<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Bassett, Scott</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Lancaster, Judith</style></author></authors><secondary-authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kepner, W G</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Rubio, Jose L</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedrazzini, F</style></author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE FUTURES IN A STRATEGY TO ASSESS THE LIKELIHOOD OF LAND DEGRADATION LEADING TO INCREASED SUBSEQUENT POLITICAL INSTABILITY</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">alternative futures analysis</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">desertification</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Land degradation</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">land use</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">security risk (voyant)</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">social stability</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Submitted</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">601-614</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">As stated by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification or land degradation is at the root of political and socio-economic problems and poses a threat to the environmental equilibrium in affected regions. That desertification and political instability are interlinked should not be a surprise, the UN states that half of the 50 armed conflicts in 1994 had environmental causal factors characteristic of drylands (i.e., land degradation). One example cited states that the land’s loss of productivity exacerbates poverty in the drylands, forcing its farmers to seek a way of living in more fertile land or cities. In fact, over one billion people are affected as a direct consequence of desertification including 135 million people who are at risk of being displaced. The physical, biological and social causes of desertification that lead to grave human impacts are interlinked with significant feedback mechanisms. Soil salinization, for example, may result from unsuitable irrigation practices. Changes of vegetation from perennial grasses to shrubs and to annual grasses and forbs might result from overgrazing. Increases in poverty and human out-migration might result from declining agricultural productivity caused by salinization and overgrazing. Because poverty forces the people who depend on land for their livelihood to overexploit the land for food, energy, housing and source of income, desertification can be seen as both the cause and consequence of poverty. Any effective mitigation strategy must address poverty at its very center. It must take into account the social structures and land ownership as well as pay proper attention to education, training and communications in order to provide the fully integrated approach which alone can effectively combat desertification. Seeking solutions to such complex problems requires appropriate technologies and common sense. This paper suggests a technique, alternative futures analysis, to model the likelihood of future land uses in a given region undergoing desertification or at great risk to desertification and to develop an understanding of the risk to political instability coming from each of the alternatives. Furthermore, alternative futures analysis provides a technique (and communication strategy) for illustrating possible conflicts as well their causes and potential solutions. Such a strategy would help local, national and regional land managers, working with their constituent stakeholders to mitigate such effects. A framework for a pilot project employing this technique is presented.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Brauch, H G</style></author></authors><secondary-authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kepner, W G</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Rubio, Jose L</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedrazzini, Fausto</style></author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">DESERTIFICATION–A NEW SECURITY CHALLENGE FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN? Policy agenda for recognising and coping with fatal outcomes of global</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region. A Security …</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">conflict</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">desertification</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Drought</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">environmental degradation</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">environmental security</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">food security</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Global change</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">human security</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Land degradation</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">migration</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">natural disasters (voyant)</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2006</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">11-85</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification (representing soil degradation) is one of the three nature-induced (climate change, hydrological cycle) and of three primarily human-induced challenges (population growth, urbanisation and food) of global environmental change. These six components closely interact and contribute to fatal outcomes: primarily to extreme weather events and hydro-meteorological disasters (drought, flash floods, storms) and environmentally-induced migrations. These two fatal outcomes may have – in some cases – societal repercussions that may trigger or contribute to domestic, regional and international crisis and conflicts and thus they may become an issue of both human, societal, national and international security. To illustrate the causal linkages: for example in Morocco in the 1980s and 1990s, the following chain of events could be observed: severe drought, increase in food prices, hunger riots, general strikes, the police and armed forces interfered to repress these violent upheavals and subsequently hundreds of casualties could be deplored. These cases were not listed as a conflict in the relevant conflict data bases. The paper is organised in three parts: In the first part, the complex casual interactions among six factors of global environment change, two fatal outcomes and three societal repercussions: crises, conflicts and conflict avoidance, prevention and resolution will be discussed. In the second part, different security concepts will be reviewed that may be of relevance for dealing with desertification as a security issue. In the third part, possible security relevance pro-active political strategies will be considered, to avoid, and prevent that desertification issues can pose security challenges, and to contribute to a resolution of the desertification driven violence. 11</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kapur, S</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Akça, E</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kapur, B</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Öztürk, A</style></author></authors><secondary-authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kepner, W G</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Rubio, Jose L</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedrazzini, F</style></author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">MIGRATION : AN IRREVERSIBLE IMPACT OF LAND DEGRADATION IN TURKEY</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Land degradation</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">land management</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Migration (voyant)</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Soil sealing</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Turkey</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2006</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">291-301</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The total arable land in Turkey is 28.054.000 ha. However, the prime soils cover only 17.5% of the total land surface and the productivity of the remaining soils is mainly limited by topography, depleted organic matter and high clay contents. The long standing deforestation, unsuitable tillage and irrigation management have induced the rate of erosion since historical periods. The majority of the country’s soil (76.5%) are prone to erosion risk due to the dominant steep slopes (&gt;6%), and 72% of the soils are more or less affected from water and wind erosion (CCD-Turkey, 2003). Soil sealing and extraction of raw material together with overuse of fertilizers and irrigation have led to the improper use of traditional environmental friendly agroscape (agroecosystem), thus constantly degrading the soils of the country. Secondary salinity builds up in the primary saline zones as well as the fertile alluvial planes of Turkey, which are actually the gene zones of many crops particularly cereals, legumes and halophytes, pointing out to the reality that irrigation management plans should not only be based on the concept of conventional cash crop production but also for the crop present on the indigenous agroescapes. This necessitates the incorporation of the halophyte production in the central Anatolian steppes and the olive/carod/vine production in the semi-arid Mediterranean karstic region together with the south east Anatolians calcrete agroscapes. This paradigm is sustainable land use management aims to increase the welfare of the urban people and decrease the threat of excess water use in fragile steppe, karstic and calcrete topographies, which are also the carbon pools of the world. Hence, the concept of agroscapes based on landuse assessment should primarily be considered in the development of sustainable land management strategies particularly with the incorporation of indigenous environmental friendly technical knowledge to combat land degradation and desertification. The high population increase in the urban regions and conversely the decrease in the rural, cause the intensive use of arable land around the former inducing desertification. According to the census of 2000, 40%of the country’s population live in rural area (23.797.653 out of the total 67.803.927) with an average of 1.21 ha/man arable land, mostly allocated for cereal production (country average ~2000Kg/ha.). This is equivalent to a low net income rate, which results to migration from the rural areas to urban, particularly from the east of the country to the west. The Government Statistics Institute (2003)date reveals that from 1990 to 2000, the urban population increased by 30%, ie from 33.656.275 to 44.006.274, whereas the rural increased at much lower rate (4.3%). This data reveals the pressure of both natural and human induced factors on soils and land urgently in need of sustainable land management policies along the legislations, since, the rate of quality loss of land and soil, ie desertification in the coming decades will ultimately be the common jeopardy in the country.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Aguilar, Juan A Pascual</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Añó, Carlos</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Valera, Antonio</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Sánchez, Juan</style></author></authors><secondary-authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kepner, William G</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Rubio, Jose L</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedrazzini, Fausto</style></author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">URBAN GROWTH DYNAMICS ( 1956-1998 ) IN MEDITERRANEAN COASTAL REGIONS : THE CASE OF ALICANTE , SPAIN</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Aerial photograph</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">desertification</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Geographical information Systems.</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Land degradation</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mediterranean environments</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Soil sealing</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Urban dynamics</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1998</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">325-340</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Among factors causing soil degradation one of the most important, although less studied in Mediterranean environments, is the irreversible loss of soil due to urbanisation processes, inserted into the more general concept of soil sealing. In coastal Mediterranean regions, such as the Valencia Region, Spain, land cover transformations are mainly produced by contemporary socio-economic changes that have produced a drift from traditional agriculture to industrial and tourism economies, reinforced by population’s trends to concentrate in cities or larger urban regions. Evaluation of soil sealing is then a key element to understand soil degradation and the disappearance, in most cases, of highly productive soils. This work, inserted within a major study on land use-cover change and soil degradation of metropolitan areas in the Valencia Region, presents the preliminary results on the urban-non urban (open agrarian and natural spaces) dynamics in the municipality of Alicante, the second largest city in the region. Three sets of panchromatic air photos for the years 1956, 1985 and 1998 have been used. After air photo scanning, on screen digitising using a base digital topographic map at scale 1:10,000, was applied to extract two major types of soil cover: agrarian and urban. A Geographical Information System vector structure has been implemented for cartographic comparison. Finally, to identify spatial and temporal changes maps and overlays together with synthetic tables were produced in order to assess soil degradation. Results show that there has been a substantial loss of soil devoted mainly to agriculture. Urban growth can be differentiated into three distinct spatial patterns: 1) edge compact enlargement of the city boundaries, including growth following the main road network; 2) compact new urbanisation alongside the coast and 3) the colonisation by groups of individual residences mainly over continental open spaces. One of the main impacts of such new urban pattern has been the loss of the most fertile soils distributed over the alluvial plains around the city, which has been mainly occupied by the tourist and residential buildings</style></abstract></record></records></xml>