Moshe INBAR, university of Haifa, Israel, Israel
COMLAND- Past, Present and Future
Inbar, M., Sala, M., Conacher, A.J.
COMLAND - The IGU Commission on Land Degradation - was founded thirty years ago, as a working group. Thirty years after we ask: What were the achievements? And no doubt that the founders - Prof. Maria Sala from Barcelona, Prof. Arthur Conacher from Perth and Prof. Moshe Inbar from Haifa - may be proud that the commission is still active and one of the more fruitfull IGU commissions.
Land degradation are scientific words dealing with geodiseases and not with beautiful landscapes like mountains, rivers or glaciers. Our task is not just to describe the problems, but to analyze the factors and to provide solutions. Land use changes all over the globe are the most impact factor causing land degradation affecting the bio and geodiversity of the landscape.
COMLAND meetings covered all continents and peripherial countries: Iceland, Argentina (First IGU commission meeting there) Mexico, Morocco, Vietnam, Israel, South Africa, Australia among many others.
One of the examples is the COMLAND meeting in 2011 in the Copiapo valley in the Atacama desert in Northern Chile dealing with the degradational problems in the area: mine exploration for more than a century declined but agricultural grape cultivation on the desertic slopes developed. Today the struggle is for the water resources- glaciers in the high Andes mountains- that are not enough for mines and agriculture.
Hundreds of peer reviewed papers were published by COMLAND members, and is worth to mention the book: Conacher, A.J. and Sala. M. 1998: Land Degradation in Mediterranean Environments of the World, J. Wiley Publishers.
The present commission, led by O. Graham as secretary and M. Zorn as chair is very active organizing meetings and sessions at IGU and IAG general meetings. We wish them success in the study of one of the major "diseases" affecting our planet.
Mots clés : Keywords: Land Degradation, IGU Commission, Atacama desert, geodiseases
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