All publications and documents

With a new introduction by M. John Harrison and a striking new cover design from the artist Stanley Donwood, this acclaimed cult novel sees human existence threatened by devastating climate change. Water. Man's most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth…

The world’s drylands are among the most vulnerable ecosystems on our planet. Desertification and land degradation are affecting huge land areas, jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions of people. Unsustainable management practices in dryland cultivation and pastoralism have given rise to widespread soil erosion, reduction of the biological production of soils, reduction of vegetation cover, and…

The book explores changes in the science and management of arid lands over the past 50 years within their historical contexts. It highlights the effects of changes in science on land use management policy and speculates on what role arid lands might play in the future and how policy must adapt to their changing nature. Reflecting the shift in drylands thinking from a piecemeal or a ‘magic…

Soil information, from the global to the local scale, has often been the one missing biophysical information layer, the absence of which has added to the uncertainties of predicting potentials and constraints for food and fiber production. The lack of reliable and harmonized soil data has considerably hampered land degradation assessments, environmental impact studies and adapted…

Atlas of Desertified and Sandified Land in China is edited based on the released results of the 3rd Monitoring of sandification status in China with a large amount of the corresponding in formation, and clearly outlines the 2dimension distribution of desertification and sandification. Several thousands of technicians officially released in 2005, it is really difficult to adequately express the…

Unsustainable resource management practices are often induced by population pressures and poverty. People affected by desertification often need to draw on their limited assets in order to survive, which accentuates their poverty. This constitutes a vicious cycle linking deteriorating natural resources to deteriorating livelihoods as people need to encroach further on fragile soils, sparse…