Spatial Shift of Aridity and Its Impact on Land Use of Syria

Mohammad Rajab Houmsi, Mohammed Sanusi Shiru, Mohamed Salem Nashwan, Kamal Ahmed, Ghaith Falah Ziarh, Shamsuddin Shahid, Eun-Sung Chung and Sungkon Kim
Additional contact information
Mohammad Rajab Houmsi: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Mohammed Sanusi Shiru: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Mohamed Salem Nashwan: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Kamal Ahmed: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Ghaith Falah Ziarh: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Shamsuddin Shahid: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Eun-Sung Chung: Faculty of Protection and Safety Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01811, Korea
Sungkon Kim: Faculty of Protection and Safety Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01811, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-18

Abstract: Expansion of arid lands due to climate change, particularly in water stressed regions of the world can have severe implications on the economy and people’s livelihoods. The spatiotemporal trends in aridity, the shift of land from lower to higher arid classes and the effect of this shift on different land uses in Syria have been evaluated in this study for the period 1951–2010 using high-resolution monthly climate data of the Terrestrial Hydrology Research Group of Princeton University. The trends in rainfall, temperature and potential evapotranspiration were also evaluated to understand the causes of aridity shifts. The results revealed an expansion of aridity in Syria during 1951–1980 compared to 1981–2010. About 6.21% of semi-arid land was observed to shift to arid class and 5.91% dry-subhumid land to semi-arid land between the two periods. Analysis of results revealed that the decrease in rainfall is the major cause of increasing aridity in Syria. About 28.3% of agriculture land located in the north and the northwest was found to shift from humid to dry-subhumid or dry-subhumid to semi-arid. Analysis of results revealed that the shifting of drylands mostly occurred in the northern agricultural areas of Syria. The land productivity and irrigation needs can be severely affected by increasing aridity which may affect food security and the economy of the country.

Keywords: aridity; shift of arid lands; Mann–Kendall test; land use; Syria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7047/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7047/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:7047-:d:296012

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().