Download or read book Desert Problems and Desertification in Central Asia written by Agajan G. Babaev and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1962 the Desert Institute of the former Academy of Science of the USSR has been conducting research work in the arid and semi-arid zones of central Asia. This outstanding experience in desert and desertification problems, and the possibilities of sustainable land use under difficult environmental conditions is summarized here. The book also gives an overview of the Institute's consulting work within the framework of international projects. This is the first publication allowing readers outside the Russian-speaking world to obtain concise information about the specific constraints and development possibilities of central Asian drylands.

Download or read book Vegetation Degradation in Central Asia under the Impact of Human Activities written by Nikolaĭ Gavrilovich Kharin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2002-02-28 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yoque en el campo he nacido dig6 que mis cantos son para los unos sonidos, y para otros intencion. H. Hernandes - Martin Fierro. The period of active influence of the people on desert environments in Central Asia counts more than 2,000 years. It includes several stages of the social and the economic development of human society - from primitive culture of hunters to developed modern society with great changes of envi- ronment and "nature remaking".Heritage of the past is one of the main causes of land degradation in Central Asia.So, only historical analysis of relations between the man and the desertcould give infor- mation for awareness of desertification. What an idea have the people about the desert? In the mind of many people "desert" is identified with a sterile, lifeless and gloom land unsuitable for life. The mass media, specially the cinema sup- ports this idea. Very popular subject of many films is the death of travelers in the desert from thirst. Eventhe names of hot winds (the "gibly" inSahara, the "samum" inArabian desertand the "afganets" inCentral Asia) fill the minds of peoplewith horror. There are many legends about armies buried inthe sand, aboutflourishing oases and towns covered with sand drifts. Inthese legends the truth is mixed with fiction. But as known, "the truth isstronger than fiction".

Download or read book Environmental Crises in Central Asia written by Eric Freedman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental conditions do not exist in a vacuum. They are influenced by science, politics, history, public policy, culture, economics, public attitudes, and competing priorities, as well as past human decisions. In the case of Central Asia, such Soviet-era decisions include irrigation systems and physical infrastructure that are now crumbling, mine tailings that leach pollutants into soil and groundwater, and abandoned factories that are physically decrepit and contaminated with toxic chemicals. Environmental Crises in Central Asia highlights major environmental challenges confronting the region’s former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. They include threats to the Caspian and Aral seas, the impact of climate change on glaciers, desertification, deforestation, destruction of habitat and biodiversity, radioactive and hazardous wastes, water quality and supply, energy exploration and development, pesticides and food security, and environmental health. The ramifications of these challenges cross national borders and may affect economic, political, and cultural relationships on a vast geographic scale. At the same time, the region’s five governments have demonstrated little resolve to address these complex challenges. This book is a valuable multi-disciplinary resource for academics, scholars, and policymakers in environmental sciences, geography, political science, natural resources, mass communications, public health, and economics.

Download or read book Combating Desertification in Asia Africa and the Middle East written by G. Ali Heshmati and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the ‘how’ of desertification control as opposed to an analysis of the ‘why’ and fills a gap in the desertification-related literature in that it shows what to do in situations ranging from fixing mobile sands to arresting accelerated soil erosion in sloping lands. There are numerous illustrations to show the successful techniques. This compilation demonstrates that desertification and land degradation can be controlled and reversed with existing techniques in such widely varying environments as the Sahel of Africa to Sri Lanka and the Philippines in SE Asia, from mountains in Lesotho to low lands on desert margins in Mongolia. Proven approaches include technical interventions, changes in governance and to the legislative framework and policy reform. The book fills a gap in the desertification-related literature in that it shows what to do in situations ranging from fixing mobile sands to arresting accelerated soil erosion in sloping lands.

Download or read book The Socio Economic Causes and Consequences of Desertification in Central Asia written by Roy Behnke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-08-19 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains a selection of papers presented at the Advanced Research Workshop on ‘The Socio-economic causes and consequences of desertification in Central Asia’ held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in June 2006. The meeting provided a forum for twenty-six scientists from Central Asia and NATO countries to discuss the human dimensions of the desertifi- tion process. Papers presented to the meeting examined recent scientific evidence on the impact of desertification on livestock production, public health, and biodiversity, and contributed to the formulation of coh- ent national and regional policies for the management of watersheds, rangelands, and irrigated agriculture. The meeting was co-directed by Roy Behnke of the Macaulay Institute, UK, and by Lapas Alibekov of the Samarkand State University, Uzbekistan. Both the workshop and this subsequent publication have been financed by the NATO Scientific Affairs Division and we gratefully acknowledge this support. The Bishkek meeting was ably hosted by the Kyrgyz Sheep Breeders Association under the dir- tion of Akylbek Rakaev who contributed substantially to the successful running of the workshop. Deliberations at the workshop emphasized that policy failures at national level had promoted desertification within the region.

Download or read book Aeolian Processes as Dust Storms in the Deserts of Central Asia and Kazakhstan written by Gulnura Issanova and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the aeolian processes in the desert zone of Kazakhstan and Central Asian Deserts, and analyzes the current status of dust and sand storms in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. It also highlights the analyses, dynamics and long-term observations of storms on the basis of numerous cartographic materials and satellite images. Dust/sand storms are a common and important phenomenon in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kazakhstan and Central Asia as well,especially in its southern parts, where areas are covered by a great variety of deserts and offer a significant source of mineral and salt aerosols. The deserts of Kazakhstan mostly cover lowlands and extend from the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the piedmonts of the Tien-Shan Mountain. In Kazakhstan and Central Asia desertification processes due to wind erosion in the form of dust/sand storms were observed in semi-desert and desert landscapes.

Download or read book Sustainable Land Management in Greater Central Asia written by Victor R. Squires and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greater Central Asia encompasses a vast area that includes deserts, natural grasslands, steppes, shrublands and alpine regions. Many of these land types are degraded and productivity is falling at a time when human populations and livestock inventories are on the rise. Ecosystem stability and biodiversity are under threat and there is an urgent need to develop more sustainable land management regimes. This book uses an integrated regional approach to provide a comprehensive exploration of sustainable land development in Central Asia. An interdisciplinary team of experts analyses the economic, ecological, sociological, technological and political factors surrounding sustainable land and water management in the region, sharing potential problems and solutions. As international concern about desertification grows, the book concludes by asking how the region is likely to develop in the future. This book will be of value to scholars, students, policy makers and NGOs with an interest in sustainable development in Central Asia.

Download or read book Climate Change and Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration in Central Asia written by Rattan Lal and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2007-08-02 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together current knowledge of terrestrial C sequestration in Central Asia. The themes treated include: biophysical environments, water resources, sustainable agriculture, soil degradation, the effects of irrigation schemes on secondary salinization, soil management and its relationship to carbon dynamics; the relationship between f

Download or read book Sustainable Land Management in Greater Central Asia written by Victor R. Squires and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greater Central Asia encompasses a vast area that includes deserts, natural grasslands, steppes, shrublands and alpine regions. Many of these land types are degraded and productivity is falling at a time when human populations and livestock inventories are on the rise. Ecosystem stability and biodiversity are under threat and there is an urgent need to develop more sustainable land management regimes. This book uses an integrated regional approach to provide a comprehensive exploration of sustainable land development in Central Asia. An interdisciplinary team of experts analyses the economic, ecological, sociological, technological and political factors surrounding sustainable land and water management in the region, sharing potential problems and solutions. As international concern about desertification grows, the book concludes by asking how the region is likely to develop in the future. This book will be of value to scholars, students, policy makers and NGOs with an interest in sustainable development in Central Asia.

Download or read book The End of Desertification written by Roy H. Behnke and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question in the title of this book draws attention to the shortcomings of a concept that has become a political tool of global importance even as the scientific basis for its use grows weaker. The concept of desertification, it can be argued, has ceased to be analytically useful and distorts our understanding of social-environmental systems and their resiliency, particularly in poor countries with variable rainfall and persistent poverty. For better policy and governance, we need to reconsider the scientific justification for international attempts to combat desertification. Our exploration of these issues begins in the Sahel of West Africa, where a series of severe droughts at the end of the 20th century led to the global institutionalization of the idea of desertification. It now seems incontrovertible that these droughts were not caused primarily by local land use mismanagement, effectively terminating a long-standing policy and scientific debate. There is now an opportunity to treat this episode as an object lesson in the relationship between science, the formation of public opinion and international policy-making. Looking beyond the Sahel, the chapters in this book provide case studies from around the world that examine the use and relevance of the desertification concept. Despite an increasingly sophisticated understanding of dryland environments and societies, the uses now being made of the desertification concept in parts of Asia exhibit many of the shortcomings of earlier work done in Africa. It took scientists more than three decades to transform a perceived desertification crisis in the Sahel into a non-event. This book is an effort to critically examine that experience and accelerate the learning process in other parts of the world.

Download or read book Drought characteristics and management in Central Asia and Turkey written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report assesses the occurrence and impacts of drought, the current policies underlying drought management as well as the mitigation measures and responses adopted in Central Asia and Turkey, with a focus on Agriculture Sector. It is part of a series of similar studies carried out in different regions and countries of the world, with the objective of shedding light on drought effects, sensitizing policy-makers for the much needed paradigm shift to pro-active drought management planning and providing guidance for the development of such policies. The studies are carried out by FAO, in collaboration with the Water for Food Institute, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, as a direct contribution to FAO's Strategic Objective "Increasing the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises".

Download or read book Dryland East Asia Land Dynamics amid Social and Climate Change written by Jiquan Chen and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drylands in East Asia (DEA) are home to more than one billion people with an environment vulnerable to natural and anthropogenic changes. One of the critical needs in the region is to fully understand how dryland ecosystems respond to the changing climate and human activities in order to develop strategies to cope with continued climate change. This book provides state-of-the-art knowledge and information on drylands ecosystem dynamics, changing climate, society, and land use in the region. In addition to the synthesis of the existing research and knowledge of DEA, the book provides a role model for regional ecological assessment. With a wide spectrum of contributions from experts around the globe, the book should be of interest to researchers and students both internationally and in East Asia. Lessons learned from this synthesis effort in DEA should be useful for developing climate adaptation strategies for other similar regions around the globe.

Download or read book The Geography of Central Asia written by Igor Jelen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a profound geographical description and analysis of Central Asia. The authors take a synthetic approach in a period of critical transformation in the post-soviet time. The monograph analyzes comprehensively the physical and human geography as well as human-nature interactions of Central Asia with focus on Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Natural processes are described at a systemic scale, focusing on ecological impacts and consequences and contemporary human adaptations and organization. It also discusses in which ways the human organizations try to apply solutions for their needs such as security, territorial management and resources renewability, material and functional needs, identity elaborations, culture and communication. The Geography of Central Asia appeals to scientists and students of regional geography and interested academics from other areas such as social, political, economic and environmental studies within the context of Central Asia. The book is also a very useful resource for field trips into this area.

Download or read book Grazing in Future Multi scapes From Thoughtscapes to Landscapes Creating Health from the Ground Up written by Pablo Gregorini and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Research Topic is hosted in partnership with the "Grazing in Future Multi-Scapes" international workshop. The workshop will be held online, 30th May - 5th June 2021. Throughout different landscapes of the world, “grazing” herbivores fulfill essential roles in ecology, agriculture, economies and cultures including: families, farms, and communities. Not only do livestock provide food and wealth, they also deliver ecosystem services through the roles they play in environmental composition, structure and dynamics. Grazing, as a descriptive adjective, locates herbivores within a spatial and temporal pastoral context where they naturally graze or are grazed by farmers, ranchers, shepherds etc. In many cases, however, pastoralism with the single objective of maximizing animal production and/or profit has transformed landscapes, diminishing biodiversity, reducing water and air quality, accelerating loss of soil and plant biomass, and displacing indigenous animals and people. These degenerative landscape transformations have jeopardized present and future ecosystem and societal services, breaking the natural integration of land, water, air, health, society and culture. Land-users, policy makers and societies are calling for alternative approaches to pastoral systems; a call for diversified-adaptive and integrative agro-ecological and food-pastoral-systems designs that operate across multiple scales and ‘scapes’ (e.g. thought-, social-, land-, food-, health-, wild-scapes), simultaneously. There needs to be a paradigm shift in pastoral production systems and how grazing herbivores are managed –grazed- within them, derived initially from a change in perception of how they provide wealth. The thoughtscapes will include paradigm shifts where grazers move away from the actual archetype of pastoralism, future landscapes are re-imagined, and regenerative and sustainable management paradigms are put in place to achieve these visions. From this will come a change in collective thinking of how communities and cultures (socialscapes) perceive their relationships with pastoral lands. The landscapes are the biotic and abiotic four-dimensional domains or environments in need of nurture. Landscapes are the tables where humans and herbivores gain their nourishment, i.e. foodscapes. Foodscapes and dietary perceptions, dictate actions and reactions that are changing as developed countries grapple with diseases related to obesity, and people starve in developing countries. Societies are demanding healthscapes and nutraceutical foodscapes, and paradoxically, some are moving away from animal products. While indigenous species of animals, including humans (wildscapes), have been displaced from many of their lands by monotonic pastoralism, multifunctional pastoral systems can be designed in view of dynamic multi-scapes of the future. The purpose of this Research Topic is to influence future mental and practical models of pastoralism in continually evolving multi-scapes. We seek a collection of papers that will cultivate such a shift in thinking towards future models of sustainable multipurpose pastoralism. The contributions will be synthesized to establish how multifunctional pastoral systems can be re-imagined and then designed in view of the integrative dynamics of sustainable future multi-scapes.

Download or read book Central Asia Atlas of Natural Resources written by Asian Development Bank and published by Asian Development Bank. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This atlas brings together a wealth of information related to living and nonliving natural resources in the five countries of Central Asia---Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It contains an array of maps based on geographic information systems and remote sensing images, numerous photographs, tabulations of important data, and extensive descriptive text that together illustrate and describe the region's bountiful natural resources, its diversity of peoples, and their progress toward sustainable development. Highlights include geographic and climatic features; environmental, economic, and social profiles; energy, minerals, and water resources; ecoregions and ecosystems; major fauna and flora; agriculture and fisheries; peoples and cultural traditions; and economic and social statistics.

Download or read book Sustainable Land Use in Deserts written by Siegmar-W. Breckle and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Changing desert areas for land use implies a lot of ecological problems. These and related ones are dealt with in this book covering various interdisciplinary and international aspects. Large areas in arid and semi-arid regions are already polluted in various ways. One of the biggest problems is the anthropogenic salinization by inadequate means of agriculture and irrigation. Additionally, most arid areas in the world are dramatically overgrazed. Methods and practices of a sustainable land use in deserts are urgently needed in many arid regions. This book gives a broad survey on some of the affected regions of the world as well as some case studies from elsewhere (Aral Sea, Negev desert, Namib desert etc.). Thus, basic and applied sciences are brought together. Water management in deserts, grazing systems or reclamation of desertified areas are among the topics of this book, as well as social and economic aspects.

Download or read book Rangeland Stewardship in Central Asia written by Victor R. Squires and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of 18 chapters is the work of more than 30 authors, many of whom are natives of the Central Asian region or are researchers who have dedicated a large part of their working lives to studying the development dynamics in this vast and fascinating region. The work focuses on the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. But it also traces the attitudes of land users to the land dating from before the late 19th century, when Russian conquest and colonization occurred, and through the upheavals caused by Soviet-style collectivization and sedentarization. The book is rich with new data presented in 68 easy to understand charts/graphs (many in color) and 50 Tables. Information was generated for this book by experts working in-country. It presents for the first time in English a digest of plethora of previously inaccessible Russian reports and scientific literature that will be invaluable for development agencies, including UN, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Bank as well as to students of this vast and fascinating region who seek up to date and authoritive information.