Climatic changes,desertification and the Republic of Sudan

Meteorological data for a period of 30 to 50 years was analysed to ascertain the climatic changes in the Republic of Sudan. The study confirms that the temperatures are rising and rainfall declining. Rigorous analysis of relative humidity, clouds, rediation and evaporation also confirms the changing pattern, a trend which may accelerate environmental degradation and desertification in Sudan.The author acknowledges the assistance of Nadir Ahmad El-Agib in completing this study. He is also thankful to Dr. Ahmad El-Agib for his help in getting the Meteorological data from Sudan.     

中国东部沙区的荒漠化过程与起因

历史时期中国东部沙区的荒漠化是在自然与人为因素共同作用下实现的,但是不合理的人类活动才是导致荒漠化发生、发展的决定因素。对毛乌素沙地而言,其腹地的荒漠化主要是全新世湖沼层在人类活动参与下被破坏而使未次冰期的古风成砂翻新的结果;而在毛乌素沙地与黄土高原交接带(即沙漠－黄土边界带),荒漠化过程要复杂得多,除了人为因素起决定性作用外,流水侵蚀、风力吹蚀及重力崩塌也共同参与在使古风成砂翻新的荒漠化过程之中。在沙漠－黄土边界带,历史时期荒漠化主要与末次盛冰期、末次冰期阶段3中期及阶段4时期的古风成砂被翻新有关,更老的古风成砂由于埋藏较深、受人类活动影响较小因而不是历史时期荒漠化的主要沙源。     

Desertification in Africa — A critique and an alternative approach

This article critically reviews the international debate on desertification, its status and rate as well as causes and consequences. The article rejects the commonly used concept of a degrading environment, but tries to explain the environmental problems as symptoms of a wider economic and political crisis. An alternative approach applying systems analysis of the entire socio-economic-system to the study of desertification and land degradation is discussed, with examples from the Western Sudan.     

Rocky desertification and its causes in karst areas: a case study in Yongshun County,Hunan Province,China

Rocky desertification, a process of land degradation characterized by soil erosion and bedrock exposure, is one of the most serious land degradation problems in karst areas, and is regarded as an obstacle to local sustainable development. It is well known that human activities can accelerate rocky desertification; however, the effects of climate change on rocky desertification in karst areas are still unclear. This study focused on the effects of temperature and precipitation changes and human activities on rocky desertification in karst areas to determine the impacts of climate change and human disturbances on rocky desertification. Areas of different level of rocky desertification were obtained from Landsat TM (1987) and Landsat ETM+ (2000) images. The results show that, although the total desertification area increased by only 1.27% between 1987 and 2000, 17.73% of the slightly desertified land had degraded to a moderate or intense level, 2.01 and 15.71%, respectively. Meanwhile, between 1987 and 2000, the air temperature increased by 0.7°C, and precipitation increased by 170 mm. Statistical results indicate that the increase in precipitation was caused by heavy rainfall. In addition, under the interactive influences of heavy rainfall and temperature, the average karst dissolution rate was about 87 m³ km⁻² a⁻¹ during the 14 years in the study area. Further analysis indicated that rocky desertification was positively related with the increase in temperature and precipitation and especially with the heavy rainfall events. Climate change accelerated rocky desertification in the karst areas. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Desertification,famine, and the 1988 rainfall —

The 1988 good rainy season in the Sudan raised the hopes that desertification/land degradation and shortage of food so markedly observed in Western Sudan have been elevated. This was particularly so as large quantities of grains were produced in the mechanized rain-fed agricultural schemes in the clay plains of Eastern Sudan. But the field work carried by the author in the Umm Ruwaba district of Kordofan region in July/August 1989 shows that, although there has been some improvement in the crop production situation, desertification/land degradation and shortage of food produced locally are still prevailing in the district. The people are still living below the poverty line, but they are able to cope because of remittances from members of the families working abroad and because of donations of food by some world organizations.     

The role of women peasants in the process of desertification in Western Sudan

Women peasants in the Sudan are both agents of and sufferers from the process of desertification which is taking place in the arid and semi-arid zone. The researchwork done by the author on the problem of desertification in the west of the Republic of the Sudan convinced him that women there suffer much more than men do from the decrease of land productivity. Paradoxically enough, women themselves have actively taken part in desertifying their environment in their desperate attempt to keep their families living. This paper endeavours to highlight the role of peasant women in areas prone to or already stricken by desertification. Especially in the transitional phases following drought disasters and loss of live-stock the whole brunt of catering for the family falls on the shoulders of peasant women. Three main issues are being tackled: Millet production as essentially women's task, rainfall variability and its impact on women cultivators, the settlement of nomads and semi-nomads as a new burden laid on women. Finally, some suggestions are made to improve the conditions of women's work to provide nutrition for their families without doing much destruction to the fragile environment and its limited resources.     

中国北方沙漠化的若干问题

随着经济、社会的发展,沙漠化问题对自然环境和社会发展的影响愈来愈深刻,已得到国际社会的普遍重视,作为沙漠化问题极其严重的国家,我国在对沙漠化的认识及治理上,经过多年工作取得了一些成就.本文根据已有的经验和研究成果,就中国北方沙漠化的成因、发展过程、灾害评价及防治机理等方面做一简单探讨,以便为今后更好地开展沙漠化研究工作起一定的参考作用.     

Climatic changes in Bahrain

Local and regional studies of climatic patterns confirm that temperatures are rising in the Arabian Gulf area. Further warming of the region, which is already unbearably hot is an environmental catastrophe on a new scale. It has potential to violently disrupt virtually every natural ecosystem and many of the structures and institutions that people depend on. It seems that the Arabian Gulf region is also a part of global warming or the green house effect. This paper analyzes temperatures, rainfall, humidity, sunshine, evaporation and wind speeds. The effect of the Gulf War or Desert Storm has also been included. The study confirms that temperature is rising at a rate of 1.4°C in 100 years. In the beginning a brief discussion of geography, culture, water resources and modern development in Bahrain is given to introduce the country.     

LGM时期气候背景下中国区域植被变化对东亚夏季降水影响的模拟

利用CCM3/NCAR全球气候模式在21kaB.P.(2.1万年前)的末次盛冰期(LGM)气候背景下,对中国区域植被变化对夏季(6～7月)东亚季风降水的影响进行了模拟,结果表明： 在LGM时期气候背景下,植被退化会使得中国东南部夏季降水减少,其中东南沿海减少超过20mm,而在 100°E 以东的中国北方大部分地区降水增加,其中心值大于50mm,从而导致降水南少北多的现象,植被的这种影响可以从物理上得到解释。在LGM气候背景下,植被退化在暖季起着增温的作用,即通过影响地表热状况使夏季大陆增温,增强了夏季东亚大陆与其周边海域的热力差异,从而使夏季东亚地区的西南风增强,35°～45°N的北方地区对流层低层的空气辐合和对流层上升运动加强,伴随着在 30°N 以南的中国南方地区出现异常下沉运动; 同时,西南季风的加强也导致夏季在 30°～40°N 之间的华北地区低层水汽输送加大。在这些因子的共同作用下,中国北方夏季降水增多,而东南部降水减少。这些结果说明使用LGM时期中国区域不同的重建植被资料可以对东亚季风气候模拟产生一定的不确定性。因此,重建可信度高的东亚植被对于降低对气候模拟的不确定性是十分重要的。     

Evaluation of indicators for desertification risk assessment in part of Thar Desert Region of Rajasthan using geospatial techniques

Desertification has emerged as a major economic, social and environmental problem in the western part of India. The best way of dealing with desertification is to take appropriate measures to arrest land degradation, especially in areas prone to desertification. This requires an early warning system for desertification based on scientific inputs. Hence, in the present study, an attempt has been made to develop a comprehensive model for the assessment of desertification risk in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan, India, using 23 desertification indicators. Indicators including soil, climate, vegetation and socio-economic parameters were integrated into a GIS environment to get environmental sensitive areas (ESAs) to desertification. Desertification risk index (DRI) was calculated based on ESAs to desertification, the degree of land degradation and significant desertification indicators obtained from the stepwise multiple regression model. DRI was validated by using independent indicators such as soil organic matter content and cation exchange capacity. Multiple regression analysis shows that 16 indicators out of 23 were found to be significant for assessing desertification risk at a 99% confidence interval with \(R^{2}=0.83\). The proposed methodology provides a series of effective indicators that would help to identify where desertification is a current or potential problem, and what could be the actions to alleviate the problem over time.     

Western Indian Ocean marine and terrestrial records of climate variability: a review and new concepts on land–ocean interactions since AD 1660

We examine the relationship between three tropical and two subtropical western Indian Ocean coral oxygen isotope time series to surface air temperatures (SAT) and rainfall over India, tropical East Africa and southeast Africa. We review established relationships, provide new concepts with regard to distinct rainfall seasons, and mean annual temperatures. Tropical corals are coherent with SAT over western India and East Africa at interannual and multidecadal periodicities. The subtropical corals correlate with Southeast African SAT at periodicities of 16–30 years. The relationship between the coral records and land rainfall is more complex. Running correlations suggest varying strength of interannual teleconnections between the tropical coral oxygen isotope records and rainfall over equatorial East Africa. The relationship with rainfall over India changed in the 1970s. The subtropical oxygen isotope records are coherent with South African rainfall at interdecadal periodicities. Paleoclimatological reconstructions of land rainfall and SAT reveal that the inferred relationships generally hold during the last 350 years. Thus, the Indian Ocean corals prove invaluable for investigating land–ocean interactions during past centuries. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

A Late Cretaceous theropod caudal vertebra from the Sultanate of Oman

A caudal vertebra collected from conglomerates of the Al-Khod Formation (Late Cretaceous) in the Al-Khod area, Sultanate of Oman, is assigned to a medium-sized theropod dinosaur. The Al-Khod discovery represents one of the very few dinosaur records from the Middle East.     

中国土地荒漠化的概念、成因与防治

荒漠化是指人类历史时期以来,由于人类不合理的经济活动和脆弱生态环境相互作用造成土地生产力下降,土地资源丧失,地表呈现类似荒漠景观的土地退化过程。在中国北方荒漠化形成因素中过度放牧占30．1％,过度农垦占26．9％,过度樵采占32．7％,水资源利用不当占96％,工矿交通建设中不注意环境保护占0．7％,在地区上以北方农牧交错及旱农地区荒漠化最为严重。要采取因地制宜措施和建立健全而完善的治理实施系统以达到生态、经济和社会三个效益的目的。     

沙质荒漠化的遥感监测与评估──以中国北方沙质荒漠化区内的实践为例

土地荒漠化已成为受其影响地区经济发展和环境保护的一个重要障碍,及时了解其过程、现状和发展趋势,对确定荒漠化防治的战略和措施均有重要意义。本文以我国北方沙质荒漠化为研究对象,对其开展了遥感监测和评估及其方法论的研究。结果表明,在沙质荒漠化土地程度分级和遥感监测判别指标体系确立后,采用合适的方法可以在短时间内完成大范围的动态监测,使对土地沙质荒漠化的定量评价成为可能。     

Geomorphological aspects of the process of desertification in Western Sudan

Desertification involves several morphodynamic processes which serve as indicators of the highly complex process of desertification and thus play an important role in its monitoring. Ecological degradation triggers off and enhances these morphological activities, which are mainly processes of soil changes, soil erosion, and the transport and accumulation of soils. These alterations of relief and soil result in hydrological changes which have negative effects on land productivity. Both geomorphological and desertification processes are so interwoven that it becomes difficult to differentiate clearly between causes and effects. As the field studies tackled here have been carried out in the sandy regions of western Sudan, special attention is being paid to aeolian erosion and accumulation. Fluvial processes play only a subsidiary role in the processes of desertification there.     

Climate impacts of environmental degradation in Sudan

There exists an impressive amount of work for Sudan showing the anthropogenic degradation of natural vegetation cover. However, there are few examples of consequent climatic changes in literature. This work, thus, seeks to assess such effects of environmental forcing on various climatic patterns over the past few decades. Within the frame of the present analysis, the results are quite striking and are in concordance with scientific contentions that such land degradation could result in climatic modification. Higher temperature and less rainfall, sunshine duration and global radiation have been noticed. Evapotranspiration has responded more to the warming and drying conditions, thus showed signs of increasing rates, especially during the wet season. However, the extent of increase seems to have been suppressed by the decrease in sunshine duration and solar radiation as well as the inconsistent behaviour of wind speed. Changes in the variability of the within-year monthly observations have also occurred, thus suggesting an increase in the occurrence of extremes. The observed climatic modification in the country has exaggerated the insidious drought conditions. The present findings are hoped to contribute to our understanding of the effects of environmental problem and assist in considering policy responses. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Sea-land oxygen isotopic relationships from planktonic foraminifera and speleothems in the Eastern Mediterranean region and their implication for paleorainfall during interglacial intervals

The oxygen and carbon stable isotope compositions of cave speleothems provide a powerful method for understanding continental climate change. Here, we examine the question of the regionality of this isotopic record and its linkage with the marine isotopic record in the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) region. The study presents a new, accurately dated 250-kyr δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C record determined from speleothems of the Peqiin Cave, Northern Israel. Its comparison with the continuous 185-kyr isotopic record of the Soreq Cave speleothems from Central Israel reveals striking similarities. Thus, a strong regional climatic signal, brought about by variations in temperature and rainfall amount, is reflected in both cave records. Low δ¹⁸O minima in the Peqiin profile for the last 250- to 185-kyr period (interglacial marine isotopic stage 7) match the timing of sapropels 9 to 7 and are indicative of high rainfall in the EM region at these times. The combined Soreq and Peqiin δ¹⁸O record for the last 250 kyr excellently matches the published Globigerinoides ruber (G. ruber) marine δ¹⁸O record for the EM Sea, with the isotopic compositional difference Δ_{G.ruber-speleothems} remaining relatively constant at −5.6 ± 0.7‰, thus establishing for the first time a robust, exploitable link between the land and the marine isotopic records. The correspondence of low δ¹⁸O speleothem values and high cave water stands with low G. ruber δ¹⁸O values during interglacial sapropel events indicates that these periods were characterized by enhanced rainfall in the EM land and sea regions. By use of sea surface temperatures derived from alkenone data as a proxy for land temperatures at the Soreq Cave, we calculate the paleorainfall δ¹⁸O values and its amounts. Maximum rainfall and lowest temperature conditions occurred at the beginning of the sapropel events and were followed by decrease in rainfall and increase in temperatures, leading to arid conditions. The record for the last 7000 yr shows a trend toward increasing aridity and agrees well with climatic and archeological data from North Africa and the Middle East.     

内蒙古中部地区土地荒漠化遥感调查及环境质量评价

选择内蒙古中部地区作为典型荒漠化区域,根据荒漠化土地分类体系,确定决策树的结构以及各类地物在树形中的位置。基于各类地物的光谱反射特性和图像数据反映的综合特征,采取相应的识别和提取方法,以最大限度地利用遥感数据源。在研究过程中,采用从多光谱及多时相TM和ETM⁺遥感数据中提取出的光谱反射特性、土壤调节植被指数、土壤亮度指数以及土壤湿度指数等复合指数进行不同地物的分类和提取。结果表明:利用决策树分层提取法可以有效地排除和避免提取地物时多余信息的干扰及影响,目标明确。然后,通过图像代数检测法及目视解译法确定1990-2000年土地荒漠化的变化信息,对内蒙古中部地区的荒漠化演变规律做出分析。最后,结合研究区气候数据,在GIS支持下,通过对研究区生态环境质量变化和气候因子变化的相关性分析,表明研究区影响环境变化的主要因子是降水量与蒸发量(干燥度)。     

大柳塔煤矿采煤塌陷对土地沙漠化进程的影响

陕西神木大柳塔县地区煤炭资源的开发不可避免会产生地面塌陷、地裂缝、地下水位下降等矿山环境地质问题,地面塌陷是否会加剧土地沙漠化成为研究的热点问题。调查表明20年间整个研究区和其中的主要矿区土地沙漠化呈现出重度沙漠化土地逐年减少、轻度及非沙漠化土地面积逐年增大的一致演化趋势,采煤塌陷区土地沙漠化没有出现加剧的现象。通过4处采煤塌陷区及2处煤矿未开采区土壤垂向剖面研究,地表植被类型及覆盖度、植被根系垂向分布、土壤粒度、含水率、地下水位之间等关系表明,采煤塌陷对土地沙漠化进程没有明显的影响。年均415mm的降雨量基本满足采煤塌陷区沙生植被正常生长所需水份,其结论为该地区大规模煤炭资源开发土地沙漠化防治提供了科学依据。     

中国岩溶地区石漠化贫困问题研究进展

岩溶地区是实施乡村振兴战略的坚中之坚,是极易出现返贫的地区之一,有必要梳理总结岩溶地区消除石漠化贫困的历程、成果和存在的问题,巩固脱贫攻坚成果,夯实乡村振兴的理论基础。本研究以岩溶地区实施重大生态工程的时间节点为主线,参考各阶段前人取得的阶段性和标志性成果,系统梳理了石漠化贫困的相关概念和研究历程;然后对各阶段的研究热点进行整理,归纳总结了石漠化与农村贫困的关系、石漠化致贫机制、消除石漠化贫困的策略、防治工程减贫效益评价等4个方面的前人研究成果。研究表明:石漠化贫困与石漠化区贫困的界限不清,是造成石漠化防治工程和精准扶贫衔接脱节的原因之一,应突出石漠化区生态脆弱的特性,将生态建设有机融入巩固脱贫攻坚成果同乡村振兴有效衔接之中,实现生态、资源、人口和经济各要素的耦合协调发展;工作超前,理论基础研究落后的现实依然存在,应加强石漠化区乡村人地关系及相对贫困的研究,探究石漠化阻碍乡村振兴的制约机制;此外,在岩溶地区生态质量不断提升的背景下,应优化石漠化防治工程后评价体系,凸显社会效益和经济效益评价的重要性,总结经验、汲取教训,巩固岩溶地区脱贫攻坚成果,实现脱贫攻坚与乡村振兴有效衔接。