Understanding deserts and drylands is essential, as arid landscapes cover>40% of the Earthand are home to two billion people. Today’s problematic environment–human interaction needscontemporary 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 integratedresearch that identifies systemic drivers across global arid regions. This book, based on a Special Issuein the journalLand, unifies desert science, arid environments, and development. Chapters identifyland dynamics, address system risks and delineate human functions through original research indryland regions.

Measurement and monitoring, field investigation, remote sensing, and data analysis are effectivetools to investigate natural dynamics. Equally, inquiry into how policy and practice affect landscapesustainability is key to mitigating detrimental activity in deserts. Relations between socio-economicforces and degradation, ethnologies, agro-pastoral rangeland use, drought and disaster and resourceextraction reflect land interactions. Contemporary themes of development and transition, foodsecurity, conflict and conservation are interlinked in arid environments.
Through knowledge,documentation and evaluation, the book links academic disciplines to convey the complexities andpossibilities existing across drylands.The chapters draw together a great variety of global drylands. Research explores the GobiDesert and China, Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as multiple African dimensions andLatin America.

The aim is to understand the essential themes that arid and semi-arid regionsencounter and engage with today. This interdisciplinary study reflects the vital links between socialand environmental science in global deserts. Using mixed methodologies and varied techniques, theoriginal work stresses today’s topical themes to present novel analyses.

The book offers much todryland researchers, stakeholders and importantly, policy makers, who shape the world’s vast desertlandscapes. See here the list of articles included.

>Central Asian ‘Characteristics’ on China’s New SilkRoad: The Role of Landscape and the Politicsof Infrastructure
Plantation Development in the Turkana Basin:The Making of a New Desert?
>Dust Storms from Degraded Drylands of Asia:Dynamics and Health Impacts
>Bequest of the Norseman—The Potential forAgricultural Intensification and Expansion inSouthern Greenland under Climate Change
>Re-Placing the Desert in the Conservation Landscape:Charisma and Absence in the Gobi Desert
>Assessing Riparian Vegetation Condition andFunction in Disturbed Sites of the Arid Northwestern Mexico
>Dirty Water, Muddied Politics: Hybridisationof Local and National Opposition to Kumtor Mine, Kyrgyzstan
>Groundwater Irrigation Management and the Existing Challenges from the Farmers’ Perspective in Central Iran
Vegetation in Drylands: Effects on Wind Flow and Aeolian Sediment Transport
>The Potential for Enhanced Water Decoupling in theJordan Basin through Regional Agricultural Best Practice
>Valuing Environmental Benefit Streams in the Dryland Ecosystems of Sub-Saharan Africa
>Pastoralism and Land Tenure Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting Policies andPriorities in Ngamiland, Botswana
>Identifying Hot Spots of Critical Forage Supply inDryland Nomadic Pastoralist Areas: A Case Study forthe Afar Region, Ethiopia
>Berenty Reserve—A Gallery Forest in Decline in DrySouthern Madagascar—Towards Forest Restoration
>Land Cover Change in Northern Botswana:The Influence of Climate, Fire, and Elephants onSemi-Arid Savanna Woodlands
>Making Sense of Past, Present and Future. Images ofModern and Past Pastoralism among NyangatomHerders in South Omo, Ethiopia
>Environmental Conservation in the Tibetan PlateauRegion: Lessons for China’s Belt and Road Initiativein the Mountains of Central Asia
>Mapping Land Cover and Estimating the GrasslandStructure in a Priority Area of the Chihuahuan Desert
>Satellite Monitoring of Vegetation Response toPrecipitation and Dust Storm Outbreaks in Gobi Desert Regions
>Determining the Frequency of Dry Lake BedFormation in Semi-Arid Mongolia From Satellite Data