There are wide alpine desert and rocky desert of mountainous area except wide sandy desert in the world. As an elevation is high and air temperature is low in high mountain, clouds appear and heavy rain is found occasionally, but it flows out and dry up quickly. Then vegetation is rare based on dry and cold weather.

As there is almost no meteorological data in such a mountainous area, it is necessary to estimate meteorological data from topography, elevation and the other information. But estimation procedure is a little, it is necessary to investigate. In this paper, an estimation method of mountainous weather or climate was introduced as an example of abnormal cold and dry condition in the Northern Japan Alps.

The author climbed in the Northern Japan Alps from August 17 to 20 in 2018 and evaluated a local weather or climate at a high mountain by a chance observation of characteristic weather in midsummer.

It showed particularly a new record or an equal record of minimum air temperature at 125 points of AMeDAS from Chugoku-Shikoku to Hokkaido, as an abnormal weather based on the cold continental air mass of anticyclone.

The monthly minimum air temperature was recorded in 8 levels from 11 km to lower layer on Aug. 17 and 3 levels of the lowest layer under 1000 m level on Aug. 18 at Wajima aerological observatory, because of the strong cold anticyclone from the northern continent. Inversion layer was observed at the level of about 2000 m on Aug. 17-18 at Wajima and temperature gaps were found at the level of 1350-2330 m in the Alps.

A dry, cold and rather strong wind of 10.7 m/s from northern direction affected on 1500-3000 m layer in the daytime, and minimum air temperature at Tarodaira was 4.1°C by the estimation, and at the cottage was 4.0°C by the observation on Aug. 17. On Aug. 18, minimum air temperature was –2.8°C with a dry, cold and week wind at Tarodaira ridge by the estimation at 400-1350 m, and visible estimation was –3 to –4°C at the height of 1900-2300 m in Yakushisawa basin of Kurobe headstream area where frosted.

The author experienced those phenomena of dry-cold air mass and frost mentioned above by mountaineering. An analysis of sensible local climate was introduced the first step of an estimation of mountainous desert climate. It will be able to apply for one of alpine weather estimation.

This presentation attempts to assess the impacts of climate change on vulnerability of Nigerian pastoralists based on the results of a recently conducted questionnaire. The general situation of climate change impacts on African pastoralists will also be reviewed. Pastoralists in Africa face several challenges of climate change that constrain their livelihoods and stifle their ability to adapt to changes in their external environment. The challenges can be grouped into four categories: climate change, political and economic marginalization, inappropriate development policies, and increasing resource competition. Pastoralists have lived with challenges of climate change and variability for millennial, and they are known to be highly resilient to erratic weather and climate conditions. However, the unprecedented rate and scale of human-induced climate change, especially in Africa, is beginning to pose problems, especially where social, political and economic factors are inimical to their livelihoods. Vulnerability is most often represented by a suite of socio-economic, political and environmental factors that represent the sensitivity and exposure of a population to climate hazards. Climate change impacts on pastoral households are evident in livelihood outcomes of higher temperature, changing landscapes and ecology, increased risk of drought, fire and floods, heat related illness and diseases among others. Climate plays a significant role in the sustainability of livelihoods of pastoralists. Pastoralists in Africa particularly are nowadays facing bigger challenges of land accessibility and lack of integration into the socio-cultural life of home communities. Climate change will be an additional stressor that outstrips their current adjustments. A survey of climate change perception has been conducted in Nigeria on numerous pastoral groups. The results will be analyzed, and compared with the existing reports on other pastoral groups in Africa. The understanding of vulnerability of the pastoralists will help us understand the root causes of violence and insecurity that are concealed in the interaction between the environmental, socio-political, and economic factors.

In recent years, the settlement of nomads has been promoted in the Republic of Djibouti, and the number of farmer who settle and run livestock is increasing. However, many livestock feeds that can be obtained in the suburbs of cities where humans settle are closer to human diets than those that natural plants. Therefore, this survey was conducted with the aim of comparing the nutritional status of goats owned by nomads in the Djibouti with those owned by settled farmers and collecting insights into the nutritional supply of natural forage plants in the Djibouti.

The survey was conducted on dairy farmers in Ambuli near the capital and nomads grazing around Ali Sabieh in the second city. Dairy farmers raise around 50 dairy cows, 11 camels, 130 goats, and 50 sheep. They own 2-3 ha of pasture, and have shallow wells and 1000 L water storage tanks as water sources. Nomad was a breeding scale of 30 goats, 6 sheep, 3 donkeys, and 1 camel. The moving distance is 10 km square. In this survey, among the domestic animals, the survey items conducted on breeding female goats were age, body length, chest circumference, body height, body weight, blood glucose level, and blood β-hydroxybutyric acid (BHBA).

As a result of this survey, the goats raised by Nomad had a small body size and a light weight for their age. However, the ratio of waist circumference to body weight is high, and it is inferred that the lumen is well developed for the physique. In addition, there is not much difference in blood glucose level between Nomad and dairy farmers, and it is presumed that the nutritional status of Nomad goats is not bad. Furthermore, for BHBA, the value of nomad goats was high, suggesting that the organic acid produced in the lumen efficiently supplies energy. From the above points, it was considered that the goats bred by Nomad were less produced but not in poor nutritional status than the goats bred by dairy farmers.

In drylands, the progress of salt accumulation due to excessive irrigation and poor drainage has negatively affected agricultural production. Water-saving and improvement of drainage system are effective to prevent salt accumulation. However, the introduction of drip irrigation and subsurface drainage requires initial and maintenance costs, making it difficult for farmers in developing countries.

As a low-cost and easy technique to improve drainage function, a new subsoil breaker called “cut-soiler”, was developed in Japan, which fills crop residues at 40-60 cm depth in soil and that works as a drainage. The cut-soiler has been designed to contribute to the improvement of poor drainage fields in Japan. However, its applicability to salinity control in dryland is unknown. The purpose of this study was to experimentally demonstrate the use of cut-soiler at a salt affected field in India.

An experiment was carried out to evaluate the cut-soiler’s effect to remediate saline soil by using lysimeter facilities (2 m square each) with and without cut-soiler plots during the dry and rainy seasons from October 2018 to August 2019. The soil salinity (EC) was continuously monitored by dielectric soil moisture sensors (5TE) in order to comprehend its dynamics by cut-soiler. The maximum EC at the depth of 12 cm with cut-soiler was 18.7% lower than without cut-soiler during the dry season when it was irrigated. In the rainy season, the EC at the depth of 50 cm (filled depth by crop residue) with cut-soiler was decreased in response to rainfall, and the EC with cut-soiler was 38.2% lower than without cut-soiler. Based on these results, it is concluded that the salts in the soil would be dissolved by irrigation or rainfall and the infiltration water containing dissolved salts would have been flowed along the subsoil drainage constructed by the cut-soiler and leached out from the outlet pipe.

The agriculture sector plays an essential role in the country’s economic development, such as food and funds for other sectors. This rule also applies to Djibouti, which locates in arid areas. Traditionally, self-sufficient nomads have practiced in Djibouti. Still, conventional nomads are no longer possible due to the limitation of natural resources such as grassland and the effects of population growth and climate change. Therefore, the government has promoted nomadic settlement agriculture. However, it is difficult to popularize settlement agriculture in Djibouti, where water resources are scarce. However, the number of farmers is steadily increasing due to technological developments. At first, the agricultural village, which used to be several farmhouses, has expanded to dozens of farmers, with the assistance of international organizations, and the number of such villages is also increasing. Farmers have diverse backgrounds, but farmers manage less water and produce food while settling down, and the domestic agricultural market is expanding. Thus, Djibouti’s agricultural sector is still slowly but steadily developing. When considering the future development of Djibouti agriculture, clarifying the structure of agricultural and rural areas will be necessary for policy formulation. Still, few papers structurally explain Djibouti agriculture.

Therefore, this paper aims to sort out the development of agricultural villages and clarify the current agricultural structure in the southern part of Djibouti. Specifically, the focus on agriculture entitles, products, technology, market condition, and income formation ability will organize and analyze.

An aquaponics which the water is repeatedly used between aquaculture and hydroponics facilities, is one of food production technologies effectively using water resource. Recently, we developed a new type of aquaponics combined with open culture in arid regions and conducted its feasibility studies in a pilot plant in Mexico. Since the drainage water discharged from the hydroponics in our system is finally used in open fields as irrigation water, it may be extremely a water-saving system. It has, however, potentially risk that accumulated excess salts in the open field. Therefore, we conducted open culture experiments in a pilot plant for monitoring the water and salt movements in soil of the open field in Mexico and estimated the salt accumulation risk through some numerical experiments. In the open culture experiments, irrigation was carried out once a day for about 40 minutes by a farmer who managed the test field. The amount of irrigation at one time was around 18 mm/d. Electric conductivity of irrigation water (EC_w) was around 4 dS/m. Soil water and salinity were monitored by capacitance sensors at the point of a 3-cm distance from a drip tube and a 12-cm deep from soil surface. Although the field experiments had been conducted for 120 days, there were no remarkable increases of soil water and salinity at the monitoring point. HYDRUS 2D/3D were used for numerical experiments. The simulation conditions were that the amounts of irrigation at one time were 18 mm/d and 6 mm/d and irrigated once a day the water of 2, 4 and 8 dS/m in EC. We had run the simulation model under the condition that the same climate with the potential evapotranspiration of 6.4 mm/d continued for 30 days. In this simulation, no remarkable salt accumulation in the root zone was estimated with the current irrigation condition (18 mm/d and 4 dS/m of EC), but the percolation loss toward lower layers were greater than water-saving irrigation condition. Although under the water-saving irrigation condition, the moisture condition of root zone was adequate for crops, it proceeded salt accumulation at the edge of a wet zone which formed by the water dripped from the tube. However, the water-saving irrigation can leave much amount of water than the ordinary irrigation. We might be able to leachate the salts from root zone using the surplus water. These results showed that the drainage water of the aquaponics can be used as irrigation water without salt accumulation by the adequate irrigation control for open fields in drylands.

In dry climates, salt accumulation in soil is a large problem for agriculture. Salts accumulate partially and in a very thin surface layer of the soil at an early stage of the progress. At this stage, leaching should be conducted only in the salt accumulation zone. The Surface Suction Leaching Method (SSLM) is a desalinization method that uses minimal water. An instrument for using the SSLM consists of three components: a water supply, drainage parts, and insertion parts. The water supply has a storage tank for the leaching water and a flow pump. The drainage parts include a vacuum pump and a collection tank for the drained water. The insertion parts include a disc-shaped container with a stainless-steel guide for insertion into the soil, a ceramic or stainless-steel filter, and an inlet/outlet pipe with a bidirectional stopcock. The instrument is inserted directly into a salt accumulation zone on the soil surface. Through the stopcock, the inlet/outlet pipe is connected with the water supply and drainage parts, respectively. An operator can select the stages of water supply for either leaching or collection of water for removal of salts by switching the stopcock. The desalinization process is as follows: 1) Leaching water is poured onto the soil surface by the flowing pump; 2) The water dissolves salts accumulated in the soil surface layer. The saline remains in this layer because the amount of water supplied is too small to percolate into lower layers; 3) After switching the direction of the stopcock, the vacuum pump of the drainage parts sucks the soil saline through the insertion parts. The process is continued until the soil salinity decreases to the desired concentration. It is very important for effective desalinization using this system to determine the supply time of the leaching water and the suction time of the dissolved salts. In this study, we conducted numerical experiments to clarify the relationships among the water supply time, the suction time, the collection rate of the water, and the removal rate of the salts. We determined that the optimum technique for saving leaching water with this method is to make the water supply time short and the suction time long. However, too long of a suction time increased the amount of leaching water required. The optimum combination of water supply time and suction time under the conditions of this study was 15 seconds of supply and 600 seconds of suction.

Endophytic fungi are a microbe that doesn’t show the symptom even though it can infect to the host plant. They sometimes confer some function such as plant growth promoting (PGP) effects and environmental stress tolerance on the host plant. If it will be possible to use endophytes having useful ability in agriculture, they can be strong tool for sustainable agriculture under environmental stress conditions.

Leptosphaeria sp. T-2 was isolated from barley root grown at Toyama prefecture (Japan) in 2018. This fungus showed PGP effect on host plant, and this effect need direct fungal infection to host plant. Because, strain T-2 showed the plant growth promotion only when strain T-2 infected to the plant, whereas it didn’t express the plant growth promotion when the culture broth of strain T-2 was applied. In addition, pot experiment showed that fresh weight of harvested plant was significantly heavier in the plant with strain T-2 than that without strain T-2. There was no significantly difference in dry weight of harvested plant, indicating that strain T-2 might enhance the water uptake of host plant. In order to reveal this fungal ability, strain T-2 grew on the MS medium with water stress using PEG8000. The results indicated host plant with strain T-2 survived even in the high water stress conditions compared with control (Figure 1), indicating that the strain T-2 improved the water uptake capacity of host plant. Moreover, when strain T-2 grew on the MS medium added NaCl as salt stress, the host plant with strain T-2 obviously grew even in the salinity condition. Conclusively, this endophytic fungus, Leptosphaeria sp. T-2, was infected plant roots without any symptoms and improved the host plant growth. Moreover, strain T-2 could confer the drought and salinity stress tolerant to host plant. Further studies are contemplated to obtain a more information about the mechanisms for environmental stress remains unknown.

Recent exploration of natural resources and rapid economic growth of Africa has been attracting enterprises in the world as a great opportunity of their business extension.

Japanese government has also put emphasis on business partnership with African countries rather than regarding as a target of development assistance of donors. The change of measure is reflected in trend of the main topics of a series of Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), held periodically under auspice of Japanese Government. Especially at TICAD IV held in 2016 and thereafter, economic and social growth was more emphasized rather than giving aids such as relieving poverty. In addition, contribution of Japanese private sector is encouraged and a series of measures has been taken to promote Japanese enterprises to African market.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of the measures related to the recent TICAD process on the extension of business of Japanese enterprises. A set of the lists of Japanese enterprises having business on Africa published by African Development Bank External Representation Office for Asia as of 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019 was compared and analyzed the changes by countries and business categories.

So far South Africa and Egypt were the focal points of the business of Japanese enterprises and their local branches. However, since 2017, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria have become additional focal points, which reflects in identification of several strategic economic corridors by Japanese government at TICAD VI.

Concerning the trends of business categories, extension of business of manufacturing enterprises, especially automobile related ones has been rapidly growing. Business of trading firms and financial services has been also growing rapidly in recent two years. Interestingly, Japanese used car trading shows unique trend of extension, starting from Zambia and surrounding countries and expanding to Southern and Eastern countries. On the other hand, construction business has been shrunk due to high competition with China.

The aim of this study was to verify nomadic perceptions of grasslands, which are based on a view of nature held by the people who use these lands. According to our survey, the nomads believed that if the grasslands that are in poor condition were to be abandoned, the number of species and the amount of grass would increase. However, artificial environmental changes that have greatly exceeded nature’s resilience have been carried out, and the grasslands cannot recover naturally, as predicted by the nomads’ understanding. The vegetation ecosystem of abandoned cultivated land has irreversibly shifted to another state so, even if recovery by vegetation succession were to occur, the original grassland would not return. All the nomads had basically hoped to restore a degraded grassland, although some were concerned about the financial burden this would entail. Hence, the development of inexpensive and effective restoration methods for abandoned agricultural land is an urgent issue for the nomads. To consider sustainable grassland usage from multiple perspectives, it will be necessary to continue discussions that include the values of all stakeholders who are using agricultural land.

Located in Central Asia, Kazakhstan is characterized as a semi-arid region which includes dry steppe land in the south. Agriculture carried out in this area is typically oasis farmland with water taken from local rivers used for irrigation. During the former Soviet Union, irrigation projects were widely carried out to expand agricultural land, and large-scale irrigation projects were created in several areas. However, many of these areas were abandoned since the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991. In recent years, agricultural reforms have been carried out in Kazakhstan, and the privatization and fragmentation of agricultural land has progressed due to the free trade of agricultural land use rights. The study area of the Zharkent (Panfilov) Region is located on the border between Kazakhstan and China, is a semi-arid area and has been cultivating corn by irrigation from the Ili River and the Usek River for many years. Therefore, there are many abandoned agricultural lands because of salinization. However, this area is the start point of the railway and highway of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR or Belt and Road Initiative, BRI) project to Europe, and corn production and exports are expected to flourish. In this study, we focus on the vulnerability of oasis agriculture and extract changes in agricultural land for about 30 years from 1989 to the present using Landsat series and Sentinel series and visualized them using RGB col-or combined techniques. The results show that agricultural land is disappeared or desertified at the Ili river basin and at the foot of the Zhongar-Alatau Mountains and that there are several years of fallow even in areas where agriculture is active. Using the Zharkent region in the irrigated alluvial fan of zhongar-Alatau Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan as an example, we classify the farm field changing using Landsat TM and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and identify of vulnerability to the disappearance of oases farmland.

Yaodong is a traditional cave-type underground dwelling distributed in the rural Loess Plateau, China. It is widely found in the places where there is semi-arid, altitude is high, underground water level is deep, and loess deposits are thick. Particularly pit-type Yaodong is a form in which a rectangular pit is dug on the surface of the plateau, which is used as a courtyard, and a plurality of holes are excavated horizontally on the side of the pit. It is mainly observed in western Henan, the southern tip of northern Shaanxi, and eastern Gansu provinces.

Yaodong has various advantages suitable for the climate. For example, fluctuations in outside air temperature can be suppressed, creating an indoor environment that is “cool in summer and warm in winter.” Besides, Yaodong maintains a relatively steady indoor air temperature and therefore has an energy-saving effect. It can reduce energy consumption by about 40% and CO₂ emissions by about 60% compared to modern houses constructed on the ground. Moreover, the construction cost is reduced to about one-tenth of that of constructing a building on the ground, which contributes to reducing the economic burden on residents and sustaining resource utilization in areas with few trees. However, since the mid-1980s, when moving to a market-oriented economy progressed, the “New Rural Construction” movement aimed at reducing poverty, urbanization, and the rapid decrease of domestic farmland and flat land due to tree-planting campaign in mountainous areas and the demand for securing farmland on flatlands have led to the disappearance most of the pit-type Yaodongs and made it difficult to predict the situation at that time from the current landscape.

In this paper, therefore, we attempted to restore the distribution of pit-type Yaodong in the Luoyang Basin, Henan province in the 1970s by visually interpreting US military satellite images and using previous field survey data as a teacher. Furthermore, we examined the factors of Yaodong distribution, by analyzing the relationship between the restored Yaodong distribution and the altitude and topography on GIS. This study provides new knowledge from a geographical point of view on the architectural and cultural study of Yaodong and the loess plateau, by estimating in detail and extensively the number, distribution range, and distribution tendency of the pit-type Yaodong which is now lost and unknown. In addition, it provides the basic spatial information required for the evaluation of energy consumption and regional resource utilization associated with urbanization.

Agriculture is a major sector in the economy of Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan), a small landlocked mountainous country in Central Asia. The National Development Strategy of Kyrgyz Republic defines agriculture and agroindustry as strategic priority sectors in the economy of the country. Collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 caused a drastic decrease in Gross Agricultural Output (GAO) in early 1990’s, but GAO recovered to its level of 1990 in 2002 owing to the increasing output of peasant farms (“фермерские хозяйства” in Russian). Kyrgyz Republic implemented comprehensive and innovative land and agricultural reforms, especially land privatization policy adopted in 1998 caused dissolution of “Kolkhoz” and “Sovkhoz” and brought mass emergence of individual peasant farmers with their own small land. Output of peasant farms accounts for about 60% of GAO and the number of officially registered individual entrepreneurs among peasant farms has more than doubled from 2007 to 2019, with the percentage of 26% of the total in 2019.

Since early 2000’s, the agricultural output growth has been slowing down due to low productivity, soil degradation, poor maintenance in irrigation system and lack of agricultural inputs etc. Under these conditions, the government intends to improve competitiveness of the agricultural sector through consolidation of the fragmented farmland and promotion of creating clusters. This new direction stated in the National Development Strategy obviously conflicts with interests of peasant farms, greatly contributed to the recovery and growth of the sector, especially emerging individual entrepreneurs might lose their incentive for investment under the consolidation policy initiated by the government.

On the other hand, the National Development Strategy stipulates that the government policy gives priority to production of environmentally friendly organic products, using Kyrgyzstan’s geographical and climatic advantages in the regional markets. In late 2018, parliament ordered the government to develop a plan to achieve 100% shift to the organic farming within 10 years, and “Law on organic farming” was adopted in 2019.

Increasing presence of individual entrepreneurs might be defined in the context of promotion of organic farming to increase competitiveness of Kyrgyz agricultural products in the regional markets. In addition, the activities of “social entrepreneurs in agribusiness” who try to solve social challenges through business are notable in recent years. They are expected to contribute to the sustainable agricultural development and regional community vitalization in Kyrgyz Republic. Reforms in educational programs to foster entrepreneurs in sustainable agriculture has just started in collaboration with “social entrepreneurs”, the national agrotechnical college and Japanese agricultural high school in Hokkaido.

Uzbekistan is one of the developing countries in Central Asia (CA) with an area of 447,400 sq. km. Agriculture production almost fully developed under irrigated agriculture. Arable land accounts 4.4 million hectares, or about 10% of Uzbekistan’s total area. The role of agriculture is vital in national economy, especially in terms of food security, employment and considered as important income source for 4.7 million of households that operate dehkan (small-scale) farms in rural and disproportionally poor communities.

Uzbekistan is one of the top 15 grape producer country with 1.7 millions of tons (2.19%) for table (78.4%), dried (17.8%) and wine (3.7%) grapes. (FAO 2019, 2019 statistical report on world vitiviniculture). Most table grapes are grown in the south, especially in Samarkand and Fergana Valley, as well as in the Tashkent region. One of the cash crops for dehkan is grape and can improve of household income of the rural areas.

This study was carried out in thirteen villages: Samarkand region to identify the current conditions and challenges of local dehkan grape producers, regarding their income, consumption expenditure and food security, with due attention to heterogeneity among the farmers. Results from the analysis showed that viticulture contributed to more than four-fifths (84.1%) of total dehkan income and played a significant role in its welfare. We divided respondents into four groups by farm size (1^st group: <0.36 ha, 2^nd group: 0.36-0.50 ha, 3^rd group: 0.51-0.70 ha and 4^th group: >0.70 ha), and found differences among them in various household characteristics including the importance of viniculture income. Also, several challenges were identified; namely, lack of infrastructure, prevalence of pests and diseases, high prices of inputs, water shortage, low prices of grapes and raisin, lack of capital, limited access to markets, and lack of skills. This study has provided important implications toward viniculture development and further increases in dehkan income and their well-being.

Agriculture plays an important role in Uzbekistan’s economic development. Grape production is one of the historical agricultural products for Uzbek people. The most part of the grapes are exported as table grapes and raisins. Nowadays, Uzbekistan is gradually increasing the production of raisin. Therefore, raisins are Uzbekistan’s one of the main product in agricultural export. Raisin production share in Uzbekistan is 17.8% of fresh grape, which is much more than the world average, 7.0% (OIV statistic 2016). Due to the raisin’s positive health effects, its consumption is increasing gradually in the world by creating a higher demand in the world market. Even though Uzbekistan is one of the top exporting countries in the world by volume, its average price for raisin is remaining very low comparing to the world average price. Achieving the world average price would be a better opportunity for agribusiness participants, in particularly, indirectly increasing the incomes of dehkans, fermers.

Therefore, the aim of this research is to develop sustainable export strategy for the agribusiness in Uzbekistan by finding out the factors for raisins’ low price in the world market. We conducted a questionnaire survey and analysed the AHP model. As the export strategy is subject to multi-criteria decisions, using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model will be powerful method. All criteria or factors influencing the final price of raisins were grouped into six main criterions clusters. The questionnaire had send to more than 500 exporters and received responses from about 10% of them. The results of the questionnaire show that the most important factor in deterring the prices is the quality of the product, availability quality control laboratory, and certification with the best alternative as Golden raisin, following the other varieties. The solution of these factors alone would improve the current issues with the export price by almost half. Another finding of the study is that new agribusiness entrants with less than 3 years of experience in the international trade prefer less capital-intensive raisins comparing to Golden raisins such as black raisins and black raisin soyaki varieties.

Agritourism is being mentioned as a useful alternative activity for income growth on farms and rural development. Therefore, agritourism is increasing quickly worldwide and one of the most significant supplementary income sources for farmers. The study deals with the development of agritourism in Samarkand, and it is based on several scientific researchs and statictical data as well as there is a great opportunity for agritourism activities. There is a need to increase the economic potential of rural areas and it is necessary to create modern activities on fermers and also ensure their sustainable development. Samarkand has extremely favorable conditions for many forms of tourism, especially for agritourism. The main purpose of the study is to identify the current situation and issues of sustainable development of agritourism in Samarkand Region, Uzbekistan. There are 10 fermers carry out agritourism in Samarkand. We conducted a survey on all 10 of these fermers as well as surveyed 100 random selections from fermers that do not carry out agritourism in Samarkand Region. The collected data were analysed using Logistic regression model and t statistic to estimate the probability of participation of fermers in agritourism. The results show that there are significant socio-economic differences among agritourism and non-agritourism fermers, as well as only 0.10% of fermers are already engaged in agritourism, and they earned additional income from agritourism, and they are, as well as they plan to offer more agritourism activities for tourists. Out of 110 fermers, 46 fermers plan to participate in agritourism and aim to earn additional income in the future. As shown in the results, fermers in Samarkand are undergoing many challenges to participation in agritourism, such as lack of knowledge on agritourism, lack of financial assistants, poor infrastructure, lack of marketing, inadequate Government support, and a low number of tourists.

The argan tree is an endemic specie which is located in the south-western part of Morocco, in arid to semi-arid areas. Recently, it gained fame as a patrimonial wealth as it celebrates its international day in May 10^th. The argan oil has a large-scaled interest as an economic opportunity, as it is used by many companies in several cosmetic products. The Moroccan export of Argan oil also increased exponentially—483 times between 2000 and 2016, driven by its expansion to the international markets.

In order to better valorize and commercialize this rare natural resource, we should acquire better knowledge on the foreign consumers’ behavior, their knowledge on argan oil, their product experience with argan oil, how much they would pay for argan products and how to increase their willingness to pay (WTP).

In this study, as the Japanese cosmetic market is wide, prolific and remunerative, we aim to search for main variables that increase the overall consumers’ willingness to pay, and hence, evaluating the consumer preference for cosmetic argan oil in Japanese market using the payment card method. For that reason, an online survey comprising of 20 questions was conducted which collected data on 836 respondents. Based on these data, consumer’s preference for cosmetic argan oil was evaluated using interval regression.

Displayed results showed high variables significance and comparative model efficiency. Regression coefficients are higher for variables that indicate information (knowing argan oil), category experience (experiencing vegetable oil based products), product experience (experiencing argan oil based products), and interest for vegetable oil based cosmetic products (gathering information, purchasing from pharmacy). Therefore, argan oil should first be introduced to consumers so that they may purchase it and be willing to pay more.

Arid regions are characterized by an ecological environment with abundant solar radiation, little precipitation, and a marked diurnal variation in temperature. In these ecological conditions, heat is one of the factors that determine all aspects of the lifestyle of the local people, such as clothing, housing, and livelihood. It is to be expected that in arid lands a great deal of knowledge about heat has been accumulated. In this study, the contemporary event, the refugee settlement, and elucidate its relationship with heat are analyzed. By focusing on the refugee camp established in Jordan in response to the influx of Iraqi refugees, it analyses their life of encampment in arid area.

It is pointed out that the area is a desert area, where it is very hot in summer and when storms blow, the refugees’ tents are immediately filled with sand, making it a harsh environment to continue living in. This situation has been reported worldwide and the Jordan’s inhumane treatment has often been criticised by international organizations. Though Jordan’s position has been one of outright refusal to accept them, as most of the refugees were Palestinian or Iranian Kurds. Jordan already has more than half of its population of Palestinian descent, she could not tolerate any more of them. The camp was therefore surrounded by a fence, under constant surveillance by the Jordanian army and with limited freedom of movement.

In the camps, most of the infrastructure, such as water, electricity, shelter, and food, was totally dependent on aid. In terms of housing, although the framework has been strengthened and some improvements have been made to provide more space, it is believed that the basic form of housing has continued to be simple tents. As a result, the camp was closed when all the refugees had been resettled in third countries, but it is obvious that it would have been preferable to close the camp at an earlier stage. Despite this, the fact that the camp continued to be established for 6 years should be noted above all. The fact that the camps were able to continue shows that in the desert, people can live in simple houses as long as they can secure scarce water resources.

This presentation will compare pastoralists’ pastoral strategies in the Mongolian plateau, which is divided into Northern and Southern Mongolia politically.

The Mongolian Plateau is one of the central places of pastoralism in inner Asia. Because of its dry and cold climate, mobile pastoralism was traditionally prominent.

However, global capital investment started to involve pastoralists into cash economy more and more deeply, by way of paved roads and availability of mobile phones after 2000s. The characteristic of today’s situation is coexistence of two pastoralists’ pastoral strategies according to the place they live; that is, suburban pasture and remote pasture.

In Northern Mongolia, the trigger which made change of pastoralists’ pastoral strategies happen was a nationwide cold and snow disaster from 1999 winter to 2002 spring.

It drastically reduced number of livestock, which rapidly increased during 1990s after the collapse of socialistic economic system. However, the lowest number by which they could keep sustainable life as pastoralists varied depending on the place pastoralists live. At suburban pasture where is close to cities or major roads, a smaller number of livestock is required. There are two major reasons for it; they can sell dairy products in addition to livestock and cashmere which are traditional commodity for sale, and costs for transportation are cheaper, comparing to remote pasture where mobile phone, which is necessary for selling dairy products, is generally out of service.

As a result, pastoralists who migrated into suburban pasture increased, where density of pastoralists had not been dense at socialistic era. On the other hand, not a little number of pastoralists decide to remain in remote pasture for some reason; large number of livestock is more suitable for sparse remote pasture, for instance.

This dichotomy is not only true to Northern Mongolia, but also to Southern Mongolia. Because the number of livestock which pastoralists can keep is controlled rather strictly according to carrying capacity set by local government, pastoralists in remote area who generally own wider pasture keep larger number. On the other hand, pastoralists in suburban area often started to get cash income by new way; tourist camps or fermented mare’s milk for instance. This phenomenon in Southern Mongolia also emerged after 2000s, when the central government recognized environmental problem in pastoral area and attributed it to overgrazing of pastoralists which was caused by privatization of livestock and pasture after 1980s.

New approaches and technologies involving application of blended modern agroecological science and indigenous knowledge systems have shown to enhance food security while conserving natural resources and soil and water under stress conditions. Under hot arid zone of Thar desert Mr Rambharti a farmer of Pali India, decided to go for multifunctional agriculture and convert his barren area into an integrated farm, utilizing innovative approaches. Every year the farmer prepares his field in summer by deep ploughing and making deep ridges so that he can trap maximum rain water in his field for the upcoming crops. Crop rotation forms the basis of the farming system as crops are grown naturally without external inorganic inputs. The crops are grown in a unique rotation, which means that the same crop is grown in the same field only once every three years. Besides field crops incorporation of spice crops mainly cumin, fenugreek, fennel and ajwain plays a very important role in farm sustainability as spices are disease resistant, hardy and requires less water .Animal integrated farming forms the backbone of his agriculture providing him with milk, fibres and valuable organic waste rejuvenating his soils and increasing moisture retention. Under rainfed conditions he practice intercropping of green gram with sorghum and sesame which reduces the climate-driven crop failure as variety of crops have different climatic adaptability. Intercrops efficiently utilize the natural resources such as land, light, water and nutrient and increase biodiversity, productivity, resilience and stability of agroecosystem. In addition, crops facing threats from the same or similar pests are not grown in bordering fields or in a sequential season in the same field. Also crops requiring high nutrient inputs are not grown in sequence in the same field. The main crops are pulses, spices, barley, oats and wheat. Leguminous crops have less water requirement and fix nitrogen which the other nonlegume crops need. Hardy grasses planted at margins prevent run-off of minerals from the field into bordering ditches. In addition, they attract natural enemies for pests in the crops, provide habitat for pollinators and have an esthetical value as well. These practices have built soil organic matter and the soils are now self-enriched. Acacia trees planted on farm boundary acts as biological fence and as sink for carbon dioxide and exploit the ecological and economic interactions of the different components. Thus alternative agriculture in the form of multifunctional model integrating different components with farming produce sufficient yields by maintaining crop-fodder-livestock-forest plant diversities and manage equitable socio-economic access outcome to the poorest section of the society.

Palestinian peasant and bedouin women started embroidery to reinforce their cloth for heavy labor, then embroidery spread all region in Palestine. Palestine War had begun in 1948, women had no longer been able to make embroidery. Palestinian women re-produce embroidery under occupation by Israel with the support of NGOs for economical independence and the cultural identity as Palestinian. Nowadays not only NGOs but also cooperatives are established to produce embroidery. We investigated fieldwork research in West Bank how they produce embroidery and it became clear that production system differs among NGOs and cooperatives. However, research on embroidery and economical independence has not been done enough.

The Society of Inash al Usra, Palestinian local NGO in Ramallah, West Bank, was established in 1965 and support village women in Ramallah and about 5000 women register as embroider. UNRWA Embroidery Project Sulafa is NGO and was established in 1950 in Gaza city by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) as a part of social service program, and support refugee women in 8 refugee camps in Gaza district. About 300 refugee women register as embroider. Both of NGOs provide embroidery work for village women or refugee women and pay wage according to their work. NGO staff finish as final products, pricing and selling to sales-supporting NGOs and retail shops. On the other hand, women in Al-Amari refugee camp near the city of Ramallah, established cooperatives by themselves with about 30 embroidery group members in 1993. Cooperative members produce embroidery, finishing as final products, pricing and selling to sales-supporting NGOs and retail shops.

The 1995 Oslo II Accord established the administrative division of the West Bank into areas A, B, and C. Area A is administered by the Palestinian National Authority; Area B: by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel; and Area C is administered by Israel. 61% of the land of West Bank is Area C and most of this land is agricultural land. Especially farmers in area C have to be cope with severe restrictions by Israeli government and suffer from low income. We researched if there is a difference between the area they live and the income they get from embroidery work. Results show that women who works with the support of NGO can earn income regardless of the area they live.

The water resource utilized for social activities in Djibouti is almost exclusively groundwater which is abstracted by shallow wells from the porous sediments in wadis with estimated thickness of several meters to around 20 meters, and by deeper wells from the fractured zone of basaltic base rock. Because of small annual precipitation and high geological ambiguity associated with wadis and fractures, to find out new good groundwater locations is not an easy task in Djibouti.

In this project, utilizing collected various field data, we try to construct numerical hydrologic models for estimating groundwater movement through wadis and fractures. A terrestrial fluid flow simulator GETFLOWS is used for this purpose, in which surface/subsurface coupled flows under precipitation/evapotranspiration are dealt. It might be able to reproduce and visualize occasional flooding through wadis at rainfalls, infiltration into the wadi sediments, and flow/retention of groundwater in wadi networks.

For the first modeling site, we deal Ali Faren catchment, a small part of large Ambouli watershed which spreads in the south-west of Djibouti City.

Using the satellite image of Google Earth and high-resolution DSM (AW3D supplied by RESTEC), the target area including wadi networks and base rock surface were discretized three-dimensionally into around 35,000 horizontally and 15 vertically, with corner-pointed structured grid system.

In the symposium, we will present the modeling procedures, settings of geological conditions and hydraulic parameters, and results of simulation including model equilibration, calibration and prospecting case studies.

Uzbekistan is recognized as one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the impact of long-term climate change process. The potential threats in the food insecurity is related to the period 2003-2100 are based on ensemble projections of global climate models provided by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and updated for Zarafshan River Basins areas (Samarkand, Bukhara, partly Navoi). The extended period 1901-2100 presents to depict global trends in observed climate and projected climate change scenarios for Zarafshan River Basins in the side of Uzbekistan. The main results comprise an estimation of the shifts of climate zones within the 21st century by considering different IPCC scenarios. In upcoming decades, the water shortages could severely limit irrigation water availability in almost all river basins of Uzbekistan, and are taken into account in Zarafshan river basin areas will influenced a negative effects on almost all crops (cotton, wheat, vineyards), with reductions of 10-25 percent in yields through 2050. Increased temperatures can lengthen growing seasons; and as well as a higher carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration can enhance plant growth. Also, the Köppen-Geiger climate classification projected with Tyndall temperature and precipitation data for the period 2076-2100, A1FI emission scenario, multi model mean, on a regular 0.5 degree latitude/longitude grid and estimated changes around the selected area. The four scenarios are designed to reflect a range of global circulation model (GCM) outcomes for agriculture that include a low-impact, medium-, and high-impact outcome in the Zerafshan River Basin.