## 1 Introduction  
Land degradation is a naturally occurring or human-induced process that affects the functionality of a land ecosystem. More than 40% of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide(mostly drylands) face significant anthropogenic degradation causing a loss of ecosystem integrity and services, and deterioration of socioeconomic value [1]. The use of induced biological soil crusts (biccrusts) has been advocated in land restoration [2]. The biocrusts consist of complex communities of microorganisms, including cyanobacteria, that live on the top of and in the soil surface. They perform several essential ecosystem functions [3]. Although some research has been invested into restoration by biocrusts, the optimal approach is still to be found [2; 4; 5]. A field study showed that complex biocrusts, after artificial cyanobacterial inoculation on the sand, were developed within seven years [6], but in some other cases, the process has taken much longer [7]. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the acceleration of biocrust development and succession through the promotion of inoculum viability, for instance, by improving water availability, a key limiting factor. Methods promoting the inoculum/biccrust survival by habitat modification (i.e., improving water retention, reducing UV effects, increasing relative humidity) and leading to a higher growth rate of biocrusts are needed. Based on the results of previous research activities, partially described by the BLOCDUST hypothesis [8; 9], it could be supposed that biocrust inoculum survival and efficiency of biocrust restoration could be improved by careful selection of cyanobacterial strains for specific substrates and tailoring geo-prebiotic polysaccharide supports to promote a sustainable relationship between the microbiota and abiotic constituents on the degraded land surface. For this reason, we decided to prepare polysaccharide-based fabrics with improved sorption properties that were evaluated through the determination of moisture sorption and textile dye adsorption. Among many natural fibers, jute is chosen since this cheap fiber represents the second most important natural fiber (after cotton). The most widespread applications of jute fibers are for the production of packaging materials for agricultural commodities and carpet backings [10]. However, one of the main concerns of both industries is a large amount of jute waste in the form of fabric. This raises the idea of revaluing the discarded jute fabric waste as a valuable polysaccharide-based support. It has to be emphasized that the presence of additional polysaccharides is essential for improving the jute fabric sorption properties and providing the necessary water for the growth of the microbiota. Chitosan as a cheap, biodegradable, biocompatible, nontoxic, and environmental-friendly amino polysaccharide with multifunctional properties [11] might be a good choice for enhancing the sorption properties of raw jute fabric. Many reasons stand behind the decision to select this polysaccharide, whereas the main one is a high affinity between the jute fiber main component, cellulose, and chitosan, which comes from their similar chemical and molecular structures. Additionally, the aldehyde and carboxyl groups present primarily in jute fiber non-cellulosic constituents have an affinity for binding with chitosan. In this paper, raw jute fabric was treated with different concentrations of chitosan solution to improve its sorption properties. The polysaccharide-based fabrics were characterized using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and electrokinetic measurements. Their sorption properties were evaluated through the determination of moisture sorption and the adsorption of textile dye Reactive Orange 16, which is used as an indicator for the fabrics' capability to interact with different molecules participating in different interaction mechanisms.