In Israel's Negev, a ray of hope shines for combating global climate instability
For researchers at Ben Gurion University, the long-standing strategy of desert greening has significance as a potential solution to deal with climate change
Israel's arid deserts may hold the secret to combating climate change.
“Israel is the only country in the world where the desert is getting smaller—it's the opposite of desertification,” Professor Noam Weisbrod, Director of the Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben Gurion University, tells i24NEWS.
“There are more and more areas within the Negev desert where we see farms.”
It's not by chance, but by a generations-long program to make southern Israel's Negev desert bloom with life. That was the dream of Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion. And at Ben Gurion University, researchers are working on the 'how.’
“Israel is a leading nation in terms of water reuse—mostly for agriculture, as well as desalination. We are improving on these processes, making them better, faster and cheaper—more efficient,” Professor Weisbrod says.
Professor Weisbrod focuses on water research at the Blaustien Institutes for Desert Research—where faculty are learning lessons from the desert to serve all of humanity on a changing planet.
“The earth is 47% dryland according to the UN definition. We are dealing with topics important to the future of humanity, given the fact that climate instability—something we talk about all the time—is especially emphasized in dryland. Population growth is mostly in drylands. Desertification makes the world more and more dryland,” says Weisbrod.
The lessons can't be learned in a classroom though. At the institute, these scientists are following the Negev's wildlife to see what human actions are doing to the world around us.
Professor Uri Roll tracks goats and birds across the sands. His field of ecological research looks at the native populations over time—and whether past changes can predict the future.
“The biodiversity crisis is an event happening now around the planet, where we as humans either deliberately, or as a consequence of our other actions, are decreasing the number of plants or animals. This is not happening on a small scale, it's a global scale, and it's parallel to extinction events in the past,” says Professor Roll.
“We are going to have these extreme events,” he continues. “Fires, floods, even just periods of prolonged extreme temperatures—this can have profound effects on animals and plants, so we look at the past to see what effects these events had on animal populations so we can project it onto the future.”
It's very hands-on. Dr. Krista Oswald, a postdoctoral scholar, takes us out into the sand and scrub in the early morning to count birds.
“This one has built its nest inside of a saltbush that's kind of hidden in a mesquite. We set up a camera so I could monitor the nest remotely. I don't have to come out here every day or two to see how the nestlings are doing, unlike most other studies”
This birdwatching has a purpose: to learn how the local fauna interacts with human settlement, and how it is impacting the bird population.
“One of the things I am trying to figure out this year by putting tags on them, is whether or not they are foraging within the settlement to see if that is making the difference,” Dr. Oswald says.
The answers could help us understand better how to interact with our surroundings—and how not to. And as the planet changes around us, perhaps it can also answer what is the best way to preserve what we still have.