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

Dr. Garik Gutman is 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. A native of Shanxi in Northern China, Dr. Chen received his undergraduate education in grassland ecology (Inner Mongolia University), MS in forest ecology (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and PhD in ecosystem Analysis (University of Washington). His postdoc training was in the stream ecology and ecosystem management. He was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University (1999-2000). He was on the faculty at Michigan Tech University (1993-2001) and University of Toledo (2001-2014). Dr. Geoffrey Henebry of South Dakota University is a landscape ecologist whose basic & applied research focuses on using geospatial time series to characterize, model, and understand diverse ecological and biogeophysical phenomena. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Landscape Ecology and International Journal of Biometeorology . He is active in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the US Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (US-IALE).

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.