This up-to-date, second edition of Land Degradation explores substantial decreases in the land's biological productivity or usefulness to humans due to human activities. Case studies_including tourist impacts in Europe, the environmental footprints of urban areas, wetland drainage for agriculture in the American Midwest, run-on farming in the Negev, land degradation in the Amazon Basin, and irrigation in Egypt_cover the history of land degradation, identify the level of human responsibility in transforming natural landscapes into sustainable agro-ecosystems, look at local and regional effects...