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desertification

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Desertification

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Aridity is the imbalance between long-term average water supply and long-term average water demand. Arid environments cover more than one-third of the world's land area and represent the most common habitat on Earth after the oceans. Aridity poses a threat to the environment and the economy, and to security, development, food security, and social life around the world. The causes of increased aridity are complex and are thought to be both natural and man-made. The causes of drought include such factors as climate change, population growth, soil erosion, inappropriate irrigation, poor farming methods, soil, water, and groundwater contamination, urbanization, deforestation, improper water management, and desertification of arid and semi-arid zones. This book contains valuable scientific studies on such aspects of aridity as surface and groundwater management, land use, and agricultural applications. Case studies from different geographies and planets are included.

Desertification.

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Desertification

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Desertification is land degradation due to climatic and anthropogenic causes where land includes soil, water and the biological productive capacity. This has become a major environmental, economic and political issue in Mediterranean countries. In order to address the problem in the European countries of the Mediterranean, the European Commission established a number of major research projects under its DGXII Environment and Climate Programme MEDALUS (Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use). This book describes the results from the first phase of the project, dealing with local physical, socio-economic and political controls on desertification. In particular the book concentrates on the models developed, calibrated and validated, the field investigations into biological, hydrological and erosional processes at the seven main sites, and provides an introduction to the problems associated with global warming in the Mediterranean context. GIS and remote sensing are an integral part of the investigation and the results are described and discussed in detail.

Desertification