Degradation of semi-arid and arid ecosystems due to desertification is arguably one of the main obstacles for sustainability in those regions. In recent decades, the Mu Us Desert in China has experienced such ecological degradation making quantification of spatial patterns of desertification in this area an important research topic. We analyzed desertification dynamics for seven periods from 19...

Land cover changes influence the biogeochemistry, hydrology, and climate of the earth. Studies that assessed land cover changes at the global scale mostly focused on: deforestation, cropland expansion, dry land degradation, urbanisation, pasture expansion, and agricultural intensification. For the assessment, remotely sensed land-cover data, census data, and expert knowledge were used. In tropi...

Karst rocky desertification is a special kind of land desertification developed under violent human impacts on the vulnerable ecogeo-environment in karst ecosystem. The process of karst rocky desertification results in simultaneous and complex variations of many interrelated soil, rock and vegetation biophysical parameters, rendering it difficult to develop simple and robust remote sensing mapp...

The Ordos Plateau, a typical semi-arid area in northern China, has experienced severe wind erosion events that have stripped the agriculturally important finer fraction of the topsoil and caused dust events that often impact the air quality in northern China and the surrounding regions. Both climate change and human activities have been considered key factors in the desertification process. Thi...

the zagros forests (west of iran) have been highly exploited in recent decades by human impacts. easy access, abundance and variety of valuable forest yields have led to population growth density, creation of new residential areas and deforestation activities. in order to determinate the distribution and rate of deforestation from 1995 to 2006 by using the satellite imagery (irs-1c and  landsat...

Risk assessment provides the possibility of planning and management to prevent and reduce the risk of desertification. The present study is aimed to assess the hazard and risk of desertification and to develop management programs in the semi-arid western regions of Golestan Province in Iran. Desertification rate was obtained using the Iranian model of desertification potential assessment. Since...

abstract desertification could cause reduction of the ecological and biological potential of land which may occur both naturally and artificially. identifying and evaluating the effective factors in development of desertification is very important for better management of land. the aim of this research is to evaluate the sensitive input parameters in the desertification condition by using of ar...

desertification is recognized as a serious environmental threat in iran because of its climatic-geomorphologicconditions. desertification and land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions, is a globalenvironmental problem. accurate assessment of the status and trend of desertification is instrumental in developingglobal strategies to prevent and reverse this problem. the goal o...

land use of sylhet has changed gradually. this is found from the field survey that in 1970 the area was dominated by marshy land (645.33 katha), vacant land (430.88 katha) and crop land (336.17 katha). by 1988 there was no university in the area. residential area also increased. it covered 39.11 % of total study area. now in 2007 there is a radical change noticed in the area in comparison with ...