ABSTRACT
The discontinuity of the cultivation pattern is repeated on the alluvial fans which also offer special problems of utilisation when cycles of incision rather than deposition occur. A delta situation offers similar prospects of flood-basin cultivation, with or without diversionary canals, although the cultivated areas have a more linear arrangement since they coincide with the seasonally filled distributaries. With elaboration of techniques, alluvial fans offered the opportunity to convert seasonal run-off into a form of semiperennial or perennial irrigation which is still widely practised, and allows more permanent cultivation of cereals, legumes and fruit trees. If water can make the desert bloom it can also sterilise the land as effectively as does wind erosion under poor techniques of dry farming. One can also discern in the area the development in techniques of cultivation in the dry lands from farming based on the seasonal occurrence of winter and spring rains in the hills.
