Product Description: 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...read more

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Product Description: This volume concerns the herding peoples of the world's more arduous climes - dry plains and savannah, deserts and tundra, mountains and steppes - for whom domestic animals play a predominant role in shaping their lives. By juxtaposing case studies covering five continents, the editors present a view of both global variations in forms of livestock production and the profound commonalities that accompany a cultural economic focus on animal husbandry...read more