Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

Forest ecosystems store approximately 45% of the carbon found in terrestrial ecosystems, but they are sensitive to climate-induced dieback. Forest die-off constitutes a large uncertainty in projections of climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, climate–ecosystem interactions, and carbon-cycle feedbacks. Current understanding of the physiological mechanisms mediating climate-induced forest mortality limits the ability to model or project [...]

Increased aridity and human population have reduced tree cover in parts of the African Sahel and degraded resources for local people. Yet, tree cover trends and the relative importance of climate and population remain unresolved. From field measurements, aerial photos, and Ikonos satellite images, we detected significant 1954–2002 tree density declines in the western Sahel [...]

The utilization of plants for mitigating carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects and biofuel production causes a severe burden on the limited sources of arable land and fresh water. This research is aimed at finding alternative plant types for biomass and biofuel production among desert halophytes. Such plants have [...]

In western North America, snowpack has declined in recent decades, and further losses are projected through the 21st century. Here, we evaluate the uniqueness of recent declines using snowpack reconstructions from 66 tree-ring chronologies in key runoff-generating areas of the Colorado, Columbia, and Missouri River drainages. Over the past millennium, late 20th century snowpack reductions [...]

This perspective reviews water metrics for accounting total water demand to produce bioenergy at various spatial scales. Volumes of water abstracted, consumed, and altered are estimated to assess water requirements of a bioenergy product, providing useful tools for water resource management and planning at local, regional, and global scale. Blue-water use accounting, integrated over time [...]

Despite the importance of understanding the effect of land use on floodplains in eastern North America, few studies have directly addressed the possibility and extent of prehistoric indigenous land use on floodplain development. Here we report geoarchaeological evidence of increasing floodplain sedimentation and prehistoric land-use intensification in the Delaware River Valley (eastern United States) during [...]

A novel combination of technologies that has the potential to turn large areas of desert green, producing commercial quantities of food and energy crops, fresh water, and electricity, looks set to have its first large-scale demonstration in Jordan. This week the governments of Jordan and Norway signed an agreement to work with the Sahara Forest [...]