Abstract
The 5th International Conference on Land Degradation held at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, Italy in September 2008 brought together some 100 people from 37 countries worldwide. A number of international organisations, like FAO, IAEA, EC, and CIHEAM were also present. The conference was split into 8 sessions where 83 papers (43 oral) were presented. In total 235 abstracts were received. The main outcome was that the fight against land degradation and desertification could be successful if the right policy instruments are put in place and most importantly when local people are both authors and actors of the development process. Moreover, soil conservation and restoration should be one component of an integrated ecosystem management strategy that should include also water, biodiversity, livelihoods and human impacts on ecosystems. There are numerous positive results when dealing with land degradation worldwide. They should be used to emphasise the urgent needs for further actions to accelerate and scale up progress and not to induce complacency. Improved land resources management measures should build on scientific evidence, local innovation and knowledge and be locally tested and validated before being applied at larger scale. Natural resource base conservation should continue to be a priority for national governments and international organisations but Africa requires particular attention. The recent financial, economic and food global crisis should not overshadow the urgent needs to deal with natural resource management and conservation and mitigate climate change impacts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adams, C.R. and Eswaran, H. (2000). Global land resources in the context of food and environmental security. In: S.P. Gawande et al. (eds.), Advances in Land Resources Management for the 20th Century. Soil Conservation Society of India, New Delhi, pp. 35–50, 655pp.
Bai, Z.G., Dent, D.L., Olsson, L. and Schaepman, M.E. (2008). Proxy global assessment of land degradation. Soil Use and Management 24:223–234.
Cangir, C., Kapur, S., Akca, E., Boyraz, D. and Eswaran, H. (June 2000). An assessment of land resources consumption in relation to land degradation in Turkey. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 55:253–259.
Conacher, A. and Sala, M. (eds.). (1998). Land Degradation in Mediterranean Environments of the World: Nature and Extend, Causes and Solutions. Wiley, UK.
Eswaran, H., Almaraz, R., Reich, P. and Zdruli., P. (1997). Soil quality and soil productivity in Africa. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 10:75–94.
Eswaran, H., Beinroth, F.H. and Reich, P. (2003). A global assessment of land quality. In: K. Wiebe (ed.), Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Security: Biophysical Processes and Economic Choices at Local, Regional, and Global Levels. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, North-ampton, MA.
Eswaran, H., Kapur, S., Akca, E., Reich, P., Mahmoodi, S. and Vearasilp, T. (2005). Anthroscapes: A landscape unit for assessment of human impact on land systems. In: J.E. Yang, T.M. Sa and J.J. Kim (eds.), Application of the Emerging Soil Research to the Conservation of Agricultural Ecosystems. The Korean Society of Soil Science and Fertilizers. Seoul, Korea, pp. 175–192.
Global Mechanism. (2006). International workshop on the cost of inaction and opportunities for investments in arid, semi-arid and dry sub humid areas. Rome, 4–5 December 2006. http://www.globalmechanism.org/dynamic/documents/document_file/final_report_en_120407. pdf [last accessed 31 March 2008].
Holm, A.M.S., Cridland, W. and Roderick, M.L. (2003). The use of time integrated NOAA NDVI data and rainfall to assess landscape degradation in the arid shrubland of Western Australia. Remote Sensing of Environment 85:145–158.
Kaiser, J. (11 June 2004). Wounding Earth’s fragile skin. Special edition: Soil the final frontier. Science 304:1616–1622.
Kapur, S. and Akça, E. (2004). Environmentally Friendly Indigenous Technologies. Encyclopedia of Soil Science 1. Marcel Dekker, New York. doi: 10.1081/E-ESS 120006648.
Kapur, S., Zdruli, P., Akça, E., Arnoldussen, A., Gencer, O., Kapur, B., Öztürk, A. and Eswaran, H. (2004). Anthroscapes of Turkey: Sites of historic sustainable land management (SLM). Proceedings of the 2nd SCAPE Workshop, 13–16 June 2004. Cinque Terre, Italy, pp. 71–79.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx [last accessed 2 April 2009].
Nachtergaele, F. (2003). Land degradation assessment in drylands: The LADA project. In: L. Montanarella and R.J.A. Jones (eds.), Land Degradation, EUR 20688 EN. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 324pp.
OECD. (2008). Environmental Performance of Agriculture in OECD Countries Since 1990. Paris, France.
Oldeman, L.R., Hakkeling, R.T.A. and Sombroek, W.G. (1991). World Map of the Status of Human-Induced Soil Degradation. 2nd edn. ISRIC, Wageningen.
Pender, J. and Ndjeunga, J. (2008). Assessing Impacts of Sustainable Land Management Programs on Land Management and Poverty in Niger. International Food Policy Research Institute. Mimeo, Washington DC.
Pimentel, D., Harvey, C., Resosudarmo, P., Siclair, K., Kurz, D., McNair, M., Crist, S., Shpritz, L., Fitton, L., Saffouri, R. and Blair, R. (24 February 1995). Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits. Science 267:1117–1123.
Prince, S.D., Wessels, K.J., Tucker, C.J. and Nicholson, S.E. (2007). Desertification in the Sahel: A reinterpretation of reinterpretation. Global Change Biology 13:1308–1313.
Reynolds, J.(2008). From DDP to Atlas: A possible road. Presentation and personal communication at the 1st meeting on defining a roadmap for the development of a new World Atlas of Desertification, JRC – IES, 3–5 December 2008 Ispra, Italy.
Reynolds, J. and Stafford Smith, M. (eds.). (2002). Global Desertification: Do Humans Create Deserts? (Dahlem Workshop Report No. 88). Dahlem University Press, Berlin, 438pp.
Reynolds, J., Stafford Smith, M., Lambin, E., Turner, B., Mortimore, M., Batterbury, S., Downing, T., Dowlatabadi, H., Fernandez, R., Herrick, J., HuberSannwald, E., Jiang, H., Leemans, R., Lynam, T., Maestre, F., Ayarza, M. and Walker, B. (11 May 2007). Global desertification: Building a science for dryland development. Science 316(5826):847–851.
Rubio, J.L., Morgan, R.P.C., Asins, S. and Andreu, V. (eds.). (2002). Man and Soil at the Third Millennium. 2 Volumes. Geoforma Ediciones/Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertificacion, Logrono.
Ryan, J. (ed.). (2002). Desert and dryland development: Challenges and potential in the new millennium. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Development of Drylands, 22–27 August 1999. ICARDA Aleppo, Syria, Cairo, Egypt, xiv+655pp.
Safriel, U. (2007). The assessment of global trends in land degradation. In: R.V.K. Sivakumar and N. Ndiang’ui (eds.), Climate and Land Degradation. International Workshop on Climate and Land Degradation. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 2–36.
Sonneveld, B.G.J.S. and Dent, D. (2007). How good is GLASOD? Journal of Environmental Management. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.09.008.
Stocking, M. (21 November 2003). Tropical soils and food security: The next 50 years. Science 302:1356–1359.
Stocking, M. and Murnaghan, N. (2001). Handbook for Field Assessment of Land Degradation. Earthscan, London.
Thomas, R. (2008). Critical review: 10th Anniversary review: Addressing land degradation and climate change in dryland agroecosystems through sustainable land management. Journal of Environmental Monitoring 10:595–603. doi: 10.1039/b801649f.
UNCCD CRIC7. (2009). Report of the seventh session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention. Istanbul, Turkey 3–14 November 2008. INCCD/CRIC(7)/5. http://www.unccd.int/cop/officialdocs/cric7/pdf/cric5-eng.pdf [last accessed 1 April 2009].
WOCAT. (2007). Where the Land is Greener – Case Studies and Analysis of Soil and Water Conservation Initiatives Worldwide. In: W. Critchley and H. Lineger (eds.). WOCAT, Switzerland.
Wiebe, K. (2003). Land quality, agricultural productivity and food security. In: K. Wiebe (ed.), Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity and Food Security: Biophysical Processes and Economic Choices at Local, Regional and Global Levels. Edward Elgar Publishing, Lyme, NH.
Zdruli, P. and Costantini, E. (eds.). (2008). Moving ahead from assessments to actions: Could we win the struggle with land degradation? Book of Abstracts. 5th International Conference on Land Degradation, Valenzano, Bari, Italy 18–22 September 2008. 2 Volumes, 976pp. CIHEAM/IUSS/ISSS/EC JRC.
Zdruli, P., Jones, R. and Montanarella, L. (2004). Organic matter in the soils of Southern Europe. European Commission, Joint Research Centre – European Soil Bureau; Expert Report prepared for DG ENV/E3 Brussels, EUR 21083 EN 16pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.
Zdruli, P., Lacirignola, C., Lamaddalena, N. and Trisorio Liuzzi, G. (2007). The EU-funded MEDCOASTLAND thematic network and its findings in combating land degradation in the Mediterranean region. In: R.V.K. Sivakumar and N. Ndiang’ui (eds.), Climate and Land Degradation. International Workshop on Climate and Land Degradation. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 422–434.
Zdruli, P., Liuzzi, G.T., Akça, E., Donma, S., Doğru, C., Kapur, B., Serdem, M., Pekel, M., Türkoğlu, G., Çelmeoğlu, N., Durak, A. and Kapur, S. (2006). From politics to policies: The must for the implementation of sustainable land management within the Mediterranean context. In: P. Zdruli and G. Trisorio Liuzzi (eds.), Managing Natural Resources Through Implementation of Sustainable Policies. MEDCOASTLAND publication 5, IAM Bari, Italy, pp. 167–178.
Acknowledgment
The corresponding author of this chapter wishes to thank Dr. Julian Dumanski, retired World Bank staff and former employee of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for kindly reviewing and commenting the chapter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zdruli, P., Pagliai, M., Kapur, S., Cano, A.F. (2010). What We Know About the Saga of Land Degradation and How to Deal with It?. In: Zdruli, P., Pagliai, M., Kapur, S., Faz Cano, A. (eds) Land Degradation and Desertification: Assessment, Mitigation and Remediation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8657-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8657-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8656-3
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8657-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)