Two strategies are assessed to increase wheat production in the water-scarce Karkheh River Basin (KRB) in Iran to meet targets by the year 2025. The strategies proposed are (a) to increase yields in the current irrigated and rainfed wheat areas and (b) to increase the area under rainfed wheat through land conversion. Crop water consumption, based on satellite remote sensing and crop yield data, was used to estimate crop water productivity (CWP) in irrigated and rainfed wheat areas in five sub-basins.

Ziziyphus nummularia (family: Rhamnaceae) is a thorny small bush, grows in abundance in the grazing lands of the arid areas of Rajasthan, India. It is an important ethnomedicinal plant of the Thar Desert; local inhabitants use every part of the plant as medicine. Kernels are prescribed in pregnancy as soporific, antiemetic and for relieving abdominal pain. The insect gall is powered and given orally with water to cure bone fracture. Crushed root is applied on the paining shoulder of the bullock.

The aim of this study was to develop partial least-squares (PLS) regression models using diffuse reflectance Fourier transform mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy for the prediction of the concentration of elements in soil determined by X-ray fluorescence (XRF).

We explored the ecological effects of grassland restoration programs using satellite imagery and field plots sampling data and analyzing the patterns and mechanisms of land cover change and vegetation activities in arid and semiarid China during the period from 1982 to 2008. The grassland cover in the 1980s, 2000 and 2005 was compared before and after the restoration programs. The variability of net primary production (NPP) and rain use efficiency (RUE) were analyzed as indicators of vegetation productivity.

Phytosociological attributes of plant species and associated environmental factors were measured in order to identify the environmental gradients of major plant communities in the Naran Valley, Himalayas. The valley occupies a distinctive geographical setting on the edge of the Western Himalaya near the Hindukush range and supports a high biodiversity; pastoralism is the main land use. There have been no previous quantitative ecological studies in this region.

Shrub cover has increased in semi-arid regions worldwide. This change has generally been viewed as land degradation, due to shrub-induced declines in pastoral productivity. As a consequence, widespread management treatments to reduce shrub density have been applied in many pastoral areas. These treatments, however, often do not have long-term positive benefits for forage production.

To address land degradation and rural poverty the Chinese government has put in place a series of land conversion programmes in the Loess Plateau area in northern China. In addition to problems arising from unsustainable land use, water resource availability driven in part by climatic forcing is also a threat to livelihoods in this region. To understand climate impacts on farming practice in poor areas of China, field observation and village reconnaissance took place in the summer of 2009 in three selected counties of Shaanxi and Ningxia Province, northern China.

Herbivores are a significant source of nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions. They account for a large share of manure-related N₂O emissions, as well as soil-related N₂O emissions through the use of grazing land, and land for feed and forage production. It is widely acknowledged that mitigation measures are necessary to avoid an increase in N₂O emissions while meeting the growing global food demand. The production and emissions of N₂O are closely linked to the efficiency of nitrogen (N) transfer between the major components of a livestock system, that is, animal, manure, soil and crop.

Despite their importance to rural livelihoods, the economic and environmental sustainability of contemporary communal pastoral systems of the Kalahari is increasingly being put under scrutiny. Using data collected from a survey of randomly selected pastoral households from two districts of Ghanzi and Kgalagadi South, Botswana, this paper outlines the major constraints affecting contemporary extensive pastoral systems. Because of the prevailing semi-arid climate, recurrent drought outbreaks were cited as a common challenge in both study areas together with lack of fenced grazing areas.

Mongolia, a vast and sparsely populated semi-arid country, has very little formal road infrastructure. Since the 1990s, private ownership and usage of vehicles has been increasing, which has created a web of dirt track corridors due to the communal land tenure and unobstructed terrain, with some of these corridors reaching over 4 km in width. This practice aids wind- and water-aided erosion and desertification, causing enormous negative environmental effects.

Soil water repellency reduces infiltration capacity, enhancing overland flow and even runoff production, and may produce patchiness in water infiltration at the hillslope scale. Knowledge about hydrophobicity in rangelands of Mediterranean type climate and its relation with vegetation cover and land management is sparse. The objectives of the present work are to determine the degree and spatial occurrence of soil water repellency and to define its relationship with site characteristics, such as soil, vegetation and land management in rangelands of SW Spain.

Chemical and sediment losses from agricultural lands are threatening coastal marine and aquatic ecosystems in many parts of the world. This is an acute problem in Australia, where the condition of Great Barrier Reef (GBR) ecosystems is threatened by increased pollutant loads from agricultural lands, and Governments have enacted policies to reduce pollutant exports. These policies raise the question of how to identify changes in land management that will effectively reduce exports.