Book Description
Desertification includes land degradation due to both climatic and anthropogenic causes, where land includes water, soil, and the biosphere. This book presents the most recent findings from the European Community's MEDALUS project, which was formed to understand and manage semi-arid environments that are undergoing great change.

• Covers climate and land use processes and responses in the Mediterranean
• First book to provide guidelines for the management of land degradation in Mediterranean environments
• Based on first-hand experience of the problems by those responsible for solving them

Book Description
This book deals with the role of plants in combatingdesertification. Desertification - the degradation of soils indrylands - is a phenomenon occurring in scores of countriesaround the globe. The number of people (in semiarid regions) affectedby the steady decline in the productivity of their lands is in thehundred millions.
This work provides the reader with the experience of scientists from30 countries and international institutions around the globe, workingin cold and warm dry regions to bring plant-based solutions to one ofthe most severe problems of our times. The measures required to haltor reverse the process of desertification fall into many categories- policy, institutional, sociological/anthropological, andtechnical. ... Read more

Book Description

Drylands have been cradles to some of the worlds greatest civilizations, and contemporary dryland communities feature rich and unique cultures. Dryland ecosystems support a surprising amount of biodiversity. Desertification, however, is a significant land degradation problem in the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions of the world. Deterioration of soil and plant cover has adversely affected 70% of the worlds drylands as a result of extended droughts as well as mismanagement of range and cultivated lands. The situation is likely to worsen with high population growth rates and accompanying land-use conflicts.

Book Description

Customer Reviews (4)

The history of a growing circle of desertification
According to Griffith, we have been slowly denuding the land and turning it into desert for several thousand years. The places where civilization began in the Middle East were degraded first, and a circle of largely man-made desertification has spread outward ever since. As we've depleted nature, people in the affected areas often moved away in waves of migration toward greener areas. And where people degraded their environment, there have been big impacts on their culture and way of life. Griffith describes how environmental destruction has affected things like politics, religion, or economics. It's a very colorful, expansive book, and makes you realize how old a lot of our modern problems are. It also makes solving these problems seem quite possible, since many groups of people are having some good success. I found it a dense book that's packed with information on many countries in many periods of history. It took me a long time to read, but was well worth it.

More story than science, but a big, important story
This book tries to explore what happened in the past when people have turned their land into a desert. How has that affected society, politics, women, religion, etc? To answer, Griffith gives many stories from Africa, the Middle East, India, China, or Europe. One thing he looks at closely is the fate of women in areas where the land became unproductive. And in this he gives one of the most convincing explanations of of why inequality developed between men and women in certain parts of the world. To balance this Griffith tells inspiring stories of how local people have struggled to heal their environment and recover the benefits of a healthy countryside.

A very useful, positive and meaningful book
This book covers over 10,000 years of social, economic and environmental changes. It shows how our destruction of nature has changed society over time. The stories it tells are powerful and well written. I think it's a great book for anybody who really likes history and wants a peaceful and healthy environment in the future.

Fascinatingcombination of ecology, sociology and history
I admit that when I first came across this book I wasn't quite sure about the significance of the subject matter, or, indeed, if Id'be interested. It was my pleasure to discover, however, an entirely new approach to explain social and espcieally environmnetal degradation. The author interestingly shows how women are the first to suffer from environmental degradation. He uses the examples of lands facing - or that have faced - important desertification processes to show how a liberal society where men and women share more or less equal status can shift to favor the dominance of males. Students of ancient Egypt will be very interested to know there is a chapter on how desertification affected socio-cultural processes (and stagnation) in Egypt. There are chapters on China, North Africa and Europe some also touch on the effects that desertification has on racism and the strengthening of racial identities - namely aryan. It may all look imprpbable in thsi brief description that does little justice to the volume; however, it is surprising to find that there is a logical and sensical approach that allows for a very interesting,timely and satisfying read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

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"Geist's book ... is an antidote to some of the uninformed hand-waving that has taken place in the past. It is useful not only because of its analyses, but also because it has a good review of some of the uncertainties and debates in desertification research and gives indications as to how indicators of desertification can be improved." Times Higher Education Supplement

"A fascinating book for those who are interested in the fate of our planet. An in-depth study that puts desertification in perspective at a moment when human-induced climte perturbations become significant." Guy Brasseur, chair of IGBP

"The Causes and Progression of Desertification is a timely contribution that provides additional perspectives on desertification and dry land degradation. This book brings together a variety of scientific perspectives that can begin to further inform several global environmental activities that are endeavouring to better manage such problems". Coleen Vogel, chair of IHDP ... Read more

Book Description
Desertification has re-emerged as a topic of globalsignificance as a consequence of the United Nations Conference onEnvironment and Development. When first addressed over a generationago, attention was drawn to the compelling, spectacular images of sanddunes engulfing farmlands and parched cattle dying around wells.Research tended to focus on these events as unusual phenomena thatinvolved the unfortunate collision of climate and `irrational' landuse. Since then, the work of many researchers has shown us thatdesertification is a multifaceted problem that involves climatic,biogeochemical, political, and socio-economic processes that operatemore or less continuously but at rates that vary in time and space. Noattempts to arrest or reverse desertification that ignore thiscomplexity are likely to succeed. In a single volume, `Desertificationin Developed Countries' describes the multiple dimensions ofdesertification as well as the novel approaches that have been used toaddress it within the economies of developed countries. This is donefrom the perspectives and experiences of the numerous authors who havecontributed to this book. ... Read more