People around the globe are becoming increasingly aware that our use of the land has an effect on the environment in which we live. Global warming is seen as a major threat to the well-being of the world's communities. Fear abounds, but does anyone really know what is going on? Will human activity make things worse? In this 1994 book, the author examines the relationship between society and climate change. With contributions from colleagues in the worst hit areas of the world, the author shows how some patterns of land use can make the problems worse; increasing the risk of droughts and associated food shortages. This book will help scientists and researchers assess our impact on the planet and consider our ability to respond to the consequences of future environmental change.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the North American agricultural frontier moved for the first time into semi-arid regions where farming was vulnerable to drought. Farmers who migrated to the region had to adapt their crops, techniques, and farm sizes to better fit the environment. But there was very incomplete information for making these adjustments, and ultimately they were insufficient: too many small, dry land wheat farms were founded, only to be abandoned in the midst of drought. In this paper, we examine why homestead failure occurred in the Great Plains, by analyzing two episodes in western Kansas in 1893-94 and in eastern Montana in 1917-21. We focus on the weather information problem facing migrants to the region. We examine the learning process by which migrants mis-interpreted new rainfall information and failed to adequately perceive drought. Homesteaders had neither an analytical framework nor sufficient data for predicting fluctuations in rainfall. Knowledge of the climate was primitive and the underlying mechanisms triggering droughts were not understood. Long-term precipitation records did not exist. Homesteaders gambled on the continuation of previous wet periods due to a possible climate change because of cultivation, and on the optimistic opinions of dryfarming experts.' Dryfarming doctrine argued that moisture could be saved in the soil, allowing small wheat farms to endure any dry period. Accordingly, homesteaders discounted new information that indicated drought. The subsequent waves of homestead busts that swept the region during severe droughts were part of the adjustment toward agricultural techniques, crops, and farm sizes more appropriate for a semi-arid region
Rainfall levels are rarely optimal, but there are hundreds of things you can do to efficiently conserve and use the water you do have and to reduce the impact of drought on your soil, crops, livestock, and farm or ranch ecosystem. Author Dale Strickler introduces you to the same innovative systems he used to transform his own drought-stricken family farm in Kansas into a thriving, water-wise, and profitable enterprise, maximizing healthy cropland, pasture, and water supply. Ranging from simple, short-term projects such as installing rain-collection ollas to long-term land-management planning strategies, Strickler’s methods show how to get more water into the soil, keep it in the soil, and help plants and livestock access it.
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.
Drought draws together contributions from over 75 leading international researchers in the field to present the most comprehensive body of research on the physical and social dimensions of drought to date. Including an extensive range of case-studies covering the most drought-prone and most affected countries, the contributors examine new technology, planning methodologies and mitigation actions from recent drought experiences worldwide. Following a discussion of the critical concepts of drought, the work is divided into the following additional parts: · causes and predictability · monitoring and early warning techniques · impacts and assessment methodologies · links between drought and other global issues · conclusions and future challenges
In this provocative book, the authors look at the interaction between population and food supply and offer a powerful and radical strategy for balancing human numbers with nutritional needs. Their proposals include improving the status of women, reducing racism and religious prejudice, reforming the agricultural system, and shrinking the growing gap between rich and poor. "This ambitious, enlightened handbook is a cornucopia of strategies and ideas for concerned citizens and policymakers."--Publishers Weekly "Give equal education and power to women throughout the world, argue the authors: when that happens, birth rates fall and food supplies go up."--San Francisco Chronicle (Best Bets of 1995) "[The book] can help us understand the past and possible future of the meals most Westerners take for granted."--Bill McKibben, New York Review of Books "A well-reasoned account of how poverty forces unsustainable use of natural resources . . . a careful and balanced treatment of developments in agriculture . . . that may help food production to stay ahead of population growth."--Basia Zaba, Nature "This generation faces a set of challenges unprecedented in their scope and severity and in the shortness of time left to resolve them. . . . The Stork and the Plow sets these out thoughtfully [and] accurately. . . . We can all hope this urgent message is carefully heeded."--Henry W. Kendall, Nobel laureate and Julius A. Stratton Professor of Physics, MIT "A wonderful piece of work."--Partha Dasgupta, American Scientist
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 has identified four priority areas for Disaster Risk Reduction: understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response; and to "Build Back Better" in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Although tremendous progress has been made in recent decades in understanding the workings of the Earth systems and, in particular, its impacts on and responses to human actions, there remains a continuing and pressing need for knowledge that will allow society to simultaneously reduce exposure to global environmental hazards, while also meeting economic development goals. Exploring Natural Hazards: A Case Study Approach, contributes to the knowledge showcasing advanced practices for the monitoring of natural hazards. Through each case study, the book examines mainly hazards arising from processes within the hydrosphere and atmosphere, triggered or exacerbated by inputs to and transfers of energy between environmental components. It discusses the causes of these phenomena, and ways in which improved policy making, sometimes coupled with the application of appropriate modern technologies, can help to reduce people’s exposure to harm. Discussing challenges, lessons learned and recommendations, this book provides a snapshot of issues related to tropical cyclones and typhoons, desertification, floods, lightning as a hazard and the need for alert systems. It is a valuable resource for practitioners and professionals alike, for researchers, students and others who work at the intersection between environmental hazards, sustainable development and social justice.
In recent years, global change has become increasingly important in technological, ecological and political spheres. This companion examines the environmental events of recent times, and investigates long-term trends as well as broader issues of global change.
Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China; and Northeastern Brazil. All were affected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. But the effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. Davis argues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as the Third World were sown in this era of High Imperialism, as the price for capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions of peasants' lives.
