The Andalusian International University held a workshop entitled Temporary wetlands’ future in drylands under the projected global change scenario March 2020 Baeza, Spain, with 26 participants from 10 countries. objectives were to promote international cooperation and scientific exchange on conservation protection of temporary wetlands. highlighted extreme conditions that permanent wetlands, po...

Vegetation patches in drylands are localized structures of biomass and water. We study these structures using a mathematical modeling approach that captures biomass-water feedbacks. Biomass-water structures are found to differ in their spatial forms and ecological functions, depending on species type, soil conditions, precipitation range, and other environmental factors. Asymptotic spot structu...

The soil nourishing the crops that provide our food and fiber is a complex environment where microbes live in numbers estimated to reach 2 billion per ounce of soil. Millions upon millions of individual bacteria and fungi Uve on root surfaces and the soil particles that surround them. Bacteria are the smallest and the most abundant. The fungi, usually larger than bacteria, are found throughout ...

Groundwater storage (GS) is the major water resource for vegetation in drylands. Thus, positive relationships between vegetative growth condition (VGC) and GS are expected Since mining-induced dewatering tends to deplete surrounding mine sites, VGC should become less favorable due a shortage of accessible water. However, quantitative analysis repealed opposite. We found that global annual miner...

Drylands cover about 41% of the Earth’s land surface and are inhabited by more than two billion people, who rely on diversified ecosystem services provided drylands for their livelihoods. Achieving sustainable livelihoods (SLs) is a key component achieving development goals set agenda in 2030. Although it has aroused extensive interest, research SLs at regional scale still limited. This paper a...

Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Institute for Dryland Environmental Research, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 84990 Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Israel, UMR CNRS-UM2-IFREMER-IRD 5119 Ecosystemes Lagunaires, University of Montpellier 2, CC093, FR-34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France, Wyler Department of Dryland Agriculture, French Associates Instit...

crop production technologies. In many regions, livestock are also a means of storing capital, of buffering Many semiarid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are experiencfood shortages in years of poor crop production, and of ing vast increases in human population pressure and urbanization. meeting social and religious obligations of farmers. These augment the demand for agricultural products a...

This paper introduces and evaluates DryMOD, a dynamic water balance model of the key hydrological process in drylands that is based on free, public-domain datasets. The rainfall model of DryMOD makes optimal use of spatially disaggregated Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) datasets to simulate hourly rainfall intensities at a spatial resolution of 1-km. Regional-scale applications of th...

In drylands, both dust storms and ephemeral salt lakes (playas) are common. Observations using remote sensing and ground studies have shown that these playas can be major sources of saline dust storms. Some basins have recently become desiccated as a result of water abstraction by humans, and these have become significant sources of dust. The timing and amounts of dust emissions depends on such...