This publication contains the proceedings of an international seminar held in May 2004 at the Univesity of Teramo (Italy). It discusses the role and importance of integrated soil and water management in orchards (vineyards and olive orchards) and it is intended to highlight the better use of resources. This publication will contribute to raising awareness of the possibilities for the better use of rainwater and improved management of soils with reduced erosion. It will be useful to anyone concerned with maintaining and improving the quality of soil including farmers, researchers, advisory staff, consultants and technical decision-makers.

In this book the engineering phases of soil and water conservation in agriculture are emphasized with the realization that all aspects must be considered, including agronomic, economic, environmental, biological, etc. This text includes subject matter on the management and design of soil and water conservation practices, as well as simple surveying and its application to field problems.

This book combines multidisciplinary studies on the environmental consequences of intensified use of land and water, and the fusion of land to provide food for a growing population. Studies on water, vegetation, and soil are addressed from an environmental management perspective with a special focus on the relation between natural elements and humans. This book considers the essential dynamics of humans and the natural environment, which is especially important in areas with shallow water-table that influence directly on agricultural activities (crops, livestock, and forests), land management, flooding, droughts, waterlogging, salt-affected soils (saline and sodic) and variation in obtained water quality in wells where these processes as related to the local and regional geomorphology control. The studies present hydrological processes towards the definition of an adequate use of soil and water with consequences of its management on the environment. Also, water study procedures are presented as well as their relation to other elements of the landscape. Methodologies such as the Tóthian flow system concept are recognized by different authors to provide the reader with solid interdisciplinary analyses of related environmental components such as soils, vegetation, surface water, geomorphology, geological framework and groundwater physical-chemical composition.

The conference was organised to identify, describe, discuss and promote actions that will assist farmers to improve water-use efficiency in rainfed agriculture and drought-proof their systems. The publication contains an analytical sumary of the conference discussions, abstracts of papers submitted during the conference and discussion papers prepared to introduce the different topics. The full document is included on the accompanying CD-ROM.

This book covers theoretical aspects as well as recent innovative applications of Artificial Neural networks (ANNs) in natural, environmental, biological, social, industrial and automated systems. It presents recent results of ANNs in modelling small, large and complex systems under three categories, namely, 1) Networks, Structure Optimisation, Robustness and Stochasticity 2) Advances in Modelling Biological and Environmental Systems and 3) Advances in Modelling Social and Economic Systems. The book aims at serving undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in ANN computational modelling.