Soil degradation: a global problem endangering sustainable development

1 Introduction Soil is not only the major natural resource on which human being depends for the production of food, feed, fiber, renewable energy and raw materials, but also plays a key role in maintaining the complex terrestrial ecosystems and climate systems of this planet. Recent rapid increase in the human population is placing a great strain on the worlds soil resources. Only about 11% of the global land surface covered by the soils are being used to raise crops and livestock, in other …     

A general model for estimating actual evaporation from non-saturated surfaces

Based on energy balance equation and mass transfer equation, a general model to estimate actual evaporation from non-saturated surfaces was derived. Making use of two concepts, “relative evaporation” and “relative drying power”, a relationship was established to account for the departure from saturated conditions. Using this model, the actual evaporation (evapotranspiration) can be calculated without the need of potential evaporation estimation. Furthermore, the model requires only a few meteorological parameters that are readily and routinely obtainable at standard weather stations. Based on nearly 30 years data of 432 meteorological stations and 512 hydrological stations in China, in combined with GIS, nine typical river basins were selected. Using the data of the selected river basins, the model was tested. The results show that the actual evaporation rate can be estimated with an error of less than 10% in most areas of China, except few years in the Yellow River Basin.     

Some Aspects of Resource Uncertainty and Their Economic Consequences in Assessment of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Natural Resources Research - Exploration ventures in frontier areas have high risks. Before committing to them, firms prepare regional resource assessments to evaluate the potential payoffs. With...     

A method to reduce the influence of ice-rafted debris on a grain size record from northern Fram Strait, Arctic Ocean

The granulometric composition of terrigenous deep-sea sediments provides information on current speed if certain frame conditions are fulfilled. These include that current transport is the only transport process. At high latitudes this type of investigation is impaired due to the influence of ice-rafted debris (IRD) which contaminates the current-sorted grain size fractions. This study presents a new method that addresses this problem by setting the ice-rafted sand in relation to the silt of both current- and ice-transported origin. Deviations from the resulting regression function are then used to determine the behaviour of the silt mean grain size as a function of current speed largely independent from IRD bias. The study is based on sediments from the Yermak Plateau, Arctic Ocean, a region influenced by IRD brought with the south-headed Transpolar Drift and by north-directed bottom currents. The IRD correction results in displaying changes of current speed at much higher clarity; climate forcing of the currents becomes more evident. For example, the 8200 year cold event shows up as a major event in the corrected record whereas it is hardly visible in the original record.