Causes and Indicators of Land Degradation in the North-Western Part of Kuwait PDF

Keywords

Land degradation, Socio economic, North Western Kuwait, Vehicle tracks, Overgrazing, Sandy berms, Gravel quarries

Abstract

In the North-Western area of Kuwait, socio-economic activities were represented by four main land uses. vehicle tracks, overgrazing, sandy berms and gravel quarries. All of these activities were delineated in the form of statistical data and three different maps, and were also compared with other case studies in Kuwait. There were 1018 facilities in the study area, 66% of these were suffering from a sand encroachment problem, and most of it without a sustainable action plan. Also, There were 878 grazing points observed in the study area, mainly concentrated in the Southern sector Density of off-road vehicle tracks within the study area ranged widely from 0.46 to 4.27 km/km. with an average of 2.49 km/km', which are much higher than those measured in other study areas (Al-Mutlaa and Al-Salmi). It has been concluded that off-road tracks and grazing points are highly related to each other and both are found in higher densities around watering points. Furthermore, the Southern sector is highly degraded in comparison to other parts of the study area. As a result, developing a national action plan to control land degradation is strongly recommended. The principle of this action plan has been outlined in this study.