The Impact of Desertification as Revealed by Mapping

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Mabbutt
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Aridity Index ◽  
Mean Annual Precipitation ◽  
Arid Zones ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Very High ◽  
Semi Arid

Maps prepared for the United Nations Conference on Desertification are critically reviewed and parts of selected maps are illustrated.The World Map of Desertification, called for by the United Nations General Assembly, delineates areas at risk of desertification as determined by bioclimatic stress, the inherent vulnerability of the land, and pressure of land-use. Areas of very high desertification hazard are shown to be those arid and semiarid regions with very heavy pressure of land-use. The threat of desertification is shown to be highest beyond the margins of the full deserts, but the risk extends wherever drought marks the seasonal or periodic extension of aridity. The term ‘drylands’ is used to define areas in which this risk occurs.Alternative maps at global scale include the Climate Aridity Index map based on the Budyko Ratio, which is the ratio between annual net radiation and mean annual precipitation. This allows a more sensitive depiction of aridity gradients and reveals that larger areas are under drought-stress than were previously recognized.The map of Experimental World Scheme of Aridity and Drought Probability uses soil features as an integrative record of past and present environmental conditions, including ‘land aridity’, but is constrained by the concept of soil zonality, without sufficient consideration of topographic and inherited factors which determine soil properties.The map of the Status of Desertification in the Hot Arid Regions shows the existing degree of desertification as judged by the difference between former (in the pristine state) and existing productivity. This is revealed as increasing outwards from the desert cores into the semi-arid lands, but the map does not extend into the sub-humid zone. However, it usefully depicts desertification as an expression of human impact on the land. Only very restricted areas are shown as having undergone very serious or irreversible desertification.Global maps are too generalized to depict actual desertification in quantitative terms, but the continental scale of the unpublished Desertification Hazards Map of Africa North of the Equator allows this to be done, in addition to depiction of the degree of vulnerability to desertification. Areas shown as already degraded occur mainly in the arid zone, whereas those of very high vulnerability lie mainly in the semi-arid zones.The U.N. Conference on Desertification recommended the compilation of an atlas of desertification to depict the state of the world's drylands and to serve as a cartographic basis for planning combative programmes. Regional maps of this kind, as exemplified in the synoptic maps accompanying the Case Studies of Desertification presented to the Conference, range in scale from 1:1,000,000 to 1:100,000—depending on the type of desertification portrayed—with the smaller scales for pastoral lands and more detailed scales for irrigation projects.

The Impact of the Women's Decade on Policies, Programs and Empowerment of Women in Kenya

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Maria Nzomo
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Women's Organizations ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Women In Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Kenyan Women ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Women’S Organizations

The 1985 Nairobi Conference to close the United Nations decade dedicated to women of the world caught Kenyan women (and men) by storm. Indeed, the majority of Kenyan women did not know, until the eve of this conference, that there had been an entire decade dedicated to them, and committed to the achievement of Equality, Development, and Peace. However, the Kenyan policy makers and the enlightened among Kenyan women, especially leaders of women's organizations, were not only fully aware of the decade's developments, but had in various ways participated and contributed to it. On its part, the Kenya government by the end of the decade, had adopted a Women in Development (WID) policy position and created and/or promoted national machineries to develop and coordinate programs for women.

scholarly journals The demography of desert Australia

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Brown ◽  
John Taylor ◽  
Martin Bell
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Arid Zone ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Population Projections ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Arid Zones ◽  
Demographic Information ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
Semi Arid

In recent years, with the formation of organisations such as the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, social science interest in the Australian desert has re-surfaced with a research emphasis that is focused on creating sustainable futures for the region. One consequence of this is a demand for detailed demographic information to allow an assessment of different quanta of need in social and economic policy, and for assessment of the impact of these in environmental policy. However, demographic analysis on human populations in the desert to date has attracted very little research attention. In this paper we begin to address this lack of analysis by focusing on the populations, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, of the arid and semi-arid zones of Australia. We extend earlier analysis by including for the first time demographic information on the semi-arid as well as the arid zone to establish the spatial pattern of population growth within the whole desert area drawing attention to the resulting settlement structure as an outcome of prevailing social, cultural and economic conditions. By examining population structure and demographic components of population change we also present for the first time population projections for the semi-arid zone and, therefore, in combination with the arid zone, for the entire Australian desert. All of this provides a basis for considering social and economic policy implications and the nature of underlying processes that drive change in this region.

scholarly journals Diplomatic protection in international law and the United Nations

2013 ◽  
pp. 667-681
Author(s):  
Bojan Milisavljevic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Diplomatic Protection ◽  
History Of ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Law Commission

The paper deals with the issue of the diplomatic protection in international law and its development through the history of the international community. In this sense, the author investigates the practice of states regarding the application of diplomatic protection and the steps taken by the International Law Commission of the United Nations on the codification of this area. In 2004 International Law Commission adopted at first reading a full set of draft articles. In this paper is presented judicial practice, especially of the International Court of Justice, in the field of diplomatic protection in order to evaluate whether the approach of the Court to diplomatic protection has become more human-rights oriented in the last few years. Author presents the development of customary law rules relating to diplomatic protection and its transition into a whole system of rules through the work of the International Law Commission. In this sense, these are the basic stages in the codification of rules on diplomatic protection and the United Nations contribution to the protection of the rights of foreign nationals. This article points the development of universal and regional mechanisms to protect human rights and highlights the impact of those mechanisms on traditional measures of diplomatic protection.

The Indian Nationalist Movement and the League of Nations: Prologue to the United Nations

1983 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.A. Keenleyside
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
The Impact

Prior to 1947, India, despite its dependence upon Great Britain, was represented in most of the bonafide international conferences and organizations that evolved especially during the inter-war years. For example, India participated in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Washington Conference on Naval Armaments of 1921, the London Naval Conference of 1930, the Disarmament Conference of 1932 and the annual inter-war conferences of the International Labour Organization. In addition, India was represented in two important international organizations of the inter-war period—the British Commonwealth, in whose deliberations it was included from 1917 onwards and the League of Nations, of which it was a founding member. For a variety of reasons; Indians involved in the independence movement disassociated themselves from and were critical of official Indian diplomacy conducted through the major international conferences and institutions of the world community and tended to attach greater importance to those non-governmental organizations in which the voice of nationalist India could be fully heard—that is to the deliberations of such bodies as the League Against Imperialism, 1927–1930, the Anti-War Congress of 1932, the World Peace Congress of 1936 and the International Peace Campaign Conference of 1938. Nevertheless, despite the nationalist antipathy for official Indian diplomacy, an examination of such governmental institutions as the League of Nations from the perspective of nationalist India is still important in order to understand some aspects of independent India's foreign policy and more specifically its approach to international organization. Further, even though Indian delegations to the League were unrepresentative, there were subtle ways in which they reflected national Indian opinions and exhibited specifically Indian traits, so that a study of the official Indian role is useful in drawing attention to what were to prove to be some of the earliest and most persisting elements of independent Indian diplomacy via such bodies as the United Nations. It is thus the purpose of this article first to explore nationalist Indian attitudes towards the League (especially the reasons for opposition to the organization), second to analyze the extent to which the official Indian role in the League reflected nationalist Indian concerns, and third to comment upon the impact of the League of Nations on independent India's foreign policy, especially its role in the United Nations.

scholarly journals E-Government in European Countries, a Comparative Approach Using the Principal Components Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Armenia Androniceanu ◽  
Irina Georgescu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Principal Components ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The digitalization of public administration is a necessary condition for the economic and social development of each country. In this context, e-government is developing and diversifying its forms of implementation, contributing significantly to the efficiency of public administration, to increasing the degree of transparency and to reducing corruption in public institutions. The aim of the research was to know how the states of the European Union evolved from the point of view of e-government and what influence it had on the economic development of the analyzed states and on the European citizens during the analyzed period. For this we selected ten research variables from several databases: Eurostat, the World Bank and the United Nations E-Government Development Database (UNeGovDD) of the United Nations. The period for which we did the analysis is 2010 – 2019. Using EViews 12 we applied panel Principal Component Analysis to reduce the 10-variable panel into a lower dimension of 3 principal components to find the underlying simplified structure. The three principal components retained explain about 76.5 % of the initial information. The research results show significant differences between the states analyzed, in terms of e-government, but also in terms of the impact it has on government effectiveness, controlling corruption, e-participation of European citizens and the economic development of Member States. In countries with a high level of e-government implementation, governance is efficient, corruption is low, citizen involvement is higher and economic development is faster.

scholarly journals Supporting SDG 15, Life on Land: Identifying the Main Drivers of Land Degradation in Honghe Prefecture, China, between 2005 and 2015

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 710
Author(s):  
Tuo Wang ◽  
Gregory Giuliani ◽  
Anthony Lehmann ◽  
Yangming Jiang ◽  
Xiaodong Shao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Degraded Land ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Small Areas ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Terrestrial Biodiversity ◽  
The Impact

The essence of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations is described in 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 15 focuses on Life on Land, in other words, terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as their services. Land degradation is a severe anthropic and natural phenomenon that is affecting land use/cover globally; therefore, a dedicated target of the SDG 15 (the indicator 15.3.1) was proposed. The identification of the areas where land degradation has occurred and the analysis of its drivers allow for the design of solutions to prevent further degradation in the studied areas. We followed the methodology proposed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to study the land degradation in the Honghe Prefecture in southwest China between 2005 and 2015. Through spatial analysis, we found that the degraded areas were consistent with the areas of active human activities (such as urban centers), while the impact of natural factors (such as disasters) on land degradation existed in small areas at high altitudes. Land degradation was affected primarily by the loss of land productivity and secondly by land cover changes caused by the growth of artificial areas. Changes in the soil organic carbon were not significant. We concluded that human activity was the main driver of land degradation in Honghe Prefecture. Decision makers should work to find a balance between economic development and environmental protection to restore degraded land and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral prefecture to defend all ecosystem services.

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