[ESIP-all] AGU Special Session on Desertification and Satellite Remote Sensing

[Charles Hutchinson]

You are invited to submit an abstract to the Fall AGU session GC 10 
Abstractws are due September 3. Details can be found at the AGU website:

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/program/scientific_session_search.php?show=detail&sessid=567

Desertification 2. Linking Regional Satellite Observations with Coupled 
Human-Ecological Systems in Global Drylands: Their Potential Role in 
Guiding Global Efforts in Poverty Alleviation and Environmental Restoration

Conveners

Charles Hutchinson
University of Arizona

James Reynolds
Duke University

The African Sahel has attracted consistent attention since a series of 
droughts in the 1970s and 1980s caused widespread famine and land 
degradation (desertification). These events spawned international 
conventions and sustained development efforts to increase food security 
and reverse poverty for the local populations, and to arrest 
environmental degradation. Since 1985, several studies using satellite 
data have described a general “greening” in response to increased 
rainfall trends. However, some areas show more greening while others 
less greening than can be explained by precipitation alone (Glob. Env. 
Change 15- 2005). The debated question is how to explain the residual 
changes: management, policy, human adaptation, or something else? 
Placing results in an human-ecological framework could help answer this 
question. Providing a meaningful assessment will allow national and 
international agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative 
approaches to poverty alleviation and environmental restoration in 
drylands at regional and global scales.

-- 
Charles F. Hutchinson
Professor and Director
Office of Arid Lands Studies
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
The University of Arizona
1955 E. 6th Street
Tucson, AZ  85721
(520) 621-8568