Land Resources: Now And For The Future
Cambridge University Press
Edition: New Ed, 9/18/2014
EAN 9780521785594, ISBN10: 0521785596
Paperback, 332 pages, 24.4 x 17 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
This book provides an authoritative review of the resources of soils, water, climate, forests and pastures on which agriculture depends. It assesses the interactions between land resources and wider aspects of development, including population and poverty. Unless action is taken, the developing world will face recurrent problems of food security and conflict. The book gives some forcefully-expressed criticisms of current methods of assessing land degradation and placing an economic value on land. It should be read by all involved in rural development, including scientists, economists, geographers, sociologists, planners, and students of development studies. It provides a summary and perspective of the field of land resources, and suggests improvements needed to conserve resources for future generations. The hardback edition of the book received excellent reviews.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on acronyms and currency
1. Concern for land
2. Land resource issues
3. Resource survey and land evaluation
4. Competition for land
5. Working with farmers
6. Land use planning
7. Land degradation
8. Global issues
climatic change and biodiversity
9. Monitoring change
land resource indicators
10. Costing the earth
the economic value of land resources
11. Land management
caring for resources
12. Research and technology
13. Land, food and people
14. Population, poverty and conflict
15. Awareness, attitudes and actions
Notes
References
Index.
'an authoritative interpretation ... Dr Young has distilled wisdom from a great deal of information and opinion, much of it conflicting, into a coherent account of land resources in the developing world ... His arguments are carefully weighed, cogent and lucid. The book deserves to be widely read, not only by soil scientists, indeed not mainly by soil scientists, but by the wider citizenry and especially its politicians and administrators.' European Journal of Soil Sciences