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- Title
Drivers of Unsustainable Land Use in the Semi-Arid Khabur River Basin, Syria.
- Authors
HOLE, FRANK
- Abstract
The semi-arid zone of Southwest Asia, known as the Fertile Crescent, is under unprecedented stress because of agricultural development. Where rain-fed agriculture and transhumant herding had prevailed over ten millennia, today intensive cultivation with irrigation threatens future sustainability. A number of interconnected, but uncoordinated drivers of change combine to shape the landscape and its future, and their changes make it hard to anticipate future requirements and opportunities, as well as to implement policies, whether by local stakeholders or at the national level. Among the factors that comprise the socio-natural systems are (1) climate, (2) water and soil resources, (3) history of land use, (4) social, economic and political factors, (5) infrastructural developments (6) interstate impacts, and (7) legacies of the past. The example of the Khabur River drainage in northeastern Syria shows the dynamic interplay among these factors over the past 70 years, with implications for the way future policies and practices are developed.
- Subjects
SYRIA; SUSTAINABLE agriculture; ALTERNATIVE agriculture; WATER supply; LAND use; AGRICULTURAL development; ECONOMIC development; LAND economics; LAND management
- Publication
Geographical Research, 2009, Vol 47, Issue 1, p4
- ISSN
1745-5863
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1745-5871.2008.00550.x