the kashan area that covers 90000 ha. Consisting of mountain, hills and flood plain. Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) data collected on July 2002 were used for this research. The color composite images produ...