Changing Deserts

Lisa Mol is a Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University. She is a stone weathering geomorphologist and has conducted research on the weathering of Rock Art in South Africa. She currently researches the effect of armed warfare on fragile immovable heritage in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Troy Sternberg is a researcher at the School of Geography, Oxford University. His research focus is on natural hazards, environmental processes, the effectiveness of traditional nomadic strategies and the comparative ecological impact of livelihoods across the Asian steppe. In Mongolia his interest is in developing rural water access, quantifying drought and degradation and placing Mongolian pastoralism and the Gobi environment in a broader global context.

• Foreword Troy Sternberg and Lisa Mol 1. Introduction. The Nature and Diversity of Deserts Andrew Goudie I. Changing Environment 2. Shedding Light on the Past: Records of Past Conditions in the Namib Desert and the Use of Lumines- cence Dating Abi Stone 3. Soil Organic Carbon and Soil Respiration in Deserts: Examples from the Kalahari Andrew D. Thomas, Stephen R. Hoon, Helen Mairs and Andrew J. Dougill 4. Hominin Evolutionary History in the Arabian Desert and the Thar Desert Michael D. Petraglia, Huw Groucutt and James Blinkhorn 5. Can Carbon Finance Enhance Desert Afforestation and Serve Smallholders' Needs? Henri Rueff and Moshe Schwartz II. Changing People 6. 'Saharan Waterscapes'. Traditional Knowledge and Historical Depth of Water Management in the Akakus Mts. (SW Libya) Savino di Lernia, Isabella Massamba N'Siala and Andrea Zerboni 7. Karez versus Tubewell Irrigation: Comparative Social Acceptability and Practicality of Sustainable Groundwater Development in Balochistan, Pakistan Daanish Mustafa 8. Living off Uncertainty: the Intelligent Animal Production of Dryland Pastoralists Saverio Kratli and Nikolaus Schareika 9. Authenticity in the desert landscapes of Oman: the Jiddat-il-Harasiis, Oman Dawn Chatty 10. Pristine Wilderness, Participatory Archaeology and the Custodianship of Heritage in Mursiland Marcus W.R. Brittain and Timothy A.R. Clack III: Changing Problems 11. Conserving History in Changing Arid Environments: a Geomorphological Approach Lisa Mol and Heather Viles 12. Water in the Desert: Applying Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Lessons for Climate Change in Arid Lands Katherine Donovan and Ilan Kelman 13. Hazard Impact on Desert Environments Troy Sternberg 14. Knowledge Systems Have Not Served the Drylands Well: Reflections on Stakeholder Interactions Mike Mortimore 15. Human - Environment Interactions: the Invasion of Prosopis juliflora in the Drylands of North-east Ethiopia Simone Rettberg and Detlef Muller-Mahn 16. Conclusions David Thomas Index