The environmental and economic importance of Astragalus Spinosus in land restoration

Abstract

Astragalus spinous is a native perennial shrubs from Leguminosae family that widely distributed in severely degraded lands at northern Kuwait. A restoration program was applied via levelling and refilling the quarries and rehabilitation of the natural vegetation and wildlife to their original outward appearance before degradation. The existence of Astragalus shrubs indicated that soil after depth 40 cm was very hard and compacted. Therefore, A. spinosus is considered as one of the efficient native plants in the rehabilitation process for highly degraded lands affected by soil compaction and sealing. The A. spinosus formed a maximum volume of nabkha deposits up to 1.12 m3 which makes it one of the effective plants in controlling mobile sand and dust. Every single plant has the capability to save the Kuwait economy by USD 3.6 via trapping mobile sand and saving the infrastructures from sand encroachment as a major challenge.

Keywords

• astragalus
• land degradation
• restoration
• native plant
• kuwait