Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

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 [...]

This study has quantified the regional evaporation and evapotranspiration changes, and the associated latent heat flux and surface temperature changes in the Central Asian region of the Aral Sea drainage basin and the Aral Sea itself from the pre-1950 period of the 20th century to 1983–2002. The human water use for irrigation yielded an average [...]

A paper by John Kang’ara and Josiah Gitari, animal nutritionists at KARI, concludes that Opuntia species — the prickly pear or paddle cacti — have extreme tolerance to drought and remain succulent and easily digestible even in times of extreme water shortages, which makes them an excellent source of water and nutrition in harsh conditions.They [...]

The Desert Aqua-Net Plan is a concept for making use of the desert, which currently accounts for some one-third of the Earth’s total land area.According to this idea, multiple manmade lakes will be created in depressed areas of deserts, after which artificial islands will be built on the lakes. Filled with seawater introduced through canals, [...]

The most detailed national vegetation U.S. land-cover map to date has been released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The map will enable conservation professionals to identify places in the country with sufficient habitat to support wildlife. “These data are critical for determining the status of biodiversity, as baseline data for assessing climate change impacts, [...]

Of all China’s environmental woes, the biggest threat to livelihoods and food security may be looming water shortages. China’s freshwater resources amount to 2220 cubic meters per person, just a quarter of the world average. For years, the central government focused on declining river flows and rising pollution, largely ignoring what has now become an [...]