Field trip and planning of a research project in the wonderful Uzbekistan

Early in this year we started emailing with researchers of the Samarkand State University, and we started to plan together a research project about the restoration possibilities of overgrazed and degraded sandy steppes and semi-deserts. After meeting in the virtual space the next step was even nicer: in July we spent ten days in Uzbekistan, visited the potential study sites in Karnap region and the Kyzyl-Kum desert and we started to plan the details of the research. Dr. Toshpulot Rajabov, the dean of the Agrobiotechnology Institute at the Samarkand State University studies the degradation states of these ecosystems after overgrazing for decades. The plan is that two of his students, Abdubakir and Nodir will come to Hungary for PhD studies and we will study together the restoration prospects of the overgrazed rangelands.

We spent a wonderful time in Uzbekistan. It is truly a wonderful and very interesting country and the people are very friendly and welcoming. You can see many pictures about this wonderful excursion in our research blog - please click here.