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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), fungal diseases are responsible for destroying a third of all food crops annually, causing immense economical loss and adding to global poverty. For example, powdery mildew is a serious fungal disease, which is easily noticeable by patches of white powder found on leaves and attacks a wide range of plants. To treat these diseases, farmers are forced to use synthetic fungicides which are effective, but their extensive overuse and misuse have devastating impacts. Now, Professor Boaz Pokroy and Professor Ester Segal, of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, have proposed an environmentally friendly alternative for the exploration of which they received an EIC Pathfinder grant of $1.5 million.

Prof. Ester Segal

Some plants, like lotus and broccoli, naturally exhibit anti-adhesive wax crystals on their leaf surfaces. These crystals prevent pathogens from attaching to the plant, as the wax renders the plant inaccessible. Inspired by the crystals of the lotus and the broccoli, Prof. Pokroy from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering and Prof. Segal from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering created SafeWax, a non-toxic biodegradable formulation made from renewable materials, that can be sprayed on any plant and has the same effect as natural plants’ wax. Not only that, but it can also be tuned to provide UV radiation filtering, prevent sun damage, as well as facilitate water collection from dew condensation, mitigating the inevitable effects of climate change. Between the effects of climate change, global population growth, and the already existing global food insecurity, the importance of protecting food crops from disease cannot be understated.

Prof. Boaz Pokroy

Profs. Pokroy and Segal, working in collaboration with colleagues from the Università di Bologna, the Institut Français de la Vigne et du Vin and BASF SE, intend to demonstrate SafeWax’s capabilities on the grapevine – a crop of high importance to Europe’s economy, environment and culture, and which is highly susceptible to fungal diseases and is, for that reason, the most-frequently treated crop. The European Union is planning to prohibit the use of many fungicides due to their toxicity, leaving the grapevine and other crops defenseless unless an effective alternative is found. Europe is therefore eager for the Technion team’s experiments to succeed.

With its Pathfinder scheme, the European Innovation Council (EIC) supports the exploration of bold ideas for radically new technologies. It welcomes the high-risk/high-reward and interdisciplinary cutting-edge science collaborations that underpin technological breakthroughs. From among 858 submissions evaluated this year, the EIC selected only 57 projects to be funded.

Andrea and Lawrence Wolfe

We are thrilled to announce that Andrea and Lawrence Wolfe have received the Albert Einstein Award, the highest recognition given by the American Technion Society (ATS). Expressing his gratitude for all of their support, Technion President Uri Sivan shared: “Your contributions represent the essence of what the Technion was built on: applying the knowledge provided by science for the benefit of humanity and producing the next generation of the brightest minds in science and engineering.”

Andi and Larry Wolfe are involved in supporting the Michigan-Israel Partnership for Research and Education, in which the Technion plays a central role. Over the last decade, the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation (named for Andi’s parents and of which Larry is the President) has supported many vital initiatives at Rambam and the Technion, including the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation Pediatric Pulmonary Institute, the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation Center for Interventional Cardiology, the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Mechanical Engineering Building and most recently, and the Wolfe Center for Translational Medicine and Engineering.

Larry Wolfe has been a member of the American Friends of Rambam Board of Directors for many years. Andi is a member of the Technion Board of Governors and on the National Board of Directors of the American Technion Society (ATS). Both Andi and Larry have also been involved in many other projects in Israel and in the State of Michigan. Among their generous contributions, Andrea and Lawrence Wolfe have supported Professor Marcelle Machluf and her technology for drug delivery and cancer therapy, which helped her launch the biotech company NanoGhost. Over the years, their contributions have enabled Technion researchers to widen and further their impact in a variety of important fields.

On behalf of the Technion community, we sincerely thank you for your support!

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed a revolutionary invisible facemask to protect wearers against the transmission of COVID, MERS, influenza, and other respiratory viruses.

Although conventional facemasks help protect against disease transmission, recent scientific literature shows that they also present adverse psychological and physiological effects. They reduce facial identification and emotion recognition, adversely affect oral communication, and can cause headaches and skin problems. Wearing masks throughout the workday also results in a lack of focus, as well as reduced attention and patience in a wide range of professions. As a result of these difficulties, many people wear masks incorrectly – on or below their mouths – which greatly reduces protection. Even in Japan, where facemasks are common, a large study found that just 20% of people wear masks correctly.

Conventional facemasks have also led to a dramatic rise in plastic waste, exacerbated by governmental mask-wearing mandates, producing millions of tons annually.

Air-Screen: Fluidic facemask

Now, a Technion team led by Professors Moshe Shoham and David Greenblatt has come up with a radically new solution to the conventional mask dilemma by creating an invisible “air-screen” in front of the wearer’s face. The air-screen originates from within a lightweight filter-covered unit mounted on the visor of a cap. Several major advantages became clear: the air-screen protects the eyes, nose, and mouth without negative effects on facial identity, emotion recognition, or oral communication. The air screen is also reusable, so it does not pollute the environment.

Recently published research, based on experiments conducted in Prof. Greenblatt’s laboratory, demonstrated the air-screen’s efficacy by effectively blocking aerosols produced during oral communication, as well as large droplets produced by coughing and sneezing. It also removes quiescent aerosol-laden air from in front of the face by a process known as “entrainment.” This joint effect of blocking and entrainment can be seen in the video, where laser illumination is used to render the airflow visible. David Keisar and Anan Garzozi, students in the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program, were instrumental in conducting and analyzing the experimental data, and in developing a theoretical physics-based mathematical model of the air-screen.

Aerosols rendered visible by ultraviolet illumination.

Several one-on-one interviews and pilot studies with more than 50 subjects from various sectors (e.g., older adults and their caretakers in nursing homes, university professors and their students, close-proximity workers including tutors, physiotherapists and psychologists, retail workers in stores and offices, and high-tech management teams and board members who participate in long meetings indoors), clearly showed the advantage of the invisible air screen over the commonly used face masks. These groups represent potential early adopters, who will benefit most from this new technology in Israel and globally.

The Technion recently licensed the technology to Wisdome Wearables Ltd. This new startup is currently in the process of commercializing the product, and seeking partners to realize this disruptive technology for the benefit of those at high-risk of suffering from respiratory viruses.

For the full article, click here

One in nine women in the developed world will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in her life. The prevalence of breast cancer is increasing, an effect caused in part by the modern lifestyle and increased lifespans. Thankfully, treatments are becoming more efficient and more personalized. However, what isn’t increasing – and is in fact decreasing – is the number of pathologists, or the doctors whose specialization is examining body tissues to provide the specific diagnosis necessary for personalized medicine. A team of researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have therefore made it their quest to turn computers into effective pathologists’ assistants, simplifying and improving the human doctor’s work. Their new study was recently published in Nature Communications.

L-R: Amir Livne, Dr. Gil Shamai and Prof. Ron Kimmel

The specific task that Dr. Gil Shamai and Amir Livne from the lab of Professor Ron Kimmel from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion set out to achieve lies within the realm of immunotherapy. Immunotherapy has been gaining prominence in recent years as an effective, sometimes even game-changing, treatment for several types of cancer. The basis of this form of therapy is encouraging the body’s own immune system to attack the tumor. However, such therapy needs to be personalized as the correct medication must be administered to the patients who stand to benefit from it based on the specific characteristics of the tumor.

Multiple natural mechanisms prevent our immune systems from attacking our own bodies. These mechanisms are often exploited by cancer tumors to evade the immune system. One such mechanism is related to the PD-L1 protein – some tumors display it, and it acts as a sort of password by erroneously convincing the immune system that the cancer should not be attacked. Specific immunotherapy for PD-L1 can persuade the immune system to ignore this particular password, but of course would only be effective when the tumor expresses the PD-L1.

It is a pathologist’s task to determine whether a patient’s tumor expresses PD-L1. Expensive chemical markers are used to stain a biopsy taken from the tumor in order to obtain the answer. The process is non-trivial, time-consuming, and at times inconsistent. Dr. Shamai and his team took a different approach. In recent years, it has become an FDA-approved practice for biopsies to be scanned so they can be used for digital pathological analysis. Amir Livne, Dr. Shamai and Prof. Kimmel decided to see if a neural network could use these scans to make the diagnosis without requiring additional processes. “They told us it couldn’t be done,” the team said, “so of course, we had to prove them wrong.”

Neural networks are trained in a manner similar to how children learn: they are presented with multiple tagged examples. A child is shown many dogs and many “not-dogs”, and from these examples forms an idea of what “dog” is. The neural network Prof. Kimmel’s team developed was presented with digital biopsy images from 3,376 patients that were tagged as either expressing or not expressing PD-L1. After preliminary validation, it was asked to determine whether additional clinical trial biopsy images from 275 patients were positive or negative for PD-L1. It performed better than expected: for 70% of the patients, it was able to confidently and correctly determine the answer. For the remaining 30% of the patients, the program could not find the visual patterns that would enable it to decide one way or the other. Interestingly, in the cases where the artificial intelligence (AI) disagreed with the human pathologist’s determination, a second test proved the AI to be right.

Dr. Gil Shamai

“This is a momentous achievement,” Prof. Kimmel explained. “The variations that the computer found – they are not distinguishable to the human eye. Cells arrange themselves differently if they present PD-L1 or not, but the differences are so small that even a trained pathologist can’t confidently identify them. Now our neural network can.”

This achievement is the work of a team comprised of Dr. Gil Shamai and graduate student Amir Livne, who developed the technology and designed the experiments, Dr. António Polónia from the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto, Portugal, Professor Edmond Sabo and Dr. Alexandra Cretu from Carmel Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, who are expert pathologists that conducted the research, and with the support of Professor Gil Bar-Sela, head of oncology and hematology division at Haemek Medical Center in Afula, Israel.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to bring together artificial intelligence and medicine,” Dr. Shamai said. “I love mathematics, I love developing algorithms. Being able to use my skills to help people, to advance medicine – it’s more than I expected when I started out as a computer science student.” He is now leading a team of 15 researchers, who are taking this project to the next level.

“We expect AI to become a powerful tool in doctors’ hands,” shared Prof. Kimmel. “AI can assist in making or verifying a diagnosis, it can help match the treatment to the individual patient, it can offer a prognosis. I do not think it can, or should, replace the human doctor. But it can make some elements of doctors’ work simpler, faster, and more precise.”

a. A 2D visualization of the image feature vectors by applying t-SNE. Each point represents a single patient in the BCCA test set. The t-SNE embedding maps patients with similar image features to near points, and patients with dissimilar image features to far points. The points are colored by the PD-L1 prediction scores of their corresponding patients. The 8 patients that were classified positive by the first pathologist and low-PS by the system are marked and their classifications by both pathologists are noted. b. The TMA images corresponding to the t-SNE embedding are presented. Several examples of low and high prediction score images are shown, to demonstrate the characteristics observed by the pathologists. Examples of partially missing tissues are shown at the bottom.

For the article in Nature Communications click here

Students at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management have developed computational tools for predicting the success of harvests. These tools will help the volunteer Israeli organization Leket Israel gather unused food and distribute it to those in need, reducing food waste in the process.

A recent event was conducted between Leket Israel and the Technion in the format of a Datathon using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s public cloud environment that provides tools for storing information, computing, and handling big data.

The students who won first place

The participants were all undergraduate students in the faculty, studying data science and engineering or information systems engineering. They were required to develop computational methods to predict the amount and type of produce that would be made available to Leket Israel at any given time in any region of the country. These predictions would improve Leket’s ability to plan the harvesting of the produce efficiently, further reducing food waste and increasing the donations of food to the various organizations throughout the country.

The students who won second place

The event was opened by data science Professor Avigdor Gal, one of the initiators of the Technion’s Data Science and Engineering program in the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management – one of the first such educational curriculums around the world. He explained that “the event is part of the faculty’s annual extracurricular activities designed to generate social and ethical awareness among students, with the understanding that their professional occupation in the future will require access to data that impacts society, for example social media content, health data, and the like.”

Gathering for judging: deputy director-general for marketing at Leket Israel Anat Friedman-Koles, deputy director general for operations at Leket Israel Irit Davidovich, coordinator of the Technion’s Social Incubator Ronit Piso and the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Ran Samorodinsky.

According to Professor Liat Levontin, who is also a member of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, “the Datathon was designed to improve the food supply chain of Leket Israel while analyzing its collection and distribution data. Data science students from the faculty proposed technological solutions expected to reduce food waste and improve the recipients’ trust in the supply chain. As part of a large study by EIT FOOD, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, we found that consumer trust in the food supply chain has significant implications, for example, on healthy eating habits, and we believe that the Datathon will advance consumer’s trust.”

All Datathon participants

According to Dr. Gila Molcho, director of academic projects and coordinator of the faculty excellence programs, “beyond the fun of participating in the competitive side of a datathon, the students gained experience in understanding data and extracting insights within a given time frame. Furthermore, they experienced a sense of personal empowerment and satisfaction from being part of the Data for Good experience. Our collaboration with Leket Israel will not end with the Datathon. Our information systems engineering students will continue developing a management tool for Leket Israel as part of their annual capstone project.”

The Datathon was organized by the Technion’s Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Data for Good Israel, Leket Israel, the Technion’s Social Incubator and EIT FOOD – Consumer Trust Grand Challenge with the support of Tech.AI, the Technion’s Center for Artificial Intelligence.

A new paper published in Nature Communications presents a study on unique peptides with anti-cancer potential. The study was led by Professor Ashraf Brik and post-doctoral fellows Dr. Ganga B. Vamisetti and Dr. Abbishek Saha from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, along with Professor Nabieh Ayoub from the Technion’s Faculty of Biology and Professor Hiroaki Suga from the University of Tokyo.

Prof. Ashraf Brik

Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds, the name given to chemical bonds formed between two molecules when the carboxyl group of one molecule reacts with the amino group of the other molecule. Unlike proteins that usually contain hundreds of amino acids, peptides contain – at most – dozens of such acids. The cyclic peptides the researchers discovered bind specifically to chains of ubiquitin proteins – proteins that are usually used as a “death tag” for damaged proteins. The labeling of the damaged proteins leads to their being broken down in the proteasome, or the cell’s “garbage can.”

Prof. Nabieh Ayoub

The discovery of the ubiquitin system led to the awarding of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three researchers, including Distinguished Professors Aharon Ciechanover and Avraham Hershko of the Technion’s Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine.

Over the years, it became clear that the activity of the ubiquitin system depends in part on the point where the ubiquitin molecules are linked to each other in the chain. For example, linking the ubiquitin in the chain at position 48 (K48) leads to the removal of proteins to the proteasome, while linking the ubiquitin at position 63 (K63) leads to the repair of damaged DNA.

Prof. Hiroaki Suga

In recent years, Technion researchers have developed a new approach to influencing the ubiquitin mechanisms. Instead of interfering with the activity of enzymes that affect these mechanisms, they decided to try to directly intervene in the ubiquitin chain itself.

Based on this approach, the researchers in a previous work developed cyclic peptides that bind the K48-linked ubiquitin chains, preventing it from leading to the breakdown of the damaged proteins. This disruption gradually leads to programmed cell death. In the same study, the researchers hypothesized and then proved that when such an event formed in a malignant tumor, it killed the cancer cells, potentially protecting the patient. This discovery, published in 2019 in the journal Nature Chemistry, has led to the establishment of a new startup that is advancing the discovery towards clinical use.

In the current study, cyclic peptides that bind the chains linked to position 63 in ubiquitin and that are involved in repairing damaged DNA were discovered. The researchers found that when attached to these ubiquitin chains, such peptides disrupt the aforementioned repair mechanism. This leads to the accumulation of damaged DNA, and to cell death. Here too, when this binding occurs in cancer cells, it destroys these cells. The researchers believe this therapeutic strategy could be more effective than existing anti-cancer drugs, against which patients gradually develop a resistance.

In the figure: At the beginning of the process, the cyclic peptides bind to the ubiquitin chain. As a result, the DNA repair mechanism is damaged and, eventually, the cancer cells undergo a process of cell death (apoptosis).

Prof. Brik is the head of the Jordan and Irene Tark Chair in the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. He has won many excellence awards, including the Outstanding Researcher Award from the Israel Chemical Society and the prestigious ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Grant.

For the full article in Nature Communications click here.

A new academic year brings new discoveries & achievements: a rising star, a new center of excellence, a student win, a Healthy Aging Center and more. All this in the October 2022 newsletter. Click here to read.

Life expectancy is consistently increasing thanks to progress in health care, science, and technology. However, longer lives have not meant an improved quality of life for the elderly. In response to this important global challenge, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has gathered researchers from different faculties in order to establish the Healthy Aging Center where they will address the growing disparity.

The initiative is headed by Professor Shai Shen-Orr of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Professor Uri Lesmes of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, and Dr. Noga Ron-Harel of the Faculty of Biology. The Center will operate as part of the Technion Human Health Initiative (THHI), which was inaugurated last year by Technion President, Professor Uri Sivan with the goal of advancing interdisciplinary research related to health and medicine.

Professor Dafna Fisher-Gwirtzman of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning and Dr. Firas Mawase of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

Prof. Dafna Fisher-Gwirtzman of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning and Dr. Firas Mawase of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

To map the broad potential of the Technion for impacting healthy aging, the Technion organized a nucleation event – a one-day workshop during which faculty members presented their research as well as their engineering and clinical capabilities for developing solutions to a range of challenges related to aging in the modern era and in the future. The launch event attracted more than 35 researchers and doctors from a wide range of faculties, including medicine, biology, chemistry, biomedical engineering, biotechnology and food engineering, industrial engineering and management, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and architecture.

Prof. Shai Shen-Orr of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Yosi Maruvka of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, and Dr. Dvir Aran of the Faculty of Biology.

During the first part of the day, participants presented research projects related to aging mechanisms and longevity from the level of the individual cell all the way up to complete organisms, including various aspects of diseases associated with aging and quality of life, and relevant clinical and pre-clinical trials. In the second part of the workshop, the discussion focused on how to organize the breadth of applied research, scientific capabilities, and engineering technologies in a goal-oriented manner that best brings the Technion’s power to bear on these problems. Topics included diagnosing and analyzing medical data, regenerative medicine, nutrition solutions, engineering of supportive technologies, and designing residential environments for senior citizens. These subjects are expected to be the focus of the research activities at the new Center.

The workshop concluded with a discussion involving the researchers, President Sivan, and Professor Alon Wolf, then-vice president for External Relations and Resource Development. The conversation focused on challenges facing the Technion in researching issues associated with aging, and the resources required to lead scientific and engineering breakthroughs that will make it possible to age healthily in Israel and around the world.

Prof. Tzvi Dwolatzky of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Rambam Health Care Campus.

New members of the Technion’s management:

Professor Naama Brenner – Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

A member of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Prof. Brenner completed her Ph.D. in the Technion Faculty of Physics. She is a biophysicist and a member of the Network Biology Research Lab. Her research deals with adaptation and learning in complex biological systems, in particular cells, cell populations, genetic and neural networks, and biological control at various organizational levels.

Prof. Brenner replaces Prof. Shimon Marom, who held the position from October 2019 to September 2022.

Professor Naama Brenner

Professor Wayne Kaplan – Executive Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development

Prof. Kaplan, a faculty member in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, completed all of his academic degrees at the Technion. He conducted his post-doctoral work at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. Prof. Kaplan is a fellow in the American Ceramic Society and the Israel Microscopy Society. He studies the structure, composition, and energy of surfaces between different materials and the development of microstructures of materials.

Prof. Kaplan was the dean of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering from 2010 to 2014, and served as the Technion’s executive vice president for Research from 2014 to 2019. He replaces Professor Alon Wolf, who held the position of executive vice president for External Relations and Resource Development from October 2019 to September 2022.

Prof. Wayne Kaplan

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan congratulated Profs. Brenner and Kaplan and wished them great success in their new positions. He also thanked the three faculty members finishing their terms in management – Prof. Boaz Golani, who served as vice president and CEO of the Technion, Prof. Marom, and Prof. Wolf – for their leadership and dedication during a very challenging time.

Good luck to everyone!

Planting forests in vast semi-arid areas will not moderate global warming and may even worsen it, according to researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in a study that contradicts some long-held assumptions.

The researchers attribute their findings partly to the fact that forested areas retain more heat than barren land, which is more reflective of solar radiation.

Based on their extensive study of the climate change mitigation potential of the world’s semi-arid areas over a total of 448 million hectares, the researchers also developed a global-scale smart map that shows how their findings can be applied anywhere at a resolution of up to a few kilometers.

In a paper published today in Science, the researchers presented a study of the potential climatic impact on global warming of large-scale afforestation. Their findings show that while semi-arid areas offer the largest potential for afforestation, even extensive afforestation is not an effective climate change mitigation solution.

These unexpected findings are attributed partly to the often overlooked “albedo effect,” which warms the Earth’s surface, according to the research led by Professor Yohay Carmel and his then-PhD student (now Dr) Shani Rohatyn from the Technion’s Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, along with Professor Dan Yakir and Dr. Eyal Rotenberg from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Prof. Yohay Carmel and PhD student Shani Rohatyn

Prof. Yohay Carmel and Dr Shani Rohatyn

“When we began the research, we expected to show that extensive planting of forests in semi-arid areas would significantly slow down climate warming,” said Prof. Carmel. “But our study disproved this accepted hypothesis. It is disappointing indeed. Yet, this is how science works – it discovers the truth regardless of what we want to discover. There is also an important lesson here – planting forests, no matter how extensive, will not save us from climate change. Instead, we should focus on reducing emissions.”

The study shows that even if trees are planted in every possible location, their carbon absorption by year 2100 would offset only about 1% of all carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. This is because areas darkened due to forestation absorb more solar radiation than exposed areas like deserts and glaciers (the so called “albedo effect”). Therefore afforestation, while absorbing large quantities of carbon, also typically increases the heating of the previously exposed surface.

The albedo effect was already known in the context of climate change, but this is the first study to produce a worldwide mapping of the phenomenon and to calculate the site-specific balance between the two contrasting effects of forestation – the cooling effect of carbon sequestration and the warming effect of change in albedo. The resulting maps give not only a global perspective of afforestation’s potential for climate change mitigation, but also inform the intelligent planning of forestry.

Dr. Shani Rohatyn, who built the model, points out that smart afforestation – that is, planting forests only in climatically beneficial places based on the current research – is expected to double the emissions offset by afforestation and to increase it even more significantly at the local and regional levels, as the researchers showed in an accompanying article.

“The climatic consequences of planting forests depend on many factors, including the reflection of local radiation from the ground, precipitation and trees’ ability to fix carbon,” said Prof. Yakir. “The good news of our research lies in the tools we developed that make it possible to predict where afforestation can indeed have a positive effect. We hope planners will take these findings into account and use them for optimal planning of planting trees.”

Prof. Dan Yakir

About half of the world’s afforestation potential is located in semi-arid areas, and large-scale plantings are already underway presently in China, Saudi Arabia, the Sahel in western and north-central Africa, and beyond. These projects are expected to transform about 5 million square kilometers of barren land into forests. The current research shows that without proper planning, these projects are liable to create undesirable climatic results, so it is important to conduct site-specific planning of planting in semi-arid areas.

“Afforestation is a process that has many advantages, including local cooling, prevention of soil erosion and more,” concluded Prof. Carmel. “However, uninformed afforestation may destroy rare species adapted to live in the open desert and thus harm biological diversity and, as mentioned, also harm the greater goal of minimizing climate warming. That is why it is so important to take into account all the considerations before starting the wholesale afforestation of large areas.”

The research was supported by the Technion and the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Stephen and Nancy Grand Water Research Institute at the Technion, Israel’s National Science Foundation, the Minerva Foundation, the Yotam Project, and the Sustainability and Energy Research Initiative (SAERI) at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Net climatic effects of dryland afforestation, including both the carbon cooling and albedo warming effects. An interactive map of the results can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/mrt4ycha.

To read the full article in Science, click here