Chapter 7 Deserts

The desert environment:

A good source for information on the deserts of North America. Offers a general "What is a desert?" section, an overview of North American deserts (with a discussion of classification problems) and a detailed look at the Chihuahuan Desert, the Great Basin Desert, the Mojave Desert and the Sonoran Desert. There are also sections on minerals and geology; animals and wildlife; plants and wildflowers; people and cultures.
http://www.desertusa.com/desert.html

The Unitarian Service Committee of Canada:

The site of a Canadian charity working in a number of Third World countries including Mali. Check out the information archive, reports and field notes for an insight into the problems of rural communities facing desertification in Mali. Very good links page to desertification sites, including one to the excellent USC-sponsored, award-winning film River of Sand (about fighting desertification in Mali).
http://www.usc-canada.org/

The United Nations Convention to Combat Diversification:

A background information paper on desertification and its causes; the main areas of concern; the social, economic and political problems involved in tackling the problem, and the objectives of the Convention. There is a list of actions taken by individual countries. Site last updated: 1997.
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/sustdev/desert.htm

The DeMon project site:

An EU research project, DeMon (Desert Monitoring) offers an approach to the study of land degradation in the Mediterranean basin using satellite and other data. The small but interesting site contains some excellent photos of degraded landscapes, together with an analysis of ecozones, areas of biomass deficit and a soil erosion model.
http://www.frw.ruu.nl/fg/demon.html