Description
Greater Central Asia encompasses a vast area that includes deserts, natural grasslands, steppes, shrublands and alpine regions. Many of these land types are degraded and productivity is falling at a time when human populations and livestock inventories are on the rise. Ecosystem stability and biodiversity are under threat and there is an urgent need to develop more sustainable land management regimes. This book uses an integrated regional approach to provide a comprehensive exploration of sustainable land development in Central Asia. An interdisciplinary team of experts analyses the economic, ecological, sociological, technological and political factors surrounding sustainable land and water management in the region, sharing potential problems and solutions. As international concern about desertification grows, the book concludes by asking how the region is likely to develop in the future. This book will be of value to scholars, students, policy makers and NGOs with an interest in sustainable development in Central Asia.
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction
1. Greater Central Asia: Its Peoples and their History and Geography, Victor Squires & Qi Lu
2. Biogeography and Natural Resources of Greater Central Asia: An Overview, Leah & Nikolai Orlovosky
3. Managing the Commons in the Post-Soviet Transition: What are the Challenges of Institutional Change in Pastoral Systems in Uzbekistan, Mahkmud Shaumarov & Regina Birner
Part II: Sustainable Land Management: A Dream or an Economic and Ecological Imperative
4. Sustainable land management: What Do We Want to Sustain? Victor Squires and Haiying Feng
5. Sustainable land Management in Greater Central Asia in a Land Degradation Neutral Context, Feng Wang, Qi Lu & Victor Squires
6. Barriers to Sustainable Land Management in Greater Central Asia: with Special reference to the Five Former Soviet Republics, Akmal Akramkhanov, Utkur Djanibekov, Nariman Nishanov, Nodir Djanibekov, Shinan Kassam
Part III: The Nature and Extent of Land Degradation in Greater Central Asia
7. Assessment of Land Degradation Process and Identification of Long-Term Trends in Vegetation Dynamics in the Drylands of Greater Central Asia, Dildora Aralova, Jahan Karieva, KristinaToderich, Lucas Menzel, Umut Halik, & Dilshod Gofurov
8. Land Degradation Indicators: Development and Implementation by Remote Sensing Techniques, Feng Yiming, Yan Feng, & Cao Xiaoming
9. Mitigation of Desertification and Land Degradation impacts and Multilateral Cooperation in Greater Central Asia, Yang Youlin, Pak Sum Low, Yang Liu, & Jia Xiaoxia
Part IV: Thematic Issues of SLM in Great Central Asia
10. Water in Greater Central Asia: A Cross-Cutting Management Issue, Maksud Bekchanov, N. Djanibekov, JPA Lamers
11. Water from the Mountains of Greater Central Asia: A Resource Under Threat, Wilfried Hagg
Part V: Consolidating and Summarizing Findings
12. Greater Central Asia as the New Frontier in the Twenty-First Century, Victor Squires & Lu Qi
13. Greater Central Asia: China, Russia or Multilateralism? Niklas Swanstrom
14. Unifying Perspectives on Land, Water, People, Development and an Agenda for Future Social-Ecological Research, Victor Squires & Lu Qi
