Impact of land degradation and conservation on income in different ecological environments in Jordan

Recently, the interaction between natural resources and agriculture practices has been appreciated as highly significant in natural resources management. Population growths, urbanization, in addition to the dramatic fluctuations in rainfall are defined as dynamic factors affecting natural resources management and sustainability in farming. This interaction had imposed additional pressure on land in the marginal areas in Jordan. In these areas, the farming family struggles to cultivate crops and raise livestock irrespective to the mentioned factors. Accordingly, land degradation is linked by a chain of cause and effect with rural family practices and their level of income in these areas. This book represents a comprehensive description of different rural families in the marginal areas, regarding their resource use and living standards. Later, the analysis was proceeded to define the socio-economic factors that affect family decisions on land management and conservation, linking farm income to the family perception and decisions for land management and conservation. Following this, different future strategies were applied and assessed to measure their impact on family income and resource use and allocation at the family level. The results showed the importance of farm income on the perception and the decisions of families in land management and conservation in a causal nexus relation. In that line, the suggested future strategies related to land conservation and management showed a positive impact on the family income, which would promote the importance of the integration between family objectives for having higher income and the proper decisions in land management for sustainability.