This up-to-date, second edition of Land Degradation explores substantial decreases in the land's biological productivity or usefulness to humans due to human activities. Case studies—including tourist impacts in Europe, the environmental footprints of urban areas, wetland drainage for agriculture in the American Midwest, run-on farming in the Negev, land degradation in the Amazon Basin, and irrigation in Egypt—cover the history of land degradation, identify the level of human responsibility in transforming natural landscapes into sustainable agro-ecosystems, look at local and regional effects of human interactions with the environment, and reveal both negative and positive aspects of land modification. Extensively illustrated, Land Degradation can be used as the primary text in a course of the same name or as a supplement in courses covering land use, environmental change, and sustainability.

"This volume...provides a readable and wide-ranging examination of land degradation....Full of brief but well-chosen examples. The authors...have written a text that is highly accessible to an interdisciplinary audience, explaining technical terms clearly and concisely." - Human Ecology, October 2008