Desert Dreaming

When we were asked to focus on a specific ecosystem this week, I naturally thought of the Arava Valley in southern Israel- my home last year. As we study regional climates, two common examples given are the Amazon and the Desert. Just mentioning the desert always brings me a rush of longing for those vast, empty, mountainous expanses.  

Arava means “desolate and dry area” in Arabic; the valley crosses the Israeli border into Jordan, as nature knows no borders. The Rift valley is created where the African Plate meets the Arabian plate, and when I would hike up behind my home I would see this because the landscape is mountains on the Jordan side (east), then flat land with some sand dunes running along the valley (north-south), then mountains again on the Israeli side (west). The sand dunes were created from Timna mountain on the Israeli side; however, they will be gone soon due to mining sand for building development. This was an issue that we put a lot of activism into, resulting in six of my classmates and one professor arrested for civil disobedience. The sand dunes are a unique and beautiful ecosystem that host endemic species and provide recreational enjoyment for the locals (See picture below). Alas, the bulldozers won again.

The Jordanian mountains represent the watershed divide between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. The climate is dry dry dry, with an average of 30 mm rain/year. When I was there we had about 10 mm rain/yr. Temperatures were extremely high, except for a couple months in the winter. There is almost no vegetative cover; the only tree that thrives in the Arava is the Acacia tree. The Acacia is a keystone species, providing shade, leaves for browsers, shelter for birds, and nutrients. However, the mortality rate is increasing due to anthropogenic causes. 

Zooming out to the country scale, Israel has stated their concern about climate change and has placed it as a national priority. With increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfall, the country needs to be concerned about drinking water availability and lower quality. These can lead to significant impacts on food, public health risks, geopolitical implications, water security, and other complications. In Israel, and everywhere in the world, the people who control the water hold the power. It is quite a real situation when Palestinian neighbors are allocated water below the UN standard of daily water rights.

But that is for another blog all together.