All publications and documents

What are the key findings for policy makers? Article 1 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), ratified in March 2020 by 197 countries, identifies soil erosion as a primary cause of land degradation, which, in turn, contributes to poverty and inequality through its negative effects on agriculture, food security, and ecosystems (34). Scientific evidence suggests that global warming…

Forests are subjected to stress from climatic and non-climatic sources. In this study, we have reported the results of inherent, as well as climate change driven vulnerability assessments for Indian forests. To assess inherent vulnerability of forests under current climate, we have used four indicators, namely biological richness, disturbance index, canopy cover, and slope. The assessment is…

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group II Report (2014) presents vulnerability as a pre-existing characteristic property of a system. Accordingly, indicators for 'sensitivity' and 'adaptive capacity', which are internal properties of a system, are employed to assess it. Comparatively, the IPCC 2007 report includes 'exposure', an external factor, as the third component…

We analysed the extent of ecological damage of gully and inter‐gully erosion in a sub‐catchment situated in the drylands (300 mm yr−1) of the winter rainfall area of South Africa where small‐stock farming on rangeland is the main source of income. We applied low‐cost measures to revegetate the bare sites of the inter‐gully erosion and stabilised gully erosion by loosening soil surfaces and…

Soil moisture plays a key role in the climate system by affecting rainfall and drought over land. Through its impact on temperature, humidity, and wind in the lower atmosphere, it can influence where thunderstorms initiate. However, in many regions of the world, traveling storm clusters known as mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) are the dominant source of rainfall, and very little is known…

This study describes a newly developed high-resolution (1.1 km) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index dataset for the peninsular Spain and the Balearic Islands (Sp_1km_NDVI). This dataset is developed based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration–Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA–AVHRR) afternoon images, spanning the past three decades (1981–2015). After a careful pre…