Salinization in arid or semiarid regions with water logging limits cropland yield, threatening food security. The highest level of farmland salinization, that is, abandoned salinized farmland, is a tradeoff between inadequate drainage facilities and sustainable farming. The evolution of abandoned salinized farmlands is closely related to the development of cropping systems. However, detecting abandoned salinized farmland using time-series remote sensing data has not been investigated well by previous studies. In this study, a novel approach was proposed to detect the dynamics of abandoned salinized farmland using time-series multispectral and thermal imagery. Thirty-two years of temporal Landsat imagery (from 1988 to 2019) was used to assess the evolution of salinization in Hetao, a two-thousand-year-old irrigation district in northern China. As intermediate variables of the proposed method, the crop-specific planting area was retrieved via its unique temporal vegetation index (VI) pattern, in which the shape-model-fitting technology and the K-means cluster algorithm were used. The desert area was stripped from the clustered non-vegetative area using its distinct features in the thermal band. Subsequently, the abandoned salinized farmland was distinguished from the urban area by the threshold-based saline index (SI). In addition, a regression model between electrical conductance (EC) and SI was established, and the spatial saline degree was evaluated by the SI map in uncropped and unfrozen seasons. The results show that the cropland has constantly been expanding in recent decades (from 4.7 × 10⁵ ha to 7.1 × 10⁵ ha), while the planting area of maize and sunflower has grown and the area of wheat has decreased. Significant desalinization progress was observed in Hetao, where both the area of salt-affected land (salt-free area increased approximately 4 × 10⁵ ha) and the abandoned salinized farmland decreased (reduced from 0.45 × 10⁵ ha to 0.19 × 10⁵ ha). This could be mainly attributed to three reasons: the popularization of water-saving irrigation technology, the construction of artificial drainage facilities, and a shift in cropping patterns. The decrease in irrigation and the increase in drainage have deepened the groundwater table in Hetao, which weakens the salt collection capacity of the abandoned salinized farmland. The results demonstrate the promising possibility of reutilizing abandoned salinized farmland via a leaching campaign where the groundwater table is sufficiently deep to stop salinization.

This study investigates the complex interaction of biophysical and meteorological factors that drive evapotranspiration (ET) in saline environments. Leveraging a total of 182 cloud-free Landsat 5/8 time-series data from 1988 to 2019, we employed the Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model to quantify ET and investigate its relationships with soil salinity, vegetation cover, groundwater depth, and landscape metrics. We validated the predicted ET at two experimental sites using ET observation calculated by a water balance model. The result shows an R² of 0.78 and RMSE of 0.91 mm for the SEBS predicted ET, indicating high accuracy of the ET estimation. We detected abandoned saline farmland patches across Hetao and extracted the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), salinization index (SI), and the predicted ET for analysis. The results indicate that ET is negatively correlated with SI with a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) up to −0.7, while ET is positively correlated with NDVI (r = 0.4). In addition, we designed a control-variable experiment in the Yichang subdistrict to investigate the effects of groundwater depth, land aggregation index, soil salinity index, and the area of abandoned saline farmland patches on ET. The results indicate that increased NDVI could significantly enhance ET, while smaller saline farmland patches exhibited greater sensitivity to groundwater recharge, with higher averaged ET than larger patches. Moreover, we analyzed factor importance using Lasso regression and Random Forest (RF) regression. The result shows that the ranking of the importance of the features is consistent for both methods and for all the features, with NDVI being the most important (with an RF importance score of 0.4), followed by groundwater table depth (GWTD), and the influence of the surface area of abandoned saline farmland being the weakest. We found that smaller patches of abandoned saline farmland were more sensitive to changes in groundwater levels induced by nearby irrigation, affecting their averaged ET more dynamically than larger patches. Decreasing patch size over time indicates ongoing changes in land management and ecological conditions. This study, through a multifactor analysis of ET in abandoned saline farmland and its intrinsic factors, provides a reference for evaluating the dry drainage efficiency of abandoned saline farmland in a dry drainage system.

Salinization in arid or semiarid regions with water-logging limits cropland yield, threatening food security. The highest level of farmland salinization, that is, abandoned salinized farmland, is a trade-off between inadequate drainage facilities and sustainable farming. The evolution of abandoned salinized farmlands is closely related to the development of cropping systems. However, detecting abandoned salinized farmland using time-series remote sensing data has not been investigated well by previous studies. In this study, a novel approach was proposed to detect the dynamics of abandoned salinized farmland using time series multi-spectral and thermal imagery. Thirty-two years of temporal Landsat imagery (from 1988 to 2019) was used to assess the evolution of salinization in Hetao, a two-thousand-year-old irrigation district in northern China. As intermediate variables of the proposed method, the crop-specific planting area was retrieved via its unique temporal vegetation index (VI) pattern, in which the shape-model-fitting technology and the k-means cluster algorithm were used. The desert area was stripped from the clustered non-vegetative area using its distinct features in the thermal band. Subsequently, the abandoned salinized farmland was distinguished from the urban area by threshold-based saline index (SI). In addition, a regression model between electrical conductance (EC) and SI was established, and the spatial saline degree was evaluated by the SI map in uncropped and unfrozen seasons. The results show that the cropland has constantly been expanding in recent decades (from 4.7*105 ha to 7.1*105 ha), while the planting area of maize and sunflower has grown and the area of wheat has decreased. Significant desalinization progress was observed in Hetao, where both the area of salt-affected land (salt-free area increased approximately 4*105 ha) and the abandoned salinized farmland decreased (reduced from 0.45 *105 ha to 0.19 *105 ha). This could be mainly attributed to three reasons: the popularization of water-saving irrigation technology, the construction of artificial drainage facilities, and a shift in cropping patterns. The decrease in irrigation and the increase in drainage have deepened the groundwater table in Hetao, which weakens the salt collection capacity of the abandoned salinized farmland. The results demonstrated the promising possibility of reutilizing abandoned salinized farmland via a leaching campaign where the groundwater table is sufficiently deep to stop salinization.

In 2019, more than 26 million natural Christmas trees were purchased in the United States, with nearly twice that number sold across Europe. Each year, the majority of these trees are either landfilled or incinerated, leading to substantial methane and carbon dioxide emissions. This study explores alternatives to natural Christmas trees and evaluates climate-smart end-of-life strategies to reduce the overall carbon footprint associated with Christmas tree consumption. We first employ Google Trends data to approximate global production, consumer demand, and predominant disposal practices for both natural and artificial Christmas trees. Using these data, we construct a global map of Christmas tree-related eCO₂ emissions under different disposal scenarios, including landfilling, burning, and mulching. We introduce a “Christmas Tree Carbon Exchange Index” to quantify the disparity between carbon emissions generated during production and those occurring in consumer regions. For instance, exporting countries such as China exhibit negative index values due to their role as producers of artificial trees for international markets.Our analysis reveals pronounced regional imbalances in carbon exchange, with major importing regions such as the European Union and the United States bearing a disproportionate net carbon burden. Life-cycle assessment results indicate that the environmental performance of a Christmas tree type is highly dependent on end-of-life management. Natural trees disposed of in landfills emit methane that, over a 10-year horizon, can exceed the cumulative emissions of an artificial tree. In contrast, mulching or chipping natural trees provides a net carbon benefit by returning biomass to the soil. We estimate that the carbon “break-even” point for an artificial tree is approximately 12 years of reuse when compared with a landfilled natural tree, but this threshold increases substantially when natural trees are mulched. Overall, achieving a genuinely greener Christmas requires shifts in both policy and consumer behavior, emphasizing the diversion of natural trees from landfills, support for local production, and long-term reuse of artificial trees.