Dimming prospects for solar energy have caught up with a massive renewable-energy project planned for the Sahara Desert. By 2050, according to its backers, DESERTEC, a network of solar plants and other renewable sources scattered across North Africa and the Middle East, could generate more than 125 gigawatts of power that could be used locally or delivered to Europe through high-voltage direct-current cables beneath the Mediterranean Sea.

Humans may be destabilising desert ecosystems across the world, according to a new study.

Stefan Kröpelin has carved out a career where few dare to tread — in the heart of the Sahara.

Original Source

In northern desert states, farmers are scrambling to harvest as much as they can of a bean with the power to lift them out of poverty. In the United States, the multi-billion dollar shale energy industry is banking on their success.

US companies drilling for oil and gas in shale formations have developed a voracious appetite for the powder-like gum made from seeds of guar, or cluster bean, and the boom in their business has created a bonanza for thousands of small-scale farmers in India who produce 80% of the world's beans.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest among three major carbon pools of global ecosystems. During the past few years, global warming and forcible land-use changes have resulted in a huge loss of this major carbon pool and as a consequence, concentration of atmospheric CO2 has increased. To mitigate the potential risks arising from atmospheric abundance of CO2, adoption of carbon sequestration strategies at different landscape scales is a major option. For this

Methane (CH4) uptake by steppe soils is affected by a range of specific factors and is a complex process. Increased stocking rate promotes steppe degradation, with unclear consequences for gas exchanges. To assess the effects of grazing management on CH4 uptake in desert steppes, we investigated soil-atmosphere CH4 exchange during the winter-spring transition period.

The potential of grazing lands to sequester carbon must be understood to develop effective soil conservation measures and sustain livestock production.

New Delhi: Delhiites woke up to a haze over the city on Tuesday, with southwesterly air currents carrying dust all the way from the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, and reducing visibil

Scientists inspired by a camel's nostrils are set to achieve the impossible and grow aman-made forest in the Sahara Desert.

We assessed a donor-funded grassland management project designed to create both conservation and livelihood benefits in the rangelands of Mongolia's Gobi desert. The project ran from 1995 to 2006, and we used remote sensing Normalized Differential Vegetation Index data from 1982 to 2009 to compare project grazing sites to matched control sites before and after the project's implementation.

Pages