Abstract: Historical maps of the Negev Desert which comprises half of the total land area of Palestine can be viewed from several intersecting perspectives relating to aspects such as their contribution to tracing patterns of settlement and agricultural history, imperialism and mapping, and legal geography of land ownership and indigenous people. Here we focus mainly on the first theme, incorporate new methods and demonstrate their application to studies in historical geography. Since the end of the 18th century the Negev has attracted considerable attention due to its strategic location straddling three continents, its history, and its archeology. After the European powers recognized the geopolitical importance of this area in the mid 19th century, numerous surveys and mapping efforts were conducted. In this study we reviewed 375 historical maps covering parts or all of the Negev between 1799 and 1948. These historical maps are crucial to the understanding of colonial developments, a

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Abstract

Severe competition for water and augmented agricultural and urban development in Israel have modified and destroyed wetland habitats. Using historical maps, we mapped the past extent of swamps and natural rain pools along the central coastal plain of Israel and compared this with the present extent as reflected in reports, field surveys and satellite images. Out of 192 swamps and rain pools recorded in historical sources, only 18% (35) still exist today. Extrapolation from 69 new records of rain pools (missing in historical sources), suggests that in the 19th century, before many of the wetlands were drained, transformed to agricultural land, or built over, the number of wetland habitats in the coastal plain was threefold higher. In addition to reduction of wetland number, human activity has also diminished wetland size. In rainy winters wetland areas in the coastal plain in the past were an order of magnitude larger than they are today (27.6 and 2.4km2, respectively). At present, the

The importance of global and regional coordination in conservation is growing, although currently, the majority of conservation programs are applied at national and subnational scales. Nevertheless, multinational programs incur transaction costs and resources beyond what is required in national programs. Given the need to maximize returns on investment within limited conservation budgets, it is crucial to quantify how much more biodiversity can be protected by coordinating multinational conservation efforts when resources are fungible. Previous studies that compared different scales of conservation decision-making mostly ignored spatial variability in biodiversity threats and the cost of actions. Here, we developed a simple integrating [...]

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Landscape continuity is an important factor to consider while conducting evaluation of nature and landscape sensitivity. The new method presented here for landscape continuity analysis offers a quantitative tool to compare alternative land use plans in order to maintain maximum landscape continuity of open areas. The approach can be applied at multiple spatial scales and adds an important layer for conservation planning. In contrast with the methodology of ecological networks this method does not assume any natural core areas. Rather, it assigns a continuity value to grid cells based on their distance from different types of built areas that are weighted according to their estimated impact. Two case studies from Israel are presented: (1) an analysis on a whole country scale, demonstrating how regions within Israel differ in landscape continuity, as well as examining how these results are influenced by the weights assigned to different built-up areas; (2) an analysis for the Ramot Mena

ABSTRACT

With the current loss of biodiversity, efforts are being amassed to prioritize biodiversity hotspots that should receive high conservation priority. These studies often compare different biogeogrpahical regions using absolute estimates of species richness or rarity. Consequently, arid, semiarid, and other areas (e.g., boreal) are often ignored or are undervalued. Here, using a regional case study, we propose and demonstrate an approach that enables us to determine plant-based hotspots over landscape units across biogeographical regions using normalized, and comparing with absolute, measures. Three botanical variables were calculated for 521 predetermined landscape units in Israel. These included plant species richness, the sum of scores of red (endangered) species, and a spatial exclusiveness score, all calculated from the Israel Plant Information Center (Rotem) database. We classified the landscape units into six rainfall belts (from extreme-arid to mesic-Mediterranean), as a normali

The changes in color of sand dunes from white to yellow or red is often interpreted to signify their age or their source materials. In this study we demonstrate the effect seasonal inter-dune freshwater ponds have on the bleaching of the color of sand dunes by iron reduction in the anaerobic conditions they create. By combining spectral measurements of field samples of dune sand together with the analysis of satellite images covering three dune fields in NE Brazil (Len??is Maranhenses, Jericoacoara and Canoa Quebrada) we demonstrate its existence in the field. In areas where ponds cover 41% of the dune field (as in Len??is Maranhenses) an almost total bleaching in the color of the sand occurs after which the dunes remain white with no relation to distance from the coastline. In areas with less ponds (e.g. Jericoacoara or Canoa Quebrada) dune whitening is less active, and there are areas where dune rubification occurs. As this process may have occurred in other dune fields during past

Abstract