Overview
- One of the first books in the new Springer-Praxis Earth System Series
- Written by a global team of experts with up-to-date knowledge of desertification
- Makes good use of colour images for scientific interpretation
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Springer Earth System Sciences (SPRINGEREARTH)
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About this book
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.
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Keywords
Table of contents (20 chapters)
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Lessons from the Sahel
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Global Issues
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Regional and Country Case Studies
Reviews
Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The End of Desertification?
Book Subtitle: Disputing Environmental Change in the Drylands
Editors: Roy Behnke, Michael Mortimore
Series Title: Springer Earth System Sciences
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16014-1
Publisher: Springer Berlin, Heidelberg
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-642-16013-4Published: 22 April 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-662-56851-4Published: 22 April 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-642-16014-1Published: 12 April 2016
Series ISSN: 2197-9596
Series E-ISSN: 2197-960X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 560
Number of Illustrations: 76 b/w illustrations, 41 illustrations in colour
Topics: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts, Nature Conservation, Economic Geography, Geology