This volume integrates a conceptual framework with participatory methodologies to understand the complexities of dryland socio-ecological systems, and to address challenges and opportunities for stewardship of future drylands and climate change in the global south. Through several case studies, the book offers a transdisciplinary and participatory approach to understand the complexity of socio-ecological systems, to co-produce accurate resource management plans for sustained stewardship, and to drive social learning and polycentric governance. This systemic framework permits the study of human-nature interrelationships through time and in particular contexts, with a focus on achieving progress in accordance with the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development. The book is divided into four main sections: 1) drylands and socio-ecological systems, 2) transdisciplinarity in drylands, 3) interculturality in drylands, and 4) the governance of drylands. Expert contributors address topics such as pastoralism and the characteristics of successful agricultural lands, the sustainable development goals and drylands, dryland modernization, and arid land governance with a focus on Mexico. The volume will be of interest to dryland researchers, sustainable development practitioners and policymakers.

The Future of Arid Lands, edited by Gilbert White and published in 1956, comprised papers delivered at the "International Arid Lands Meetings" held in New Mexico in 1955. At these meetings, experts considered the major issues then confronting the world’s arid lands and developed a research agenda to address these issues. This book reexamines this earlier work and explores changes in the science and management of arid lands over the past 50 years within their historical contexts.

This edited volume examines the changes that arise from the entanglement of global interests and narratives with the local struggles that have always existed in the drylands of Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia/Inner Asia. Changes in drylands are happening in an overwhelming manner. Climate change, growing political instability, and increasing enclosures of large expanses of often common land are some of the changes with far-reaching consequences for those who make their living in the drylands. At the same time, powerful narratives about the drylands as ‘wastelands’ and their ‘backward’ inhabitants continue to hold sway, legitimizing interventions for development, security, and conservation, informing re-emerging frontiers of investment (for agriculture, extraction, infrastructure), and shaping new dryland identities. The chapters in this volume discuss the politics of change triggered by forces as diverse as the global land and resource rush, the expansion of new Information and Communication Technologies, urbanization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of violent extremism. While recognizing that changes are co-produced by differently positioned actors from within and outside the drylands, this volume presents the dryland’s point of view. It therefore takes the views, experiences, and agencies of dryland dwellers as the point of departure to not only understand the changes that are transforming their lives, livelihoods, and future aspirations, but also to highlight the unexpected spaces of contestation and innovation that have hitherto remained understudied. This edited volume will be of much interest to students, researchers, and scholars of natural resource management, land and resource grabbing, political ecology, sustainable development, and drylands in general. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This volume dedicated to Professor H.S.Sharma provides a cogent account of ongoing research in the field of geomorphology and environmental studies in India.

Reconstructing climatic changes in deserts and their margins at a variety of scales in space and time, this book draws upon evidence from land and sea, including desert dunes, wind-blown dust, river and lake sediments, glacial moraines, plant and animal fossils, isotope geochemistry, speleothems, soils, and prehistoric archaeology. The book summarises the Cenozoic evolution of the major deserts of the Americas, Eurasia, Africa and Australia, and the causes of historic floods and droughts. The book then considers the causes and consequences of desertification and proposes four key conditions for achieving ecologically sustainable use of natural resources in arid and semi-arid areas. Climate Change in Deserts is an invaluable reference for researchers and advanced students interested in the climate and geomorphology of deserts: geographers, geologists, ecologists, archaeologists, soil scientists, hydrologists, climatologists and natural resource managers.

This comprehensive handbook provides a unique overview of the theory, methodologies and best practices in climate change communication from around the world. It fosters the exchange of information, ideas and experience gained in the execution of successful projects and initiatives, and discusses novel methodological approaches aimed at promoting a better understanding of climate change adaptation. Addressing a gap in the literature on climate change communication and pursuing an integrated approach, the handbook documents and disseminates the wealth of experience currently available in this field. Volume 3 of the handbook provides case studies from around the world, documenting and disseminating the wealth of experiences available.

This introductory text details the land surface of the earth in a readable style covering the major issues, key themes and sensitivities of the environments/landscape. Emphasizing the major ideas and their development, each chapter includes case studies and details of influential scientists (not necessarily geomorphologists) who have contributed to the progress of understanding. Providing a very clear explanation of the understanding achieved and of the debates that have arisen, the book is comprised of 12 chapters in four sections: Visualizing the land surface explains and explores the composition of the land surface and outlines how it has been studied Dynamics of the land surface considers the dynamics affecting the earth’s land surface including its influences, processes and the changes that have occurred Environments of the land surface looks to understand the land surface in major world regions highlighting differences between the areas Management of the land surface is an examination of the current and future prospects of the management of the earth’s land surface

The question in the title of this book draws attention to the shortcomings of a concept that has become a political tool of global importance even as the scientific basis for its use grows weaker. The concept of desertification, it can be argued, has ceased to be analytically useful and distorts our understanding of social-environmental systems and their resiliency, particularly in poor countries with variable rainfall and persistent poverty. For better policy and governance, we need to reconsider the scientific justification for international attempts to combat desertification. Our exploration of these issues begins in the Sahel of West Africa, where a series of severe droughts at the end of the 20th century led to the global institutionalization of the idea of desertification. It now seems incontrovertible that these droughts were not caused primarily by local land use mismanagement, effectively terminating a long-standing policy and scientific debate. There is now an opportunity to treat this episode as an object lesson in the relationship between science, the formation of public opinion and international policy-making. Looking beyond the Sahel, the chapters in this book provide case studies from around the world that examine the use and relevance of the desertification concept. Despite an increasingly sophisticated understanding of dryland environments and societies, the uses now being made of the desertification concept in parts of Asia exhibit many of the shortcomings of earlier work done in Africa. It took scientists more than three decades to transform a perceived desertification crisis in the Sahel into a non-event. This book is an effort to critically examine that experience and accelerate the learning process in other parts of the world.

It is widely acknowledged that, in addition to global and regional efforts to cope with climate change by means of mitigation measures, adaptation initiatives can and perhaps should play a key role in enabling communities from across Africa to better handle the problems related to it. Due to the fact that experiences in climate change adaptation in Africa are poorly documented, this book provides an attempt to address the perceived need for better documentation and dissemination of African experiences on climate change adaptation.