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Land
Special Issues
Celebrating 30 Years of International Day against Desertification, and Drought
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Celebrating 30 Years of International Day against Desertification, and Drought

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land, Soil and Water".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 2303

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Hanoch Lavee

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Geography and Environment, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
Interests: surface runoff; soil erosion; land use; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ioannis N. Daliakopoulos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Hellenic Mediterranean University, 71410 Heraklion, Greece
Interests: sustainable management of waste and natural resources
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

June 17th of each year since 1994 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, has been celebrated to raise awareness about the global efforts to combat desertification and encourage the desire to mobilize global efforts to maintain and restore land and soil productivity and mitigate the impact of drought on drylands.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to celebrate 30 years of "International Day Against Desertification and Drought".

Papers (original research articles and review papers) are encouraged that provide research results on desertification and drought and overviews of global land restoration and drought resilience.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include the following: UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD); sustainable land management; resilience and adaptation of soil and vegetation to climate change; land and soil restoration; soil-water-vegetation-erosion relations under environmental change; desertification indicators; models of desertification; modelling climate change mitigation and adaptation; socioeconomic approaches to desertification; food & water security; poverty reduction.

Prof. Dr. Hanoch Lavee
Dr. Ioannis N. Daliakopoulos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • climate change
  • sustainable land management
  • soil erosion
  • desertification indicators
  • desertification models
  • desertification processes
  • drought
  • food & water security

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

36 pages, 781 KiB  
Article
Characterizing Agroecology in North Africa, a Review of 88 Sustainable Agriculture Projects
by Mélanie Requier-Desjardins, Olfa Boughamoura and Elen Lemaître-Curri
Land 2024, 13(9), 1457; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13091457 - 7 Sep 2024
Viewed by 667
Abstract
Agroecology refers to the greening of agrosystems with the mobilization of ecosystem services in order to limit exogenous inputs, enhance biodiversity and moderate the exploitation of natural resources. Agroecological practices offer pathways for transformation and transition not only of agricultural systems but of [...] Read more.
Agroecology refers to the greening of agrosystems with the mobilization of ecosystem services in order to limit exogenous inputs, enhance biodiversity and moderate the exploitation of natural resources. Agroecological practices offer pathways for transformation and transition not only of agricultural systems but of entire food systems. Through its objectives, agroecology aims at both sustainable land management and the strengthening of the livelihoods of producers and rural people and thus contributes to the fight against desertification. Currently, there is little scientific literature on the characteristics of agroecology in the Maghreb region. Several studies provide important information but they do not allow drawing up a global panorama of agroecology in the region. The proposed article highlights general characteristics of agroecology in North Africa from a review of 88 sustainable agriculture projects, which it analyzes, through an inventory of agroecological practices supported by these projects, from the frameworks of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, 2019, on the principles of agroecology and the transition levels approach developed by Gliessman and fellows since 2007. The results show (i) differences in the observed practices depending on the agrosystems and (ii) predominant common practices across these diverse agrosystems; (iii) significant evolution in these practices over time. The majority of the agroecological innovations identified are at the plot and farm scales, with the exception of those found in oasis and mountain agrosystems, where practices integrate the scales of the territory and value chains in a more complete way. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Celebrating 30 Years of International Day against Desertification, and Drought)
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14 pages, 9594 KiB  
Article
Aeolian Sand Sorting and Soil Moisture in Arid Namibian Fairy Circles
by Hezi Yizhaq, Constantin Rein, Lior Saban, Noa Cohen, Klaus Kroy and Itzhak Katra
Land 2024, 13(2), 197; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13020197 - 6 Feb 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1031
Abstract
We studied fairy circles 20 km west of Sesriem at one of the driest locations of fairy circles in Namibia, at the foot of the popular Sossusvlei dunes. These fairy circles lack the typical hexagonal order of the Namibian fairy circles. After years [...] Read more.
We studied fairy circles 20 km west of Sesriem at one of the driest locations of fairy circles in Namibia, at the foot of the popular Sossusvlei dunes. These fairy circles lack the typical hexagonal order of the Namibian fairy circles. After years of drought, their pattern is more similar to that of vegetation rings, due to the sparse vegetation in the area between the circles. Cross-section measurements of the soil water content (SWC) show that the upper layer (12 cm) is very dry (~1%) and much below the wilting point of Stipagrostis ciliata grasses, whereas the deeper soil layer is wetter (4%). The grain size distribution of soil samples taken from inside and outside the fairy circles reveals considerable heterogeneity in the size fractions due to aeolian (wind-driven) sand sorting. The bare soil inside the fairy circles contains coarser grains, and the ground surface is covered by sand megaripples. There is a linear trend between the vertical soil moisture gradient and the median grain diameter. Fine particles trapped on the vegetated edges of the fairy circle result in small nebkhas that increase the soil water retention at the surface. The dry and loose coarser topsoil inside the fairy circles may prevent the recolonization of new seedlings with short root lengths inside the fairy circles. Our results highlight the role of aeolian sand transport and deposition in desert vegetation environments and seem to support the notion that fairy circle formation may be affected by the interplay between sand sorting and soil moisture gradients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Celebrating 30 Years of International Day against Desertification, and Drought)
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