Drylands are an important global land type that supports millions of people, yet large areas are currently degraded.We show how artificially constructed micro depressions in an arid rangeland have a moderating effect on soil surface temperature, reducing it under hot conditions but increasing it when temperatures are low.This moderating effect could have a substantial positive effect on plant growth and therefore make micro depressions a relatively inexpensive technique to restore arid rangelands.
Swart et al. (Wed,) studied this question.