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SOILS OF THE KARAK PLATEAU
 Soils and associated resources have a significant influence on the potential success and activities of people in a region. The success of agriculture, and subsequently society, is directly related to land resource quality; this statement applies today as well as 2500 years ago during the time when Moabites inhabited the Karak Plateau. The soils investigation of the Karak Plateau in Jordan was initiated in 1997 and continued in 1999, and 2001 to study the impact of the natural resource base on Moabites and subsequent peoples; this investigation was part of a larger archaeological and environmental study of the region. This is an especially interesting area to study the land resource impact on society because of the current and past variability of rainfall from the sub-arid western area to the desert environment to the east. This region is also undergoing rapid development of agricultural lands and the influx of many inhabitants and this is putting stress on the available natural resources.
The Karak Plateau is located about 75 km south of Amman, the capital of Jordan, and encompasses approximately 500 square miles with a wide variety of soils and landscapes. This wide variety of soils and landscapes has resulted from the complex geologic history, climatic variation, and other environmental factors. The northern and southern boundaries of the Karak Plateau are the Wadi al-Mujib and Wadi al-Hasa, respectively. The western boundary is composed of the steep slopes adjacent to the Dead Sea, and the eastern boundary is the desert highway.
[Figure 1
 ] is a satellite image of the study area; the Dead Sea is visible on the western side of the image and the pronounced dissection of the landscape on the north and south are Wadi al-Mujib and Wadi al-Hasa, respectively.
[Figure 2
]
is a photograph of a portion of Wadi al-Mujib; this wadi is the grand canyon of Jordan. The delineations on the image are soil associations and will be discussed later.
The objectives of the environmental study on the Karak Plateau are: (1) acquaint students to the geography of a portion of Jordan, (2) get an appreciation for soils and landscapes of semi-arid and arid regions and factors influencing soil variability, and (3) understand the challenges of this environmentally sensitive region.
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Last Updated on
12/27/2003 05:38 PM
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