Abstract
The results of a comparison of agricultural settlement and land-use and local precipitation patterns in the arid region of the Arava in Israel indicated that as the number of settlements and the area of cultivated land has increased since the 1950s, the albedo effect in the region has decreased, and the amounts of precipitation at the first October rains have increased. It is suggested that the albedo effect in desert areas is influenced by extended agricultural land-use.
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