Global desertificacion: building a science for dryland development

JAMES F. REYNOLDS; STAFFORD SMITH, D.M.; LAMBIN, E.; TURNER II, B.L.; MORTIMORE, M.; BATTERBURY, S.P.J.; DOWNING, T.; DOWLATABADI, H.; ROBERTO J. FERNANDEZ; HERRICK, J.; HUBER-SANNVALD, E; LEEMANS, R.; LYNAM, T.; MAESTRE GIL, F.; AYARZA, M.; WALKER, B.

SCIENCE

Año: 2007 vol. 316 p. 847 - 851

0036-8075

As the current International Year of Desert and Desertification highlights, science still struggles to support the future of drylands. However, there are changing international attitudes away from the simple focus on desertification and towards more positive outcomes of drylands development. A degree of consensus about lessons emerging from many disciplines applied to drylands provides the basis for a synthetic scientific framework for analyzing drylands development issues in an interdisciplinary way, which supported by a growing and well-documented set of tools for policy and management action. This paper reviews progress towards this synthetic scientific framework.