Publication: Ponencias Invitadas.-Desertification: the broader context
Authors
Kirkby, M.J.
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Universidad de Murcia
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Publisher
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DOI
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info:eu-repo/semantics/other
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
After over twenty years of research, there is still not complete consensus on even how to
define desertification. This is reflected in the changing emphasis of UNCCD and EU
programmes. The focus on physical processes in the 1990s has changed, first to an
emphasis on the impacts of desertification and global change, and more recently towards
sustainability rather than degradation as the core of most research effort, although much is
still concerned with scenarios of possible future change. Different research tools are able to
survey different windows on changing degradation status. Remote sensing methods, for
example, provide an excellent window on the recent past, but little forecasting potential
beyond projecting linear trends. Dynamic models add some understanding of the interaction
of different components, and are increasingly engaging with socio-economic as well as
strictly bio-physical processes, but are still limited by the intervention of the unexpected – the
boom in biofuel demand, the credit crunch etc – that severely limit their forecasting horizons.
This survey examines some of the over-arching relationships that must always constrain the
relationships between population, food, land, water and energy, constraining the overall
sustainability of global systems in a way that can only temporarily be ignored through
irreversible mining of resources and exploitation of one region at the expense of another.
The land sets constraints on food production that can partially be overcome through
technological development, linked as both cause and effect to population growth, and may
also be reduced by degradation. Less developed countries generally have a larger
proportions of rural population and higher rates of rural-urban migration, but higher overall
rates of population increase still lead to increasing rural populations (in contrast to more
developed economies with falling rural numbers), adding to pressure on land resources and,
almost inevitably, to degradation. This example demonstrates how broader social and
economic forces lie at the root of much desertification, so that alleviation measures should
not be confined to the directly affected area, but linked to national policies and development.
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