Abstract
A 5-year (2001–2005) joint study of research teams from the Palestinian National Authority, Jordan, Israel and Turkey explored the responses to land management of dryland watersheds in each of the respective countries. The study watersheds differed in their land uses and applied management but were unified by apparent land degradation expressed in water-driven soil erosion due to removal of vegetation cover, and causing on-site loss of land productivity and off-site clogging of water reservoirs.
The study describes and quantifies the rainfall-vegetation-runoff-erosion and the rainfall-soil moisture-soil organic matter-vegetation chain links associated with specific site and management attributes of the study watersheds, spanning from semiarid to arid drylands and from dry woodland to dry rangeland ecosystems. The effectiveness of trees in controlling soil erosion was reaffirmed while discovering that in-spite of their transpiration trees in drylands need not necessarily reduce soil water storage more than the herbaceous vegetation. It was also found that transforming rangelands to planted forest does not necessarily reduce overall plant biodiversity but does change its species composition; that runoff-harvesting practices become less effective as the inherent site’s aridity increases; that traditional runoff-harvesting practices (e.g. terraces) are effective but non-traditional ones (i.e., large-scale furrowing) are both simple and effective too.
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Acknowledgements
The initiative for this joint project came from the Monitoring Unit of the US Forest Service in Boulder, CO, USA, with professional connections to researchers in the three countries. The project owes its existence and achievements to the vision and the inspiring leadership of Dr. Tom Hoekstra and to the continuing enthusiasm, dedication, logistic and processional support of Dr. Chuck Troendle, throughout the lifetime of the project. The authors thank the research students of the Israeli team, Clara L. Ariza, Ilana Wener-Frank, Matan Chocron, Michael Sprintsin, Yafei Wang and Yonit Schachnowitz, who carried out their studies under the umbrella of the project, and their theses constituted an invaluable source for the compilation of this chapter. Special thanks to Yulia Alexandrov for her invaluable work and consultation in the study of rain-runoff-sediment interrelationships. Thanks are also due to US-AID staff, especially Dr. Adam Reinhardt of the Washington DC office, who followed the project implementation and Mr. Boaz Ayalon of the Tel-Aviv office for his assistance and support. Much support for this project has been also provided by Dr. Chuck Lawson of the US State Department. Warm thanks are due to Jennifer Peterson and Christopher Soriano for their encouragement and continued support during the final stages of the project.
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Safriel, U.N. et al. (2010). Soil Erosion-Desertification and the Middle Eastern Anthroscapes. In: Kapur, S., Eswaran, H., Blum, W. (eds) Sustainable Land Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14782-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14782-1_3
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