All publications and documents

The purpose of this online publication is to provide information on deserts. This site deals with general issues including aridity, desert types, eolian processes, types of dunes and desert features. Furthermore the problem of desertification is discussed. Information about deserts from the U.S. Geological Survey. Topics : What Is a Desert; How the Atmosphere Influences Aridity; Where Deserts…

The fourth report in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides a comprehensive, scientifically credible, policy-relevant and up-to-date assessment of, and outlook for, the state of the global environment. GEO-4 is published 20 years after the landmark World Commission on Sustainable Developments Bruntland Report of 1987. Environment…

Desertification is the consequence of a set of important processes which are active in arid and semi-arid environments, where water is the main limiting factor of land use performance in ecosystems. In the context of the EC MEDALUS (Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use), the focus here is primarily on European Mediterranean environments where physical loss of soil by water erosion, and the…

The study synthesizes the experience of the Bank, in drylands management, with special emphasis on Africa. The struggle to protect dryland resources from degradation, has to a large extent, been considered a defensive battle against desertification. However, this study points at the many possibilities - not problems - for increasing the productivity of drylands, such as doubling yields in many…

These are the proceedings from the World Bank Round Table meetings on dry-land degradation, and poverty, which brought together political, technical, and socioeconomic experts working in combating land degradation, to provide advice to the Bank on ways of translating the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), into the development assistance agenda. The document contains the papers presented…

Desertification/land degradation is the most serious global environmental issues in the world drylands which occupy one-third of the Earth's land surface. Coupled with the adverse effects of human activities and severe and persistent droughts, this process has increasingly threaten the human survival in many parts of the world drylands, particularly in developing countries, by destroying the life…