Arid Land Systems: Sciences and Societies
Arid Land Systems: Sciences and Societies

Author: Troy Sternberg

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2019-08-19

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 3039213474

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Understanding deserts and drylands is essential, as arid landscapes cover >40% of the Earth and are home to two billion people. Today's problematic environment–human interaction needs contemporary knowledge to address dryland complexity. Physical dimensions in arid zones—land systems, climate and hazards, ecology—are linked with social processes that directly impact drylands, such as land management, livelihoods, and development. The challenges require integrated research that identifies systemic drivers across global arid regions. Measurement and monitoring, field investigation, remote sensing, and data analysis are effective tools to investigate natural dynamics. Equally, inquiry into how policy and practice affect landscape sustainability is key to mitigating detrimental activity in deserts. Relations between socio-economic forces and degradation, agro-pastoral rangeland use, drought and disaster and resource extraction reflect land interactions. Contemporary themes of food security, conflict, and conservation are interlinked in arid environments. This book unifies desert science, arid environments, and dryland development. The chapters identify land dynamics, address system risks and delineate human functions through original research in arid zones. Mixed methodologies highlight the vital links between social and environmental science in global deserts. The book engages with today's topical themes and presents novel analyses of arid land systems and societies.

Natural Resources and Development in Arid Regions
Natural Resources and Development in Arid Regions

Author: Enrique Campos-Lopez

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-07

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780367019518

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The growing menace of desertification points ominously to the need for better ways to use the scarce renewable resources of the arid and marginal regions of the world and to thus enhance their prospects for economic and social development. Though much scientific and technical research on arid lands has been conducted in recent years, strategies still are needed to incorporate scientific knowledge into the regional planning process. Responding to that need, the authors of this book--the result of an international conference held by the Applied Chemistry Research Center (CIQA) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)--integrate various perspectives on the evaluation of natural resources in arid and semiarid zones, analyze development options, and discuss systems analysis tools that could be important for the management of technology. The contributors encourage the use of systems analysis to help unite the various groups that will participate in the massive incorporation of scientific and technological information into arid zone development during the 1980s.

Groundwater Resources Development and Planning in the Semi-Arid Region
Groundwater Resources Development and Planning in the Semi-Arid Region

Author: Chaitanya B. Pande

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-05-27

Total Pages: 571

ISBN-13: 3030681246

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This book addresses the various challenges in achieving sustainable groundwater development, management, and planning in semi-arid regions, with a focus on India, and discusses advanced remote sensing and GIS techniques for the estimation and management of groundwater resources. The book is timely as there is a need for a better understanding of the various tools and methods required to efficiently and sustainably meet the growing demand for clean surface and groundwater in developing countries, and how these tools can be combined with other strategies in a multi-disciplinary fashion to achieve this goal in water-scarce regions. To wit, the book combines remote sensing and GIS techniques, runoff modeling, aquifer mapping, land use and land cover analyses, evapotranspiration estimation, crop coefficients, and water policy approaches. This will be of use to academics, policymakers, social scientists, and professionals involved in the various aspects of sustainable groundwater development, planning, and management.