Desertification is a world-wide problem in arid lands that is made worse by population growth, urban development, and inappropriate agricultural techniques. Implementing a land management program based on sustainable land use techniques can prevent desertification. Sustainable land use relies on land quality indicators to identify problems and measure trends. Research is needed to fully understand how land quality indicators change over long periods of time under varying conditions.

Sustainable land use has particular importance in the Middle East. Population and economic growth are straining the environment's ability to support human activity. These trends are particularly acute in the "fertile crescent" extending from Egypt to Lebanon. The Middle East Peace Process recognized the importance of the environment in a stable peace by establishing a Working Group on the Environment. The commonality of the problem presents an opportunity for regional scientists to collaborate in the collection, exchange, and analysis of environmental data. The Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC), in association with the US National Science Foundation's International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) program, initiated a project to measure fundamental parameters affecting sustainable land use on an ecological rather than national basis. The project brings together Palestinian, Israeli, and US scientists at Hebron University, the Ministry of Environmental Affairs of the Palestinian Authority, the Mitrani Center for Desert Ecology of Ben-Gurion University, Agriculture Research Organization - Volcani Center, Israel Ministry of Agriculture, and the University of New Mexico (UNM). 

Meteorological data is fundamental to environmental research and is inadequately measured along the rainfall and biodiversity gradient extending from Negev desert to the plateaus of the West Bank. A jointly-operated network of monitoring stations to collect and exchange measurements of meteorological and soil conditions was established at two Israeli and two Palestinian environmental research sites. The ILTER program provided the scientific context for the project, guidelines for monitoring and an international framework for sharing environmental data. The CMC provided the monitoring hardware as well as expertise in network and Internet communications. The regional partners provided the sites and research staff to operate the meteorological stations. UNM provided data and operational experience from a similar site in the U.S. A long-term goal of the project is for the Palestinian sites to join the ILTER program along with the Israeli sites.