Desert Regions: Population, Migration and Environment

by Boris A. Portnov (Editor), A. Paul Hare (Editor)

Overview

Despite the common understanding of the importance of desert development in the contemporary world, there are relatively few books published to date on this sub­ ject. The books and collective volumes published in this field deal primarily with environmental and physical aspects of desert development such as soil, agriculture, vegetation, water resources, etc. In contrast, this book addresses the issues of regional and urban development in desert areas, which have not been given sufficient attention. The present book is socially oriented. It considers physical development of desert regions not as an end in itself, but rather as an essential precondition for creating socially attractive and desirable environments for human settlement. The book addresses the issues of desert development at three distinctive conceptual levels - region, urban envi­ ronment, and building -and deals with both cold and hot deserts. Approximately half of the chapters in this book are original contributions that have not been published elsewhere. The remaining chapters fall into two groups: 1) chapters which have been reprinted from various refereed journals, and 2) chapters initially printed elsewhere and revised by their respective authors specifi­ cally for this collective volume. In the former case, permission to reproduce the material has been obtained from the respective copyright holders, and the details of original publication and names of copyright holders are indicated in footnotes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783642642883
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	10/06/2011
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1999
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

Preface.- List of Contributors.- 1 Introduction.- 1.1 Climate Causes of Aridity.- 1.2 Criteria for Aridity.- 1.3 Geographic Extent of Deserts.- 1.4 The process of Desertification.- 1.5 Desert and Urban Growth.- 1.6 Scope of the Book.- References.- One Regional Deveopment and Population Change.- 2 Long-tenn Development Patterns of Peripheral Desert Settlements.- 3 Sustainable Population Growth of Urban Settlements: Preconditions and Criteria.- 4 Private Construction as a General Indicator of Urban Development.- 5 The Effect of Remoteness and Isolation on Development of Peripheral Settlements.- Modeling the Migration Attractiveness of a Region.- Investigating the Effect of Public Policy on Population Growth in Peripheral Areas.- Ecological-oriented Options for the Sustainable Development of Drylands.- Two Cities of Cold and Hot Deserts.- Physical Environment and Social Attractiveness of Frontier Settlements: Cities of Siberia, Russia.- Planning Theories versus Reality: A Desert Study Case.- An Experimental Evaluation of Strategies for Reducing Airborne Dust in Desert Cities.- Planning in Desert Environments: Three Cases of Responsive Planning.- The Past as a Key for the Future in Resettling the Desert.- Three Building and Design.- A Desert Solar Neighborhood in Sede Boker, Israel.- A Bio-Climatic Approach to Desert Architecture.- Urban Microclimate in the Desert: Planning for Outdoor Comfort under Arid Conditions.- Adaptive Architecture: Low-Energy Technologies for Climate Control in the Desert.- Four Case Studies.- Desert Settlements in Israel: Socio-Economic and Physical Data.- Author Index.