Rapid population growth, declining natural resources and global climate change threaten food security and water sustainability in countries in arid and semiarid regions. These countries routinely resort to green fodder cultivation to feed livestock to supply domestic meat consumption. However, this practice is diminishing cultivating lands for other crops, and depleting limited water resources. Herein, we applied an in-depth modeling strategy to show that revegetation of discarded desert lands to restore the ecosystem functions of natural grazing in Kuwait can meaningfully improve food security and water sustainability. Importantly, we found that revegetating 10% of the country’s land with native species could support up to 23% domestic livestock through natural grazing at optimal coverage (70%) and high productivity. However, dependence solely on natural rainfall would unlikely achieve optimal coverage. Strategic irrigation in the fall season (Oct and Nov) would most likely maximize vegetation coverage, enhance food security, and the overall water sustainability because the net water consumption for irrigating native species is much lower than that for green fodder irrigation. Our results clearly demonstrate that improving ecosystem services in arid and semiarid countries by revegetating desert lands with native species can enhance both food security and water sustainability.

Facilitated revegetation of native desert plants enhances water sustainability and food security in arid regions

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.