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.

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.

With tremendous success of genomic research in discovering genetic variations determining human diseases, it is now time to re-evaluate how the environment affects disease risk by taking into consideration these genetic findings. This book addresses a rapidly growing interest in assessing the relations between environmental risk factors (such as diet, lifestyle) and human diseases, by considering the potential roles of genomic make-up. The book brings together a selection of chapters written by specialists with a variety of backgrounds such as epidemiology, nutrition, genetics, epigenetics, microbiome, biostatistics and bioinformatics. These authors are united in their concerns on the same scientific question how do genomic events modify the effects of traditional, environmental risk factors on disease risk? This book offers an expert overview of the advances in the field of gene-environment interactions on human diseases and the cutting-edge methods used to detect the interactions. The majority of the chapters provide detailed up-to-date descriptions of the major findings of gene-environment interactions on various chronic diseases and risk factors such as obesity, lipids, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis, pancreatitis, Parkinson's disease, and longevity. The book also covers the potential influence of epigenetic events and microbiome on the relation between environment and diseases. In addition, the book also captures the potential application of the findings from this field in personalised prevention and treatment of human diseases.

The extreme climate variability that characterizes China's arid rangelands can cause drought and degradation, resulting in dust storms, floods, animal losses, financial hardship and a decline in food availability. Addressing the issues of even greater climate extremes in the future, this book discusses both new approaches and past successes and failures in order to provide the necessary insight to develop sustainable rangeland management strategies, drawing on regional case studies and lessons learned from Australia, Canada and the USA.