Written by specialist and regional contributors, this invaluable book provides an integrated, up-to-date, geographical assessment of land degradation in the world's Mediterranean regions.

Land degradation is the alteration of the natural (or biophysical) environment by human actions, causing detrimental effects to the vegetation, soils, landforms, water and ecosystems. Part One of this book comprises a brief geography of the Mediterranean climate regions - the Mediterranean basin, California, central Chile, the Southwest Cape and Southern Australia, providing a context for Parts...

This book contains selected contributions from the Sixth Meeting of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification, held in Perth, Australia, in September 1999. Collectively, these contributions explicitly seek to understand not only the mechanisms responsible for the problem of land degradation but their social and economic implications, the means of overcoming the problems, and the policy instruments whereby remedial measures may be implemented. This breadth of approach is both distinctive and essential if the problems are to be tackled...