The badiya[i] is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 square miles) of the Middle East, including parts of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.[ii] It accounts for 85% of the land area of Jordan[iii] and 55% of Syria.[iv] To the south it borders and merges into the Arabian Desert.[v] Much of the Badiya has become severely degraded by historic misuse over hundreds of years.[vi] Trees were cut and used for buildings, but more intensively for firewood and making charcoal. This pressure and centuries of overgrazing by herds of thousands of camels, goats, and sheep has left the ground barren in many areas.[vii] This hastens erosion, speeds runoff and flood damage, and enables sand and dust to blow in the wind. The smooth dry surfaces make it hard for plants to germinate and grow.
The situation in Jordan’s Badia (spelled without the y) is typical, but even as the crises deepen opportunities remain. They include increasing food production, adding more renewable biofuels and solar energy, increasing water capture, and protecting and enhancing biodiversity. Ecological restoration on the scale needed here is rarely talked about or done, but the need becomes greater year after year, with new extremes from climate change and added challenges of refugees from conflict and climate change.
Food
Jordan produces only 100,000 tons of wheat a year with yields of just a ton per hectare. To meet the national demand for wheat, Jordan imports more than a million tons a year at a cost of US$250 per ton in 2024. In contrast, the ancient Nabateans used a wheat variety that may have produced 3.5 tons/ha with floodwater farming in the Negev.[viii] By growing more wheat and barley more money could stay in Jordan, reducing hunger risk, vulnerability to outside events affecting the global wheat market, and creating jobs. Investing in training and support for home gardens would also be valuable.[ix]
Energy
Jordan also relies on imports of fossil fuels. In 2014 imports met more than ninety percent of Jordan’s energy demand at a cost of 40% of the country’s budget.[x] Progress has been made since then and in 2024 almost a third of the electricity is now from renewable sources, both solar and wind.[xi]
Energy costs remain high and villages and families with low income could benefit from locally produced biofuels. The restoration of olives, vines, shrubs and trees can result in more local, renewable biofuel from prunings. Extensive planting of retam and other preferred fuel shrubs and trees could provide needed fuel for homes. Mobile kilns could produce high quality charcoal from shrub wood and pruning. Biofuels could also provide locally sourced energy for microgrid powerplants. Energy supplies from passive solar building design, solar water heating, and photovoltaic systems could also provide the energy needed to reach energy balance for Jordanian families.
Water
Jordan faces increasing problems with water shortages.[xii] What little rain that falls is precious and as the Nabateans intensive water harvesting is essential. Rainwater capture can provide water for families, crops, restoration efforts, improved grazing, and recharge groundwater. Soil surface shaping and other water harvesting techniques are essential for the restoration of ecosystems, trees, shrubs and crops.[xiii] Water harvesting and ecosystem recovery will also reduce the risk from flash floods.[xiv]
Soil surface modification with pitting is one of the most important options for soil surface modification.[xv] Pitting improves water infiltration and retention, reduces evaporation, and increases surface storage and the time available for infiltration to occur.[xvi],[xvii] Pitting can double absorption rates.[xviii] Water run-off and soil erosion on bare areas can be minimized with sufficient pitting. Pitting within the higher areas of the watershed traps runoff on the slopes for increased forage production and can reduce flash floods, gully and stream erosion.[xix]
Water demand for growing food in home gardens can be reduced by using buried clay pot irrigation.[xx] In a study in Kenya the buried clay pot system used only 3% as much water as furrow irrigation and the fresh fruit tomato yields was 43% larger.[xxi] Dish water and bathwater can be used for growing food (tree crops, vines) or shrub wood for fuel.
Biodiversity
The government goals for protecting biodiversity are encouraging.[xxii] Jordan is committed to study its biodiversity to conserve its natural resources and ensure the sustainable use of its resources.[xxiii] The result of applying these principles at a large scale in several areas will demonstrate the potential for recovery and improvement of Jordan’s ecosystems.
The strategies developed and used in Ancient Petra can be helpful in restoring biodiversity on the badia barren lands in Jordan and badiya across the Middle East. Shaping the soil surface for water harvesting with fencing to manage grazing has demonstrated that some areas still have seed banks to aid recovery. The revival of the traditional use of the hima system of use rights can foster recovery of ecosystems by better managing grazing pressure.
Community Participation
Listening to and working closely with farmers (both men and women) can make a big difference in the adoption of more productive methods. In Burkina Faso technical training that included women led to adoption of water harvesting pit planting (zai) on 86% of the farms. ICARDA and the Jordanian National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) developed a community-based watershed rehabilitation approach that effectively rehabilitates degraded rangelands in upland-watershed areas with mechanized micro water harvesting and the planting native shrub seedlings.[xxiv] This also enhances localized downstream-watershed wheat and barley production.
Joint resources management and community empowerment ensure the long-term sustainability of the integrated watershed approach.[xxv] Research was carried out at the Badia Research Site close to Al-Majidyya village in the Middle Badia of Jordan, to help increase understanding socio-ecological dynamics including the long-term impact of rehabilitation on surface runoff and soil erosion.
Economic Return on Investment
The investment in restoration has potentially large benefits. Funding now going to other countries for food and energy can be retained. Water and soil will be conserved. Restoration of the degraded Badia areas will decrease annual surface runoff from an average of 23.5 to 19.1 mm/year and soil erosion rate from 3.3 to 1.3 tons/ha.[xxvi] With time, restoration can return rangeland water and sediment dynamics toward the baselines of 16.9 mm/year runoff rates and 0.85 ton/ha/year soil loss. With contour pitting, revegetation and terracing the water capture and erosion reduction will be even greater.
The present value and management cost estimate for a 109,000 ha Badia project was 10.1 million $JD.[xxvii] The benefits for the grazing community were predominant, but there were also social, environmental and economic benefits for Jordan and the world. The present value benefits of large scale restoration over 25 years were calculated at 25 million $JD to the grazers,138 million to Jordanian society, and 152 to global society with a discount rate of 7%. The benefits of large scale revegetation also include keeping 307,500 cubic meters of sediment from being deposited in the King Talal Dam. Revegetation would also reduce the risk of flash flood damage to infrastructure and, particularly flood risk for tourist sites like Petra.[xxviii]
Implentation
Experience around the world has made it clear that soil pitting is the most cost effective treatment for degraded lands. Pits capture water and provide safe sites for seeds, water and protection for seedlings. Soil pitting should also make it possible to grow grapes, olives, grains, and other crops in more areas of the Badia.
Zai
One of the most successful techniques for the rehabilitation of severely degraded land is the improved traditional planting pit or zai.[xxix]. This traditional technique was improved in the early 1980’s by Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer in the Yatenga region of Burkina Faso.[xxx] He increased the diameter and the depth of the traditional pits and put manure in them during the dry season. By concentrating water and soil fertility in one spot, millet and sorghum grew well and survived dry spells. The pits are about 20-30 cm deep and are filled with organic matter. This attracts termites which dig channels and thus improve soil structure so that more water can infiltrate and be held in the soil.[xxxi] By digesting the organic matter, the termites make nutrients more easily available to plants.
Preparing zai takes 50 person days per hectare in Burkina Faso.[xxxii] If labor is hired at 3 euro day the cost would be 150 euro ha. Tens of thousands of hectares of degraded land have been brought back into production in the Sahel with zai pits, often in combination with other improved traditional techniques such as contour ridges and stone lines. Ousseni Zorome, the Regional Director at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning created a zai school. The use of zai has spread from its humble beginning in Burkina Faso.[xxxiii] Sorghum yield without zai, 125 kg/ha, with zai plus manure 500 kg/ha. The zai have spread rapidly because they make a harvest possible even in years of low rainfall (300-400 kg/ha of millet) and with high yield possible in good years (1,500-2,000 kg/ha). In some areas the groundwater recharge in the pits led to water table rise of up to 5 m.
Zai are also used for environmental restoration and tree planting. Thanks to zai more trees on farmers‘ fields than 15-20 years ago in Yatenga province. One farmer remembered that he had nine trees on his barren fields in 1983, but 2000 trees in 1999, and he is not an exception. Zai can be very effective in restoration and revegetation. It takes no more than a hoe and a trained worker. Labor cost is not insignificant – but it can provide big rewards.
Pitting is relatively easy to do with hand labor and is less noticeable in a restoration project because the pattern can be varied easily and the checkerboard patterns that can develop with mechanical treatments can be avoided. Hand pitting is best done as a communal activity so progress is clearly visible. A team of people working their way down slope can pit a large area in a day. Providing training and high quality tools for hand pitting would provide great returns. Farmers and families would benefit from the best possible hand tools. McLeod tools ($80 US), indestructible large field hoes ($100 US) and the best 3 gallon watering cans from France ($50 US) can all improve productivity. Where possible the hand tools could be made by local blacksmiths.
The zai have substantially improved food security at family level and at the same time have improved the environment. This innovation has spread across country and cultural boundaries. Other traditional water harvesting practices may also be of interest.[xxxiv]
Camel Pitter
A wide variety of pitting plows have been developed and used. Australia’s Kimseed Camel Pitter has been available for several decades. It can be pulled by a truck, jeep or camel. The Camel Pitter includes seed metering devices. A similar plow can be made in a local fabrication shop. A Kimseed Camel pitter dragged at 8 km with 2 discs 1 meter apart running 8 hrs day can treat 6.4 ha day for 300 days a year would treat almost 2,000 ha.
A fleet of 4×4 trucks or utility vehicles with simple disc pitters could treat many hectares every year. Maintenance is simple and can be performed at any shop. Seed sources would need to be identified. Seed collection would be needed and if insufficient seed was found it could be grown out to get more seeds. A series of local nurseries would be able to produce the needed seedlings.
Vallerani System
The Vallerani system of soil pitting is very effective but more costly). Each Vallerani plow can treat 20 ha per day, digging 5.720 micro basins. The larger tractors required and the Delphi plows are more complex and would require more maintenance and technical support. Each tractor (John Deere 6140 or equivalent), might cost US$100-150,000. The Delphi pitter plow from Nardi might cost about $40,000. Ultimately treatment costs might be on the order of US$100 ha plus the cost of seedlings.
Big Goals
The challenge of the Badia is to treat tens of thousands of hectares a year. To make this progress possible all forms of water harvesting will be needed, from zai to the Vallerani system. This would benefit from investment in training in schools and communities across the Badia for all these techniques. Every village would benefit from better hand tools for making pits and contour trenches. Areas further from villages might be treated with Camel pitter seeders towed by 4×4 pickup trucks. Areas with appropriate soils and slopes the Vallerani pitter plow towed by a 150 hp tractor could be used. Treating only 10 to 20 percent of an area with pitting strips on the contour should be enough to dramatically improve establishment and trigger recovery.
The restoration and revegetation goal could be 200,000 ha year from the full range of soil pitting techniques. Six teams with 3 Vallerani plows would provide drivers, fuel and equipment to communities. With eighteen Vallerani pitters 360 ha of badia could receive the highest level of treatment every day, or 130,000 ha a year. 30 Camel pitters and trucks could treat 57,000 ha, and hand pitting could add another 20,000 hectares of zai.
The project would also benefit from six regional nurseries to collect, process and store seeds and to grow out seedlings. Seedlings for planting in treated areas would include: oaks, pistachio trees, junipers and other native trees and shrubs, grapes, olives, retam, and berries. Vegetable starts for home gardens could also be prepared and distributed with information on the most efficient irrigation systems.[xxxv] Training on creating rainwater catchments, cistern building, PV installation and rainwater treatment for drinking water would also be desirable. Overall cost for this scale of project, including labor, would be on the order of $20 million dollars a year for 20 years. This would be offset by savings on wheat and energy imports, reduced flood damage, and additional tourism revenue.
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Desert
[ii] Suttie, J. M. S. G. Reynolds and C. Batello. 2005. Grasslands of the World. FAO. p.453.
[iii] The Hashemite Fund for Development of Jordan Badia. www.badiafund.gov.jo.
[iv] FAO. 2015. The rangelands of the Syrian Arab Republic.
[v] Harris, N. and S. Parker. 2003. Atlas of the World’s Deserts. Taylor & Francis. p. 49.
[vi] ICARDA. nd. Recovering the Degraded Soils of the Badia in Jordan. https://www.icarda.org/research/innovations/recovering-degraded-soils-badia-jordan.
[vii] Al Karadsheh, E., S. Akroush and S. Mazahreh. 2012. Land Degradation in Jordan—Review of Knowledge Resources. OASIS Country Report 1. ICARDA.
[viii] Ashkenazi, E., Y. Avni and G. Avni. 2012. A Comprehensive characterization of ancient desert agricultural systems in the Negev Highlands of Israel. Journal of Arid Environments. 86:55-64.
[ix] Ffolliott. P. F. 1998. Multiple Benefits of arid land agroforestry home hardens and riparian ecosystems. Paper presented at the North American Conference On Enterprise Development Through Agroforestry: Farming the Agroforest for Specialty Products (Minneapolis, MN, October 4(7):41-46. https://nfs.unl.edu/documents/SpecialtyForest/Ffolliott.pdf
[x] Energy Information Agency. 2014. Jordan: Energy Sector Highlights. https://www.eia.gov/international/overview/country/JOR
[xi] na. 2024. Jordan – Renewable Energy. Country Commercial Guide. https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/jordan-renewable-energy
[xii] Rawashdeh, S. 2024. Impact of hydropolitics: Addressing water scarcity in Jordan. The Jordan Times. March 14. https://jordantimes.com/news/local/impact-hydropolitics-addressing-water-scarcity-jordan#google_vignette
[xiii] Bainbridge, D. A. 2007. A Guide to Desert and Dryland Restoration. Island Press, Washington DC.
[xiv]Akasheh, T. S. 2017. The protection of Petra from flash floods. International Conference on Science and Technology in Archeaeology and Conservation At: Amman Jordan, May.
[xv] Bainbridge, D. A.. 1997. Soil pitting: a technique to improve arid land revegetation. Soil Ecology and Restoration Group, San Diego State University. Bulletin #1. San Diego, CA
[xvi] Schuman, G. E., F. Rauzi and G. S. Howard. 1987. Vegetation response to soil surface modification in mined land reclamation. Reclamation and Revegetation Research 6(1):49-54.
[xvii] Oliveira, C.A.S., R. J. Hanks, and U. Shani. 1987. Infiltration and runoff as affected by pitting, mulching and sprinkler irrigation. Irrigation Science 8(1):49-64.
[xviii] Vallentine, J. F. 1971. Range Development and Improvement. BYU Press, Provo, UT 545 p.
[xix] Larson, J. E. 1980. Revegetation Equipment Catalog. Prepared for the Vegetative Rehabilitation and Equipment Workshop (February). Equipment Development Center. Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, Missoula, MT. p. 68.
[xx] Bainbridge, D. A. 2001. Buried clay pot irrigation. Agricultural Water Management. 48(2):79-88.
[xxi] Kefa C. C., E. C. Kipkorir, J. Kwonyike, P. C. Kubowon and H. K. Ndambiri. 2013. Comparison of water use savings and crop yields for clay pot and furrow irrigation methods in Lake Bogoria, Kenya. Journal of Natural Sciences Research. 3(8):34-39.
[xxii] El Shaer, H., F. F. Haddad and B. Salem. 2015. A Toolkit for Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Jordan. Amman, Jordan. IUCN.
[xxiii] Abboud, N. A. 2012. Preserving Biodiversity in Jordan. EcoMENA. October 15. https://www.ecomena.org/biodiversity-jordan/
[xxiv] Strengthening the resilience of rangeland watersheds in Jordan. https://www.icarda.org/research/innovations/strengthening-resilience-rangeland-watersheds-jordan
[xxv] na. Watershed Restoration in Badia Areas of Jordan. ICARDA. https://www.icarda.org/research/projects/watershed-restoration-badia-areas-jordan
[xxvi] Haddad, M., S. M. Strohmeier, K. Nouwakpo, O. Rimawi, M. Weltz and G. Sterk. 2022. Rangeland restoration in Jordan: Restoring vegetation cover by water harvesting measures,International Soil and Water Conservation Research. 10(4):610-622.
[xxvii] Myint, M. M. and V. Westerberg. 2014, An economic valuation of a large-scale rangeland restoration project through in Jordan. Report for the ELD Initiative by International Union for Conservation of Nature, Nairobi, Kenya. Available from: www.eld-initiative.org
[xxviii] Abdelal, Q., A. Al-Rawabdeh, K. Al Qudah, C. Hamarneh and N. Abu-Jaber. 2021. Hydrological assessment and management implications for the ancient Nabataean flood control system in Petra, Jordan. Journal of Hydrology. 601:126583.
[xxix] UNCCD Secretariat. 2005. Promotion of Traditional Knowledge. UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Bonn, Germany 79 p.
[xxx] na. Yacouba Sawadogo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacouba_Sawadogo
[xxxi] Altieri, M. A. and P. Koohafkan. 2008. Enduring Farms: Climate Change, Smallholders and Traditional Farming Communities. Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia. pp. 58-59.
[xxxii] Kabore, D. and C. Reij. 2003. The Emergence and Spread of an Improved Traditional Soil and Water Conservation Practice in Burkina Faso. Presented at the InWEnt, IFPRI, NEPAD, CTA conference “Successes in African Agriculture”, Pretoria, SA. December 1-3, 2003.
[xxxiii] Belmin, R., H. SawadogoMore and M. N’Dienor. 2023. How the zaï technique is helping farmers adapt to climate change in the Sahel. Industries in Depth. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/08/zai-technique-sahel-farmers-adapt-climate-change/
[xxxiv] Mekdaschi, S, R. and H. Liniger. 2013. Water Harvesting: Guidelines to Good Practice. Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), Bern; Rainwater Harvesting Implementation Network (RAIN), Amsterdam; MetaMeta, Wageningen; The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Rome.
[xxxv] Bainbridge, D. A. 2015. Gardening with Less Water. Storey Press.
