Droughts can severely reduce the productivity of agricultural lands and forests. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Southeast Regional Climate Hub (SERCH) has launched the Lately Identified Geospecific Heightened Threat System (LIGHTS) to inform its users of potential water deficiency threats. The system identifies droughts and other climate anomalies such as extreme precipitati...

Executive Summary Soil quality is an account of the soil's ability to provide ecosystem and social services through its capacities to perform its functions under changing conditions (after Tóth et al. 2007.) The concept of soil quality expressed by this definition allows practical applications with regards to targeted social and/or ecosystem services, including agri-environmental services. The ...

  Crop yields are dependent on a number of factors such as soil type, weather conditions and farming practices. Crop yield estimates in different soil types are required to meet the needs of farmers, land appraisers, and governmental agencies in Iran as around the world. This study was conducted to model the wheat-grain yields [Triticum aestivum L.]  by soil properties in Khoy area, the north-w...

Mechanized forest harvest operations induce changes in soil physical properties, which have the potefitial to impzct soil sustai~ability and forest productivity. The assessment of soil compaction and its spatial variability has been determined previously through the identification and tabulation of visual soil disturbance classes and soil physical changes associated with each disturbailce class...

Soil salinity undergoes significant spatial and temporal variations; therefore, salinity mapping is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. However, researchers have mainly focused on arid soils (bare) and less attention has been paid to halophyte plants and their role as salinity indicators. Accordingly, this paper aimed to investigate the relationship between soil properties, such as electr...

Objective: Metal concentrations in 53 soil samples of Shahr-e-Babak were determined.  Methods: Assessment of enrichment factor and geo-accumulation index revealed higher degree of contamination of Cd, Pb, and Cu in soil samples. Moreover, results of metal fractionation study revealed high amount of Cd and Pb are associated in weakly bounds may lead to environmental risk of these metals.  Result...

Mapping and dating soil organic material is of great importance in soil use and evaluation. Yet the most common mapping method of these features is based on visual, qualitative interpretation of air-photos. In this study we examine the feasibility of mapping soil organic material content by using airborne hyperspectral reflective remote sensing methodology. This technique was tested in Henshan ...

Expansive clayey soils are highly moisture sensitive with respect to stress, deformation and strength. These soils exhibit extreme variation in deformation such as heaving, loss of shear strength under certain Moisture Content and settlement and shrinkage as the Moisture Content alters. Swelling is the process of increase in volume of soil that occurs during its interaction with water. Expansiv...