Landscape Dynamics of Drylands across Greater Central Asia: People, Societies and Ecosystems

Preface.-  Multiple Perspectives on Eurasian Drylands.- Dry Land Belt of Northern Eurasia: Contemporary Environmental Changes.-  Recent Land Surface Dynamics in Greater Central Asia.- Quantifying the Anthropogenic Signature in Drylands of Central Asia and Its Impact on Water Scarcity and Dust Emissions.- The Complexity and Challenges of Central Asia's Water-Energy-Food Systems.-  Assessment of the influences of dust storms on cotton production in Tajikistan.- Population and Urban Dynamics in Drylands of China.- Hydrology and Erosion Risk Parameters for Grasslands in Central Asia.- A Conceptual Framework for Ecosystem Stewardship Based on Landscape Dynamics: Case Studies From Kazakhstan and Mongolia.- Social-Ecological Systems across the Asian Drylands Belt (ADB).- Index.

Dr. Garik Gutman is a Program Manager for the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program. He received his Ph.D. in Climate Modeling in 1984, was a National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences Fellow at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and then worked there 14 years as a research scientist. His research focused on remote sensing of the Earth's land surface and atmosphere from space. In 1996, for developing an original technique using satellite data for reliable analyses of the Earth's vegetation cover and its long-term variations, Dr. Gutman received the U.S. Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Award.

Dr. Jiquan Chen received his PhD in Ecosystem Analysis from University of Washington and is currently a professor at Michigan State University. He was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University and on the faculty at Michigan Tech University and University of Toledo. He is broadly interested in ecosystem analysis, landscape ecology, conservation biology, biophysics, global change, land use, urban studies, and the sustainability of socioeconomic-ecological systems. He has conducted research on edge effects in fragmented landscapes, 3D canopy of forests, ecosystem carbon/water/energy fluxes, riparian zone management, agricultural and bioenergy crops, grassland (rangeland) ecology, dynamics of urban systems, and the role of institution in shaping landscape-regions under the changing globe. He is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Ecological Processes, and the book series of Landscape Studies by Springer.

Dr. Geoffrey Henebry received his MS and PhD degrees in Environmental Sciences from The University of Texas at Dallas. He is a full professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. He was a Senior