Intensive overgrazing, practiced for the last decades in Inner Mongolia, has led to serious grassland degradation and deterioration of soil structure. As a consequence, the soil gas and water fluxes and therefore soil functions were affected by grazing. We investigated two steppe ecosystems characterized by two plant communities: Stipa grandis (SG) and Leymus chinensis (LCh) and different grazing intensities: ungrazed since 1979 (UG79), continuously grazed (CG, at the SG site) and winter grazed (WG, at the LCh site).

Proteins comprise one of the largest N inputs to soils. There is, therefore, a need to investigate the factors involved in the inputs and fate of proteins in soil. While land use management is expected to influence the amount and diversity of soil proteins, the responses of protein as a source of mineralizable N to land use changes have not yet been studied. We hypothesized that extractable soil protein could be a sensitive indicator in evaluating the effect of stress in ecosystem.

Western North America is experiencing a dramatic expansion of piñon (Pinus spp.) and juniper (Juniperus spp.) (P-J) trees into shrub-steppe communities. Feature extracted data acquired from remotely sensed imagery can help managers rapidly and accurately assess this land cover change in order to manage rangeland ecosystems at a landscape-scale.

Rangeland managers are often faced with the complex challenge of managing sites for multiple uses and for the diverse interests of stakeholders. Standardized monitoring methods that can be used and understood by different agencies and stakeholders would aid management for long‐term sustainability of rangelands. In the United States, federal land management agencies have recently based their assessments of rangeland health and integrity on state‐and‐transition models to consider management trajectories.

Rapid conversion of rural land to exurban development and the ensuing impacts on natural resources have been well-documented, but information about exurban landowners is lacking. To address this knowledge gap, we surveyed exurban landowners in six Wyoming counties and documented demographic characteristics, motivations, knowledge, and attitudes about natural resources and land management. The overall response rate was 55.6%. Generally, respondents were of retirement age, had lived in Wyoming for about 13 yr, and were raised in areas with a population

Research on the impacts of wildfire and invasive plants in rangelands has focused on biophysical rather than human dimensions of these environmental processes. We offer a synthetic perspective on economic and social aspects of wildfire and invasive plants in American deserts, focusing on the Great Basin because greater research attention has been given to the effects of cheatgrass expansion than to other desert wildfire/invasion cycles.

Land managers need increased temporal and spatial resolution of rangeland assessment and monitoring data. However, with flat or declining land management and monitoring agency budgets, such increases in sampling intensity are unlikely unless new methods can be developed that capture data of key rangeland indicators at a lower cost. Remote sensing techniques have shown promise for collecting plant community composition and ground cover data efficiently. However, many image analysis techniques require software and expertise not always available to field offices.

This study was aimed at assessing the causes of the gully erosion and its effects on the agricultural lands in the arid region of southeastern Iran. In this study, we have used geologic maps in scales of 1:50,000 and 1:250,000, aerial photographs on a scale of 1:20,000, field observation, and GPS (global positioning system).

Soil degradation in the Mediterranean and other arid and semi-arid regions of the world is caused mainly by cultivation and grazing. A consequence of de-vegetation due to overgrazing has been a decrease in organic matter (litter) input to soil and a decrease of aggregate size and stability making soils more susceptible to erosion and to organic matter losses. This study provided evidence linking the Dissolved Organic Nitrogen (DON) export from river basins to livestock grazing intensity and the resulting decrease in vegetation.

Livestock often concentrate grazing in particular regions of landscapes while partly or wholly avoiding other regions. Dispersing livestock from the heavily grazed regions is a central challenge in grazing land management. Position data gathered from GPS-collared livestock hold potential for increasing knowledge of factors driving livestock aggregation patterns, but advances in gathering the data have outpaced advancements in analyzing and learning from it.

Long-term water balance investigations are needed to better understand hydrologic systems, especially semi-arid mountainous catchments. These systems exhibit considerable interannual variability in precipitation as well as spatial variation in snow accumulation, soils, and vegetation. This study extended a previous 10-year water balance based on measurements and model simulations to 24years for the Upper Sheep Creek (USC) catchment, a 26ha, snow-fed, semi-arid rangeland headwater drainage within the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in southwestern Idaho, USA.

Pastoralism is an ancient form of self-provisioning that is still in wide use today throughout the world. While many pastoral regions are the focus of current desertification studies, the long history of sustainability evidenced by these cultures is of great interest. Numerous studies suggesting a general trend of desertification intimate degradation is a recent phenomenon principally attributable to changes in land tenure, management, and treatment.