Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation

21Vegetation Advantages for Water and Soil Conservation

Hadis Salehi Gahrizsangi¹, Saeid Eslamian², Nicolas R. Dalezios³, Anna Blanta³, and Mohadaseh Madadi⁴

¹School of Food, Plant and Animal Industries, Melbourne Polytechnic, Melbourne, Australia

²Department of Water Engineering, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

³Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

⁴Department of Architecture, Islamic Azad University, Shahinshahr Branch, Isfahan, Iran

21.1 Introduction

Humanity has an enormous advantage on Earth: the ability to grow food. Every other lifeform spends most of their day gathering and hunting for nutrition. Today, billions of people are sustained by what farmers grow. When it comes to survival, growing food is clearly an asset. However, this upper hand is fragile (Monsanto).

Soil and water conservation constitute a worldwide strategy for sustainable natural resource management. “Soil and water conservation are those activities at the local level, which maintain or enhance the productive capacity of the land including soil, water and vegetation in areas prone to degradation through: prevention or reduction of soil erosion, compaction, salinity; conservation or drainage of water; and maintenance or improvement of soil fertility” (Department of Earth Sciences, Free University of Berlin ). For all farmers and people engaged in conservation, reducing soil erosion has long been a priority. On the other hand, there ...