Agriculture can be defined as the process of using natural resources (sunlight, air, water and soil) to produce a consumable product (e.g. food, fuel and fiber), while maintaining sufficient resources for the next generation. Future agricultural production systems will need to be sufficiently flexible to respond to rapid changes in climate, uncertainties in global markets, declining natural resources, and to changing political and economic forces, and population demands, without destroying the ecological resources on which agriculture depend. More than 2 billion people in developing countries survive on less than two US dollars per day, and spend most of it on food. Many of these people live in drought-prone areas. Their livelihood depends on agriculture. But with poor rainfall and a rapidly degrading resource base, food security remains a challenge. Dryland agriculture (both crop and animal production) in fragile arid and semi-arid agro-ecosystems is a theme addressed in both China and Australia. Climate change poses an increasing threat to sustainable food production, requiring urgent implementation of agronomic, genetic, ecological, environmental and socio-economic strategies to address the threat.
The 2^nd International Workshop on Ecological Assessment and Management was held at Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China, from 20 to 25 July 2010 to address the theme "Climate change and agricultural ecosystem management in dry areas". The workshop brought together a group of world-renowned scientists from overseas and China to address the topic of how to improve the productivity and sustainable development of fragile arid and semi-arid agro-ecosystems under the threat of global climate change. The objectives of the workshop included: (1) the assessment and management of semi-arid rainfed agro-ecosystems, and (2) the assessment and management of oasis agro-ecological systems in arid areas. The workshop was organized by Lanzhou University and The University of Western Australia, co-supported by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Financial support was provided by the "111" project Introducing Foreign Talents of Discipline to China Universities (jointly funded by the State Foreign Experts Bureau and the Ministry of Education), the UWA Institute of Agriculture and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria.
Twenty-five key speakers presented the science of plant-soil interactions in dryland environments. In addition, 18 young scientists reported progress in climate change and dryland agricultural ecosystem management. There were two scientific tours to typical agricultural regions: to the Yuzhong Dryland Agricultural Experimental Station of Lanzhou University on the Loess Plateau, and to the Minqin Oasis Agricultural Ecosystem in Wuwei City that depends on a decreasing water resource from the Qilian mountains. In this special issue, 35 peer-reviewed papers covering the above themes are published in Chinese with Abstracts in English. Other papers presented at the workshop will be published in 2011 in English in special issues of Plant and Soil and Crop and Pasture Science. We believe that the publication of this special issue will provide significant impetus to further advance dryland agricultural ecosystem research and development under changing and variable climatic conditions.