Global warming reduces water supplies in both rural and urban settings, affecting community livelihoods and quality of life in agricultural and urban landscapes. Increasingly, agricultural and domestic water use are in conflict as both seek to maximize water allocations to deliver important ecosystem services such as food security and urban comfort. Those selecting appropriate plant species to guarantee these services within these different environments adopt similar analysis frameworks to best use irrigation resources and adapt green infrastructure to climate change. Each community seeks to optimize a fundamental conflict between spending water (to ensure crop productivity or cool urban environments) and saving water (to ensure planted species survive) according to soil water availability. Sharing complementary technical knowledge on the diversity of plant responses (including water-saving species), water-saving irrigation scheduling (driven by improved and/or remote measurements of plant water status), and use of non-conventional (waste) waste sources should enhance resilience in delivering essential ecosystem services. Bringing academic, technical, and commercial communities from Israel and the UK together to exchange knowledge and transfer technology on plant selection and irrigation management offers opportunities to enhance practice.
BIDR MENA UK.pdf
