Cities in drylands as artificial protected areas for plants
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COMMENTARY
Cities in drylands as artificial protected areas for plants Farrokh Ghahremaninejad1
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Ehsan Hoseini1
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Sogol Fereidounfar2
Received: 20 March 2020 / Revised: 28 October 2020 / Accepted: 31 October 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Freshwater is not abundantly available in many parts of the planet. Drylands cover about 41.3% of the face of the earth and support more than 2 billion people. Drylands are susceptible to a wide variety of natural and/or human-driven disasters which could lead to human catastrophes such as famine and huge population displacements. Populated areas prioritize their interests by controlling and diverting the water resources available, consequently, they have negative effects on the delicate natural ecosystems in drylands. Moreover, global warming and desertification threaten the wildlife and force the remaining floral elements to face the dilemma of between migration and extinction. Cities, with their managed and irrigated green spaces are safe havens for many plants. In this paper, the necessity of turning cities in drylands to artificial protected areas is discussed and the various aspects of urban life to serve not only human population, but the endangered plant species are also addressed. Keywords Urbanization Global warming Extinction Urban planning Conservation Species richness Biodiversity Desertification Migration
The distribution of precipitation and fresh water available is far from even in the global scale. Drylands, the areas with aridity index values smaller than 0.65, cover nearly 60.9 million square kilometers, 41.3% of Earth’s land (Cherlet et al. 2018). Drylands Communicated by Daniel Sanchez Mata. This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Urban biodiversity. & Farrokh Ghahremaninejad [email protected] Ehsan Hoseini [email protected] Sogol Fereidounfar [email protected] 1
Department of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University, 15719-14911 Tehran, Iran
2
Proiser, C/Catedra´tico Agustin Escardino 9, Edificio 3, Planta 1, 46980 Paterna, Valencia, Spain
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Biodiversity and Conservation
support more than 2 billion people, about 18.5% of the global population, 90% of whom live in the developing countries (UN Environment management group 2011). Rural and Urban areas in drylands consume the largest share of water resources. The annual water withdrawal by agricultural and municipal areas in some regions of the drylands were estimated to be as follows, respectively: 86.0% and 11.0% in Arabian Peninsula in 2007, 92.0% and 7.0% in Iran in 2007, 78.0% and 11% in Near East in 2007, 98.2% and 1.0% in Afghanistan in 2005, 94.3% and 2.7% in Turkmenistan in 2004, 90.0% and 7.3% in Uzbekistan in 2005, 93.0% and 2.8% in Kyrgyzstan in 2006 and 85.0% and 9.0% in Northern Africa in 2004 (Frenken 2005, 2009, 2013). Drylands are prone to periodic drought, flood, soil degradation, desertification and global warming side effects (Neely et al. 2009). Th
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