Desertification Monitoring And Forecasting desertification Monitoring and Forecasting Remote monitoring of arid land degradation (desertification) is of vital importance for today's society. Once desertification starts, it is hard to stop http://rdre1.inktomi.com/click?u=http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/~desert/index.html
Desertification - A Threat To The Sahel Friends of Eden. desertification a threat to the Sahel. The rest of the dryland has either become desert or is being threatened by desertification. http://www.eden-foundation.org/project/desertif.html
Extractions: Last Updated: March 2000 Land covers 14.9 billion hectares of the earth's surface. A UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) study shows that 6.1 billion hectares are dryland of which 1 billion hectares are naturally hyperarid desert. The rest of the dryland has either become desert or is being threatened by desertification. One quarter of the world's population inhabit the drylands and depend on this area for their livelihood. The misconception that the Sahel is directly exposed to the Sahara has been widely accepted. The Sahara is sometimes pictured as a sea of sand dunes washing onto the Sahel exposing farmers to waves of sand that roll in from the desert, yearly swallowing large chunks of farming land. If true it would be understandable that projects plant green belts in order to defend the Sahel from the invasion. In reality the situation is much more complex. In some places such as parts of North Africa and Mauritania the Sahara directly threatens farming land. However in Niger the pastoral zone to the north of Tanout (the town 13km N. of Eden's field station) is well vegetated with many bushes and trees. It is in fact a natural green belt that protects farmers from the Sahara.
Ron Gluckman Reports From China Article and photos describe desertification in the country. http://www.gluckman.com/ChinaDesert.html
Extractions: Beijing's Desert Storm The desert is sweeping into China's valleys, choking rivers and consuming precious farm land. Beijing has responded with massive tree-planting campaigns, but the Great Green Walls may not be able to buffer the sand, which could cover the capital in a few years By Ron Gluckman /Beijing, Fengning and Langtougou, China F ROM HIS ROOFTOP, Su Rongxi maintains an unsteady balance, perched between the past and a precarious future. One foot is planted firmly upon his tiled roof. The other sinks ankle-deep into a huge sand dune that threatens to engulf his house and Langtougou village, where his ancestors have lived for generations. For this dirt-poor town in Hebei province, the sands of time aren't just a quaint notion, they are close at hand, burning the eyes and lungs. And for Langtougou, the sands seem to be ticking out. "We have no money to move and, besides, who would have us?" says Su. "There's nothing to do but dig away the sand and wait to see what happens. Sometimes I dream of the sand falling around me faster than I can dig away. The sand chokes me. I worry that in real life, the sand will win." Su and his neighbors are ethnic Manchurians who survive by cultivating subsistence crops and raising horses, goats and pigs. But this year violent sandstorms dumped entire dunes into the once-fertile Fengning county valley. Now most of the grass is gone and the Chaobai River stands dry. Besieged villagers say they have no idea where the sand came from. The scary bit? Su's almost-buried house is nowhere near the heart of China's rapidly encroaching deserts. It is just 160 km north of Beijing. Suddenly, rural Langtougou has become a barren outpost on the front line of a national battlefield.
World Agricultural Information Centre (WAICENT) Information management and dissemination on desertification, gender and sustainable development, food standards, animal genetic resources, postharvest operations, agro-biodiversity and food systems in urban centres. http://www.fao.org/waicent/
Extractions: Search Home FAO Home WAICENT Information Finder English What's New 25 May 2004 New state of Food and Agriculture 2003-2004 publication now online 24 May 2004 New 2004 World Food Day Web site goes online 20 May 2004 More publishers sign up for AGORA initiative as demand soars for scientific literature in world's poorest countries 11 May 2004 FAOS capacity building activities keep pace with changes in Information Technology: Focus on new AGRIS vision More news Glossary of FAO Databases and Information Systems
Homepage Frieder Graef Personal homepage about soils/agriculture research in Niger, Chad and Israel, including soil erosion and desertification. http://www.uni-hohenheim.de/~graef/
Introduction available online. Welcome. Remote monitoring of arid land degradation (desertification) is of vital imporance for today s society. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/~desert/body/body.html
Extractions: Remote monitoring of arid land degradation (desertification) is of vital imporance for today's society. Fragile desert environments world-wide are being used as agricultural and pastoral lands. While this in itself is not a bad thing, arid lands are being affected in ways that both reduce their useability by humans as well as disturb their natural states. Most desertification happens as "runaway" phenomena which are irreversible on human timescales. That is to say, once desertification starts it is hard to stop and almost impossible to remediate in an area. This has major implications for society's response to desertification, or the threat thereof. Since we may not be able "fix" an area that has undegone desertification, it becomes necessary to attempt to forecast arid land degradation in addition to monitoring the soil and vegetation status of deserts. In the Caltech Arid Region Remote Monitoring group in the division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, we believe that forecasting of desertification will become possible in the future, and that monitoring of arid lands using new and future satellite remote sensing technologies will be important in future management of arid lands.
Jornada Basin LTER Home Page The project focuses on changes in the distribution of soil resources as an index of the impact of vegetation changedesertificationon semiarid lands. http://jornada-www.nmsu.edu/
DESERTIFICATION OF ARID LANDS Reproduced, with permission, from Dregne, HE 1986. desertification of arid lands. desertification OF ARID LANDS. By. HE Dregne. ABSTRACT. http://www.ciesin.org/docs/002-193/002-193.html
Extractions: Reproduced, with permission, from: Dregne, H. E. 1986. Desertification of arid lands. In Physics of desertification, ed. F. El-Baz and M. H. A. Hassan. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus, Nijhoff. ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Desertification of the arid lands of the world has been proceedingsometimes rapidly, sometimes slowlyfor more than a thousand years. It has caused untold misery among those most directly affected, yet environmental destruction continues. Until recently, few if any lessons seemed to have been learned from the past, in part because the problem was an insidious one that went unrecognized in its early stages or was seen as a local one affecting only a small population, and in part because new land was always available to start over again. As long as remedial action could be deferred by moving on to new frontiers, land conservation had little appeal. It was not until the 20th centurywhen easy land expansion came to an endthat governments and people finally realized that continued careless degradation of natural resources threatened their future. INTERNATIONAL DIRECTIONS The decade of the 1950's witnessed the first worldwide effort to call attention to the problems and potentials of arid regions. It started when the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched its Major Project on Scientific Research on Arid Lands in 1951. That project led to publication of a newsletter, the provision for funds for establishing and strengthening arid land research institutes, organization of conferences and symposia, and publication of a series of research reviews and special reports on a wide range of topics. The Major Project was terminated in 1962 and the arid land program was merged with the broader UNESCO natural resource program.
Drought Monitoring And Crop Yield Forecasting Maps providing monthly updated, distributed information on rainfall, actual evapotranspiration, radiation, drought and desertification indices, and crop yield forecasts for Africa and Europe, with methodology discussions. http://www.earlywarning.nl/
Extractions: Quantification of drought, crop growth and the estimation of irrigation needs for Africa and Europe, based on images from the METEOSAT geostationary satellite. On a monthly basis, EARS ltd. (environmental analysis and remote sensing) updates this early warning site. Our early warning system is the first in the world to provide objective, economic, spatially continuous and timely information on the energy and water balance of the earth surface. The most outstanding primary product is the actual evapotranspiration, which is an important input variable in hydrological runoff models. Other important data products and services are the soil moisture index, climatic moisture index (a UNCCD measure), rainfall mapping, drought and desertification monitoring, crop growth conditions and crop yield forecasting. contact us at ears@ears.nl Because your browser does not support frames you can't view our site.
Wichí: Fighting For Survival In Argentina The 20,000 to 50,000 Wich living in southeastern Bolivia and northern Argentina, in a semiarid region known as the Chaco, are threatened by desertification. http://saiic.nativeweb.org/ayn/wichi.html
Extractions: In 1991 the Indians, working with Survival International, an NGO based in England, prepared a land claim report that demonstrated that at least 162,000 acres spread over the two State Plots traditionally belonged to them. Later that year, the provincial Governor signed a decree (No. 2609/91) recognizing that the area was indeed Indigenous land, and pledging to recognize this in law. The succeeding Salta government failed to take any decisive action, and allowed the situation to deteriorate dramatically. Shortly before leaving office at the end of last year, the same government presented a draft land bill to the provincial parliament that is completely against the interests of the Indians and, if approved, would deprive them of huge tracts of their territory. Compiled with permission from publications of: Survival for Tribal Peoples; 11-15 Emerald Street; London WC1N 3QL; United Kingdom; phone: 0171-242-1441; fax: 0171-242-1771; email: survival@gn.apc.org For the Titling of Our Land: Takeover of the International Bridge Over the Pilcomayo River (La Paz) Many years have passed since we requested the government of Salta province, Argentina, to officially grant us title to the land that we have always inhabited. We have sent letters. Meetings take place, new laws and decrees are passed, and yet more topographic studies... We are now in the fourth administration. Yet they have not responded to our demands. Years pass and our lands become impoverished, because the people who have come from the outside to occupy them Know not how to manage them. Years pass and we become poorer.
USC Canada Nonprofit international development organizations, establishing programs in food security/ biodiversity, desertification, climate change and poverty alleviation. http://www.usc-canada.org
Convention To Combat Desertification Please visit IISD Linkages website s new Forests, Deserts and Land webpage at http//www.iisd.ca/process/forest_desertification_land.htm. http://www.iisd.ca/desert.html
Extractions: SELECTED INTERNET RESOURCES ON DESERTIFICATION INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS NATIONAL/REGIONAL ACTIVITIES NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS REPORTS/NEWS/INFORMATION SOURCES CBD Clearing House Mechanism CEO-Desertification Information Network CIESIN Bibliography on Political Institutions and Environmental Change Earth Action Report on UNCCD: Dispelling Misconceptions, Building a Case (1998) ... UNEP and GRID-Arendal News
Desertification - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia desertification. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. desertification is Historical and current desertification. desertification became http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification
Extractions: NRCS Home About Us News ... Contact Us Search National NRCS All NRCS Sites for AGENDA 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development emphasizes the need and proposes a wide range of activities to address land degradation in general and desertification in particular. As a response to this challenge, more than 100 countries have signed the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) in 1997. A key point of the CCD deals with scientific and technical cooperation on investigation, collection, evaluation of the processes and factors involved in land degradation leading to desertification. At the conclusion of the Conference on Land Degradation at Adana, an International Task Force on Land Degradation, to be formed under the auspices of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), was proposed and unanimously adopted. Plato: Attica (Athens) was no longer cultivated by true herdsmen, who made husbandry their business, and were lovers of honor, and of a noble nature. As a result Attica had become deforested, the soils depleted, and there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away.