This book presents an oasis of information on the world's starkest deserts. ""Journey from Death Valley"", the lowest point in North America, to the Libyan desert, the hottest on Earth, where temperatures can reach 136[degrees]F, to Antarctica's vast polar deserts, which have not had ice cover for thousands of years. From trade wind and rainshadow deserts to interior and coastal deserts, ""Deserts"" spotlights 10 superlative examples and reveals why these astonishing landforms are never static, but always changing. A dramatic, full-color photographic insert adds visual appeal to this compelling title.

Water plays different roles in the desert. It appears when we least expect it and hides when we want it most. Rain falls but never reaches the ground, and dry washes abruptly become rivers. One constant holds true: water enables life.

In "Desert Wetlands" a distinguished photographer and a passionate naturalist document sites in the American Southwest and Mexico that are gauges to the environment. The wetlands included are Cuatro Cienegas Basin in Coahuila, Mexico, the San Pedro River in Arizona, the Escalante River in Utah, the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, the playas and wetlands in Arizona, the Mohave Desert in California, and the Big Bend National Park in Texas.

Exploration of desert wetlandsawhether on foot, with photographs, or in wordsainvolves vacillating between tremendous, uplifting beauty and great, heartbreaking degradation. We offer the images and words in your hands that you might grasp the beauty more readily, and join the chorus of voices calling for an end to despoiling of these treasurelands."aThomas Lowe Fleischner in "Desert Wetlands"

Mr. Niemeyer's photography . . . is utterly superb."a"Southern Living"

Illustrated with breathtaking pictures, this book records the history, people and culture of the Thar, a land of sand, hot winds and treacherous droughts.

Two new chapters will be added to the Second Edition of this successful text, one on debris flow in the Canyon and the other on impact of water flow releases from the Glen Canyon Dam. The rest of the chapters will be updated where necessary and photographs will be replaced or re-screened for better resolution.

The countries that make up the MENA region display wide diversity. One of the poorest countries in the world sits alongside two of the wealthiest, whilst the region's natural resources range from immeasurable oil and gas reserves to some of the scantiest natural endowments anywhere in the world. Yet through this diversity runs a common thread: water scarcity. Now, through the impact of human development and climate change, the water resource itself is changing,bringing new risks and increasing the vulnerability of all those dependent on water. Chris Ward and Sandra Ruckstuhl assess the increased challenges now facing the countries of the region, placing particular emphasis on water scarcity and the resultant risks to livelihoods, food security and the environment. They evaluate the risks and reality of climate change in the region, and offer an assessment of the vulnerability of agriculture and livelihoods. In a final section, they explore the options for responding to the new challenges, including policy, institutional, economic and technical measures.

Mountains rise like islands from deserts and grasslands along the U.S.-Mexican border. The stunningly varied borderlands offer a laboratory for studying historical trends and ecological cycles, as well as a refuge in which to experience natural history firsthand. In this engaging personal narrative, biologist Fred Gehlbach describes the stability and changes of the past century in the Borderlands' climate, landforms, and natural communities and in its distinctive plants and vertebrates. Historical sketches, maps, and striking photographs richly amplify the text, and a preface updates developments in the region since the book's original publication in 1981.

Colonial Geography charts changes in conceptions of the relationship between people and landscapes in mainland Tanzania during the German colonial period. In German minds, colonial development would depend on the relationship between East Africans and the landscape. Colonial Geography argues that the most important element in German imperialism was not its violence but its attempts to apply racial thinking to the mastery and control of space. Utilizing approaches drawn from critical geography, the book argues that the development of a representational space of empire had serious consequences for German colonialism and the population of East Africa. Colonial Geography shows how spatial thinking shaped ideas about race and empire in the period of New Imperialism.

Award-winning photographer Craig Varjabedian has spent decades photographing the many moods of the magnificent and ever-changing landscape of New Mexico's White Sands National Monument. His photographs reveal snow-white dunes of gypsum, striking landforms, storms and stillness, panoramic vistas and breathtaking sunsets, intricate wind-blown patterns in the sand, ancient animal tracks, exquisite desert plants, and also the people who come to experience this place that is at once spectacular yet subtle. Varjabedian's evocative color images provide the reader with an almost palpable sense of this extraordinary place. These photographs are enriched by several essays written by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, noted poet and author; Dennis Ditmanson, retired White Sands National Monument superintendent; Jim Eckles, retired Missile Range public affairs officer; and Craig Varjabedian, the photographer who shares his insights and experiences of photographing this inspiring landscape and offers tips on making better pictures of White Sands.

North American deserts-lands of little water-have long been home to a surprising diversity of aquatic life, from fish to insects and mollusks. With European settlement, however, water extraction, resource exploitation, and invasive species set many of these native aquatic species on downward spirals. In this book, conservationists dedicated to these creatures document the history of their work, the techniques and philosophies that inform it, and the challenges and opportunities of the future. A precursor to this book, Battle Against Extinction, laid out the scope of the problem and related conservation activities through the late 1980s. Since then, many nascent conservation programs have matured, and researchers have developed new technologies, improved and refined methods, and greatly expanded our knowledge of the myriad influences on the ecology and dynamics of these species. Standing between Life and Extinction brings the story up to date. While the future for some species is more secure than thirty years ago, others are less fortunate. Calling attention not only to iconic species like the razorback sucker, Gila trout, and Devils Hole pupfish, but also to other fishes and obscure and fascinating invertebrates inhabiting intermittent aquatic habitats, this book explores the scientific, social, and political challenges of preserving these aquatic species and their habitats amid an increasingly charged political discourse and in desert regions characterized by a growing human population and rapidly changing climate.

A comprehensive review of dryland climates and their relationship to the physical environment, hydrology, and inhabitants. Chapters are divided into five major sections on background meteorology and climatology; the nature of dryland climates in relation to precipitation and hydrology; the climatology and climate dynamics of the major dryland regions on each continent; and life and change in the world's drylands. It includes key topics such as vegetation, geomorphology, desertification, micro-habitats, and adaptation to dryland environments. This interdisciplinary volume provides an extensive review of the primary literature (covering nearly 2000 references) and the conventional and satellite datasets that form key research tools for dryland climatology. Illustrated with over 300 author photographs, it presents a unique view of dryland climates for a broad spectrum of researchers, environmental professionals and advanced students in climatology, meteorology, geography, environment science, earth system science, ecology, hydrology and geomorphology.

The inaction of nation states and international bodies has posed significant risks to the environment. By contrast, cities are sites of action and innovation. In Sustainability, Citizen Participation, and City Governance, contributors researching in the areas of law, urban planning, geography, and philosophy identify approaches for tackling many of the most challenging environmental problems facing cities today. Sustainability, Citizen Participation, and City Governance facilitates two strands of dialogue about climate change. First, it integrates legal perspectives into policy debates about urban sustainability and governance, from which law has typically stood apart. Second, it brings case studies from Quebec into a rare conversation with examples drawn from elsewhere in Canada. The collection proposes humane and inclusive processes for arriving at effective policy outcomes. Some chapters examine governance mechanisms that reconcile clashes of incommensurable values and resolve conflicts about collective interests. Other chapters provide platforms for social movements that have faced obstacles to communicating to a broad public. The collection's proposals respond to drastic changes in urban environments. Some changes are imminent. Others are upon us already. All threaten the present and future well-being of urban communities.

Arid environments are landscapes that receive very little precipitation. Deserts can be described as an arid environment where more water is lost that gained as precipitation. Arid environments have been classified as mega thermal climates; areas of having great heat. This book focuses on regions classified as arid environments and how systematic, evidence-based synthesis may be useful for assessing ecological and cost-effective strategies for assessing revegetation in arid lands. It discusses foundations and main driving forces of socio-economic developments of arid zone and important mechanisms affecting the success of certain species over others. This book brings new research advances from around the world.

Beyond the Megacity connects and reconnects the global debate on the contemporary urban condition to the Latin American tradition of seeing, considering, and theorizing urbanization from the margins. It develops the approach of "peripheral urbanization" as a way to integrate the theoretical agendas belonging to global suburbanisms, neo-Marxist accounts of planetary urbanization, and postcolonial urban studies, and to move urban theory closer to the complexity and diversity of urbanization in the Global South. From an interdisciplinary perspective, Beyond the Megacity investigates the natures, causes, implications, and politics of current urbanization processes in Latin America. The book draws on case studies from various countries across the region, covering theoretical and disciplinary approaches from the fields of geography, anthropology, sociology, urban studies, agrarian studies, and urban and regional planning, and is written by academics, journalists, practitioners, and scholar-activists. Beyond the Megacity unites these unique perspectives by shifting attention to the places, processes, practices, and bodies of knowledge that have often been neglected in the past.

The Great Oasis of Egypt provides the first full study of the Dakhla and Kharga Oases in antiquity, written by participants in several of the current archaeological projects in this region. The oases were closely tied to Egypt and to each other, but not always easy to control, and their agricultural productivity varied with climatic conditions. The book discusses the oases' geology, water resources, history, administration, economy, trade connections, taxation, urbanism, religion, burial practices, literary culture, and art. New evidence for human health and illness from the cemeteries is presented along with a synthesis on the use of different types of cloth in burial. A particular emphasis is placed on pottery, with its ability to tell us both about how people lived and how far imports and exports can be seen from the shapes and fabrics, and both literature and art suggest full participation in the culture of Greco-Roman Egypt.

In the spirit of the avid desert botanist Willis Linn Jepson, "The Jepson Desert Manual "provides botanical enthusiasts of all backgrounds with the first comprehensive field guide focused exclusively on native and naturalized vascular plants of California's southeastern deserts. Based on "The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California, "the "Desert Manual "incorporates new illustrations for more than two hundred desert taxa, revised keys to identification, updated distributional information, and 128 color photographs. This guide will allow easier identification of California's fascinating desert plants than would be possible in a manual with broader geographic coverage.
As in "The Jepson Manual, "detailed descriptions and illustrations of plant characteristics are provided, along with information on native versus alien status, habitats, elevation, endangerment, toxicity, weed status, horticultural requirements, and flowering times. Introductory sections on the desert setting and vegetation offer the reader a broad context and new perspectives for appreciating the more than twenty five hundred plant species included in the "Manual. "For amateur and professional botanists alike, the "Desert Manual "will prove to be an invaluable companion in California's spectacular Mojave Desert, Sonoran Desert, and southern Great Basin environments, including the White Mountains.

Described as 'a writer in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and other self-educated seers' by the "San Francisco Chronicle", David Rains Wallace turns his attention in this new book to another distinctive corner of California - its desert, the driest and hottest environment in North America. Drawing from his frequent forays to Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Kelso Dunes, and other locales, Wallace illuminates the desert's intriguing flora and fauna as he explores a controversial, unresolved scientific debate about the origin and evolution of its unusual ecosystems. Eminent scientists and scholars appear throughout these pages, including maverick paleobiologist Daniel Axelrod, botanist Ledyard Stebbins, and naturalists Edmund Jaeger and Joseph Wood Krutch. Weaving together ecology, geology, natural history, and mythology in his characteristically eloquent voice, Wallace reveals that there is more to this starkly beautiful landscape than meets the eye.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.

Bristol takes readers on a journey through the history of Glacier National Park, beginning over a billion years ago from the formation of the Belt Sea, to the present day climate-changing extinction of the very glaciers that sculpted most of the wonders of its landscapes. He delves into the ways in which this area of Montana seemed to have been preparing itself for the coming of humankind through a series of landmass adjustments like the Lewis Overthrust and the ice ages that came and went. First there were tribes of Native Americans whose deep regard for nature left the landscape intact. They were followed by Euro-American explorers and settlers who may have been awed by the new lands, but began to move wildlife to near extinction. Fortunately for the area that would become Glacier, some began to recognize that laying siege to nature and its bounties would lead to wastelands. Bristol recounts how a renewed conservation ethic fostered by such leaders as Emerson, Thoreau, Olmstead, Muir, and Teddy Roosevelt took hold. Their disciples were Grinnell, Hill, Mather, Albright, and Franklin Roosevelt, and they would not only take up the call but rally for the cause. These giants would create and preserve a park landscape to accommodate visitors and wilderness alike.

This work is intended for ages 5-9. Plants and animals in the Sonoran Desert food chains have had to adapt to the hot, dry climate of this habitat. Conserving water is a large part of these food-chain adaptations. Learn about the spectacular Saguaro cacti and the many herbivores and carnivores that are part of the food chains of this desert. Children will learn about: how plants make food; how desert plants and animals adapt to drought and heat; desert hunters and scavengers; dangers to Sonoran Desert food chains and webs; and how to help save desert plants and animals.