Ecosystem goods and services have been brought to the forefront of policy making all over the world. It is acknowledged that these goods and services underpin human well-being. The provision of water resources is amongst those services that have raised more attention, given its unquestionable value and global threats like climatic change. Nevertheless, the biophysical basis that determines the land-use/water interactions has been often ignored. For the formulation of sound decisions, it is necessary to extend the empirical basis that determines these complex relations.

Plastic mulches are often used to improve agricultural production by suppressing soil evaporation in the vast arid and semi-arid regions. As a special surface cover, plastic mulch evidently affects the surface albedo and prevents vapour exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere, but these physical processes were not contained in the present land surface models. Therefore, simulations remarkably deviate from observations when land surface models are applied to areas with underlying plastic mulch covering.

Overgrazing is a primary agent to cause and aggravate desertification in the Horqin Sandy Grassland of northern China that has reduced the capacity of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage in the region. Grazing exclosure practice is recommended to control the desertification by vegetation restoration. How the restoration improves the C and N storage needs to be answered to the policy makers for their future land use planning and decisions.