The Atlas includes information and many maps derived from the Global Assessment of Human-Induced Soil Degradation (GLASOD), as conducted in 1990 by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) at Wageningen, The Netherlands, on behalf of UNEP. Aside from GLASOD's data on soil degradation, and in order to capture the multi-dimensional nature of global desertification processes, other data layers relating to global climate and vegetation were compiled by GRID for inclusion in the 1992 World Atlas of Desertification. Both the source climate data and advice on the production of all climate surfaces were obtained from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UEA/CRU), U.K.The World Atlas of Desertification was first published in 1992 to coincide with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The World Atlas of Desertification was published by UNEP in 1992 as the result of a cooperative effort between UNEP's Desertification Control Programme Activity Centre (DC/PAC), the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) and the Global Resource Information Database (GRID). GRID compiled and/or derived most of the global and regional databases, produced the maps and carried out the data analyses and tabulations for the Atlas, assisted by a Technical Advisory Group on Desertification Assessment and Mapping composed of various international experts.

The Atlas includes information and many maps derived from the Global Assessment of Human-Induced Soil Degradation (GLASOD), as conducted in 1990 by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) at Wageningen, The Netherlands, on behalf of UNEP. Aside from GLASOD's data on soil degradation, and in order to capture the multi-dimensional nature of global desertification processes, other data layers relating to global climate and vegetation were compiled by GRID for inclusion in the 1992 World Atlas of Desertification. Both the source climate data and advice on the production of all climate surfaces were obtained from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UEA/CRU), U.K.

The library has a hard copy