Conference Agenda

Restoration of degraded rangelands through rainwater harvesting (RWH) has emerged as a key intervention in arid and semi-arid regions for sustaining and improving their productivity and the ecosystem services they support. We carry out a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to assess the economic viability of implementing contour ridges as an in-situ RWH technique to restore the degraded rangelands in Jordan, a country characterized by extensive pastoral areas and significant water deficiency expected to be worsened through climate change. We consider the benefits derived from changes in three key ecosystem services, namely forage production, water availability, and soil erosion prevention, and the costs for implementing and maintaining contour ridges. We employed the Global Range (G-Range) model to quantify the increase in forage production and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to estimate the increase in water availability and the improvement of soil erosion prevention. The CBA was conducted across five distinct classes within the rangeland, differentiated by average annual rainfall, land slope, and soil organic carbon (SOC), which allows us to cover 69% of Jordanian rangelands. We find Positive Net Present Values (NPVs) for all five classes across three discount rates considered, indicating that the implementation of contour ridges is economically viable throughout the rangelands. We also highlight key limitations that may arise when implementing contour ridges in practice and discuss further research needed to optimize restoration efforts and promote sustainable ecosystem management.