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 of human interactions with the
environment, and reveal both negative and positive aspects of land
modification. Extensively illustrated, Land Degradation can be used as
the primary text in a course of the same name or as a supplement in
courses covering land use, environmental change, and sustainability.