Land Use and Degradation in a Desert Margin: The Northern Negev

Stephen Prince,Uriel Safriel

doi:10.3390/rs13152884

Stephen Prince, Uriel Safriel

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13152884

Copy DOI

Abstract

Degradation in a range of land uses was examined across the transition from the arid to the semi-arid zone in the northern Negev desert, representative of developments in land use taking place throughout the West Asia and North Africa region. Primary production was used as an index of an important aspect of dryland degradation. It was derived from data provided by Landsat measurements at 0.1 ha resolution over a 2500 km2 study region—the first assessment of the degradation of a large area of a desert margin at a resolution suitable for interpretation in terms of human activities. The Local NPP Scaling (LNS) method enabled comparisons between the observed NPP and the potential, nondegraded, reference NPP. The potential was calculated by normalizing the actual NPP to remove the effects of environmental conditions that are not related to anthropogenic degradation. Of the entire study area, about 50% was found to have a significantly lower production than its potential. The degree of degradation ranged from small in pasture, around informal settlements, minimally managed dryland cropping, and a pine plantation, to high in commercial cropping and extreme in low-density afforestation. This result was unexpected as degradation in drylands is often attributed to pastoralism, and afforestation is said to offer remediation and prevention of further damage.

Highlights

In drylands, the low productivity of vegetation and susceptibility to erosion limit human livelihoods
Dryland degradation is often attributed to traditional land uses (LUs)—mainly overgrazing (e.g., [1,2])—even though it has frequently been shown that traditional lifestyles have enabled the sustainable occupation of marginal regions (e.g., [3])
The reduction in net primary production (NPP) below a nondegraded baseline, measured here using Local NPP Scaling (LNS), is suited to the detection of degradation in pastures, as there is no management beyond the selection of areas to be grazed by shepherds

Summary

Introduction

The low productivity of vegetation and susceptibility to erosion limit human livelihoods. Until recently, these areas were sparsely inhabited and used mainly for pastoralism and subsistence cultivation. North Africa, and other drylands, some of the traditional land uses (LUs) are being displaced by improvements in livestock management, cultivation that is more intensive, modern irrigation, and land conversions associated with expanding populations. Notwithstanding degradation associated with traditional LUs, degradation in new LUs has not been assessed but is often supposed to be less. This paper assessed the effects of traditional and new LUs in the arid to semi-arid ecotone in the northern Negev (Figure 1). The main Bedouin LU is pastoralism, but forced sedentarization of the traditionally nomadic people and their confinement to a 10% area of the land they formerly occupied [4] has led to greater concentrations of livestock [5,6]

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion