November-December 2002, Issue No. 52 |
ISSN: 1092-5481 |
About this newsletter: |
TABLE OF CONTENTS Editor's note:
Overview: Dryland environments Planning and managing soil and water
resources in drylands: Role of watershed management Spatial variability in arid soils:
Sampling and characterization issues Collection and organization of source
data Assessing the capabilities of
soil and water resources Producing, conserving, and sustaining
soil and water resources: The role of watershed management An interactive Virtual Soil Museum:
A pilot project of the International Soil Reference and Information Centre
(ISRIC) with focus on arid soils Interactional digital libraries:
Uses and users Building a global arid lands
information system: A collaborative approach
Briefly noted: |
Because of this current special issue, the call for papers that was originally issued for November/December 2002 now applies for the May/June 2003 issue of the Arid Lands Newsletter. This issue, ALN No. 53, will focus on the theme of "Using geospatial technologies to develop participatory tools for natural resources management."
Remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems offer powerful tools for researchers and land managers, but if their full potential as tools for natural resources management is ever to be reached, they also need to incorporate social information gathered on the ground and at scales, such as the household level, that are not accessible to geospatial technologies. Furthermore, if tools based on these technologies are truly to be participatory, they must be designed with serious input from, and must be useful and accessible to, "on-the-ground" land managers, stakeholders, and residents of arid lands. In other words, such tools would help promote "bottom-up" rather than "top-down" management and use of resources. What is being done to enable this to happen? Case studies of projects in which such participatory tools are being actively developed are particularly welcome, as are articles exploring development of community-based tools (for example, participatory GIS or PPGIS).
Proposals for papers, comments, suggestions for possible authors, suggestions for resources (web, paper, CD-ROM etc.) to be included, etc. are welcome. Please send your suggestions to Katherine Waser, Editor, Arid Lands Newsletter.