Assessment of Farm Households’ Vulnerability to Desertification in Rural Dry Lands of Katsina State, Nigeria

The purpose of this study was to use a Vulnerability Index (VI) to assess farm households' vulnerability to desertification in Northern Katsina's dry land ecosystem. The specific objectives were to identify socio-economic characteristics of farm households; and determine the degree of their vulnerability to desertification. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select 633 respondents from 18 rural communities across six Local Government Areas (LGAs). Data from 21 indicators for the three components of vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) were used to measure the degree of vulnerability and thus, classify households into less, moderate and highly vulnerable. The study found that households in Jibia LGA were less vulnerable, with a VI of 1.228, while Kaita, Mashi, and Mai'adua LGAs were moderately vulnerable with VI of 0.523, 0.756, and 0.685, respectively. Households in Zango and Baure LGAs were found to be highly vulnerable due to poor biophysical conditions, with indices of 1.629 and -1.405, respectively. Furthermore, while 49% of the total households sampled were moderately vulnerable to desertification, 30% were less vulnerable and 21% were found to be highly vulnerable. As a result, the study recommended that the need for vegetative cover regeneration, soil quality rehabilitation, increased irrigation use, and biomass stability that take into account the vagaries of climate be prioritized in order to support, rescue, and increase the resilience of vulnerable households. Keywords: Adaptation; Desertification; Dry lands; Farm Households; Vulnerability Index

The role of climate change in rainfed land monitoring

Today, monitoring of dry lands in the Republic of Uzbekistan remains one of the most important issues. The article examines the monitoring of dry areas and the problems and shortcomings that have arisen in this process, the causes of their origin. Based on theresults of the monitoring and the prevention of such causes, as well as the elimination of them in general, several systems of development of dry areas are identified. There are specific proposals and recommendations for planting crops on dry lands, water supply, use of fertilizers and plant protection, as well as rehabilitation of these areas.

Spatial and seasonal variations of hydrological responses to climate and land-use changes in a highly urbanized basin of Southeastern China

Climate and land-use changes are two major factors that significantly affect the watershed hydrology cycle. It is essential for regional water resource management to quantitatively assess the respective hydrological impact of these two factors. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was constructed to quantify the contributions of climate and land-use changes to runoff at the annual and seasonal time scales in the Qinhuai River basin (QRB), where significant urbanization occurred from 1986 to 2015. Moreover, based on the partial least squares regression, the specific impact of individual land-use change on major hydrological components was evaluated at the sub-basin scale. The results showed that: (1) the predominant patterns of land-use change in the QRB included the transformations from paddy fields to urban areas and dry lands, forest to dry lands and dry lands to urban areas; (2) the flood seasonal precipitation series and all air temperature series had significant increasing trends over 1986–2015, and annual and seasonal runoff series had significant increasing trends and had an abrupt change point in 2001; (3) the average annual, flood seasonal, and non-flood seasonal runoff increased 238.5, 130.2 and 108.3 mm, of which land-use change was responsible for 77.6, 55.1, and 104.8% of the increases, respectively, while climate change was responsible for 22.4, 44.9, and −4.8%, respectively and (4) the hydrological response to land-use change showed an obvious decrease in actual evapotranspiration (ET) and significant increases in surface runoff and baseflow. The decrease of ET and increase of baseflow could be attributed to the conversion patterns from paddy fields and forest to dry lands, while the conversions from paddy fields and dry lands to urban areas caused a remarkable increase in surface runoff in the QRB. The study demonstrated that these practicable approaches were beneficial for the more unbiased views of the hydrological responses to climate change and land-use change in the highly urbanized basin, which were also critical for the sustainable development of regional water resource and future land-use planning.