In arid and semi-arid environments, the amount of recharge received by aquifers is far more critical to the sustainable use of water than it is in humid regions. Groundwater recharge (GWR) is critical to maintain the abundance of groundwater. In the present study, suitable areas for GWR in Jazan region have been identified by using a GIS-based decision support system (DSS). The DSS was implemented to obtain suitability maps and to evaluate the existing GWR in the study area.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)/Terra daily snow cover product MOD10A1 was compared with in situ climate station measurements and a snow map generated from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data. Snow-covered area (SCA) dynamics were assessed using the MODIS 8-day snow cover composite product MOD10A2 for the 2001–2005 snow seasons in northern Xinjiang, China. The results indicate that the snow-mapping agreement between MODIS daily snow maps and surface observations is high at 94.6% over the four snow seasons under clear-sky conditions.

We measured bidirectional arthropod fluxes at 12 river reaches distributed across an urban‐rural gradient of riparian land use and land cover in the Scioto River system of Ohio (U.S.A.). For the terrestrial‐to‐aquatic arthropod flux (i.e. inputs of terrestrial arthropods to the river from the land), urban development was positively related to density of inputs but negatively related to biomass, partially explained by shifts in community composition and body size. Riparian grassland, typical of rural (i.e.

In order to investigate spatial and temporal characteristics of the purely grazing-based livestock husbandry system in southwestern Madagascar, individual animals from 12 cattle and 12 goat herds that were equally distributed across four villages were fitted with GPS tracking collars and their behaviour during pasturing was directly observed to identify seasonal variations in land use and movement patterns along the regional altitude and vegetation gradient.

Soil contamination by heavy metals has become a widespread dangerous problem in many parts of the world, including the Mediterranean environments. This is closely related to the increase irrigation by waste waters, to the uncontrolled application of sewage sludge, industrial effluents, pesticides and fertilizers, to the rapid urbanization, to the atmospheric deposition of dust and aerosols, to the vehicular emissions and to many other negative human activities.

Regional climate is influenced by land surface processes through energy exchange between land and atmosphere at various scales. The performance of climate model simulation is largely influenced by land cover parameterization, especially over areas that experience rapid change of land surface characterization. Accurate land cover datasets suited for climate modeling are urgently needed to improve model parameterization for better simulation.

While diverse, native riparian vegetation provides important functions, it remains unclear to what extent these assemblages can persist in urban areas, and under what conditions. We characterized forested riparian vegetation communities across an urbanizing metropolitan area and examined their relationships with surrounding land cover. We hypothesized that native and hydrophilic species assemblages would correlate with forest cover in the landscape.

To preserve land quality and mitigating land degradation represent an important task for regional planning and environmental management of the Mediterranean region. Since land cover dynamics directly affect the landscape characteristics, remote sensing represents an effective tool for land quality assessment at large scale.

Nutrient transport and loss in farmlands are affected by factors such as land cover, fertilization, soil type, rainfall, and management practices. We investigated the temporal and spatial changes in macronutrient transport and loss after fertilization and precipitation in manure-fertilized eggplant farmland in an alluvial plain. Upon adding topical fertilizer, concentrations of most nutrients in runoff and groundwater increased, and nitrogen runoff increased from 22.11 to 35.81 kg/ha, although eggplant yield did not increase correspondingly.

Land-use and vegetation cover have been linked to the nutrient levels (nitrogen, phosphorus) of surface waters in several countries. However, the links generally relate to streams and rivers, or to specific types of standing water, for example shallow lakes in a geologically defined region.

Air temperature was monitored at 13 sites across the urban perimeter of a Brazilian midsize city in winter 2011. In this study, we show that the urban heat island (UHI) develops only at night and under certain weather conditions, and its intensity depends not only on the site's land cover but also on the meteorological setting. The urban heat island intensity was largest (6.6� °C) under lingering high-pressure conditions, milder (3.0� °C) under cold anticyclones and almost vanished (1.0� °C) during the passage of cold fronts.

Endocrine-disrupting contaminant (EDC) loads in rivers, and the associated risk to wildlife, may be linked to different anthropogenic stressors occupying river catchments. The aims of this study were to evaluate seasonal and spatial variation in steroid estrogen loads, and (anti)estrogenic and (anti)androgenic activity in a river catchment (upper Olifants River, South Africa), subject to a diversity of anthropogenic impacts. In addition, Mozambique tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus, was applied as African-endemic sentinel and source of in vivo biomarkers.