In the Drylands of Northern China, such as the Loess Plateau region, a buffer zone of planted forests—a “Green Great Wall”—has been created in the last five decades. These government programs have often generated unintended environmental consequences, and have failed to achieve the desired benefits. Planted forests withhold erosion, dust storms and silting of streams but may reduce stream flow ...

This paper synthesizes lessons learnt from research that aimed to identify land in the dryland regions of eight sub-Saharan African study countries where bioenergy feedstocks production has a low risk of detrimental environmental and socio-economic effects. The methodology involved using geographical information systems (GISs) to interrogate a wide range of datasets, aerial photograph and field...

There is an enormous stress on livelihood analysis of rural communities and their economies. Village common property resources (CPRs) have played a substantial economic role for the sustenance in rural areas of the drylands. The CPRs of drylands of western Rajasthan shows a varied range of habitats due to strong functional disparities in topographic, geomorphological, climatic, edaphic and phys...

In this millennium, global drylands face a myriad of problems that present tough research, management, and policy challenges. Recent advances in dryland development, however, together with the integrative approaches of global change and sustainability science, suggest that concerns about land degradation, poverty, safeguarding biodiversity, and protecting the culture of 2.5 billion people can b...

Decomposition of leaf litter is a key component of biogeochemical cycles but the mechanisms driving it in arid and semiarid ecosystems (drylands) remain unresolved. Here, we review recent findings that demonstrate dual roles of solar radiation (ultraviolet and photosynthetically active radiation) and soil–litter mixing as drivers of decomposition in drylands. We focus on the known and potential...

Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools (multifunctionality). However, the relationship between biodiversity and multifunctionality has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We report here on a global empirical study relating plant species richne...

Despite their extent and socio-ecological importance, a comprehensive biogeographical synthesis of drylands is lacking. Here we synthesize the biogeography key organisms (vascular nonvascular vegetation soil microorganisms), attributes (functional traits, spatial patterns, plant–plant plant–soil interactions) processes (productivity land cover) across global drylands. These areas have long evol...

30 Adopting land policies and laws for effective, equitable and sustainable land use 30 Implementing land legislation and policy 31 Reassessing mechanisms for land redistribution 31 Putting land in a broader picture 32 Understanding the political dynamics of policy processes 32 Strengthening civil society organisations 32 Identifying areas for further research 33 REFERENCES 34 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMEN...

Maestre et al. (Reports, 13 January 2012, p. 214) reported a general, but weak, positive relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in global drylands. We show that the strength of this relationship changes consistently along multiple environmental gradients, becoming strongly positive in stressed habitats. This suggests that biodiversity loss may have especially stro...