Global Assessment of the Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement

This volume develops a conceptual framework for a more comprehensive assessment of economic costs of land degradation by incorporating the value of terrestrial ecosystem services. It also provides with corresponding analytical methods, based on comparing the costs and benefits of taking action against land degradation versus the costs of inaction. The book applies these methods to determine the cost of land degradation at global, regional and national levels in 12 case study countries. The drivers of land degradation are analyzed across scales, leading to policy implications to achieve sustainable land management. The volume consists of individual chapters written by 53 multi-disciplinary authors from all geographic and socio-economic regions, woven together into a single narrative giving compelling arguments for addressing land degradation. To ensure the necessary external validity of country level results, the 12 case study countries were carefully selected to represent different global biophysical and socio-economic characteristics, accounting for 43% of the global population and 28% of the land area.

Prof. Joachim von Braun

Joachim von Braun is Director of the Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn University, and Professor for economic and technological change. von Braun’s main research interests are in sustainable economic development, poverty reduction, food and nutrition security, resource economics, trade, science and technology policy. He is chair of the Bioeconomy Council of the Federal German Government; Vice-President of the NGO “Welthungerhilfe”, Vice Chair of the Board of Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), member of two German Academies, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Vatican; fellow of African Academy of Science. He was Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) based in Washington, DC, U.S.A. from 2002 to 2009, and President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE).

Dr. Alisher Mirzabaev

Dr. Alisher Mirzabaev is a senior researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn. His current research areas include economics of land degradation, bioenergy and the wate

r-energy-food security nexus. Before joining ZEF in 2009, he was an economist with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). He holds a PhD Degree from the University of Bonn in Germany for his thesis on the economics of climate change in Central Asia.

 

Dr. Ephraim M. Nkonya

Dr. Ephraim Nkonya is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington D.C. Ephraim leads an IFPRI program on land resources for poverty reduction. He earned his masters and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from Kansas State university from 1992 – 1999. He has published widely in referred journals, books and book chapters on issues related to natural resource management, poverty reduction, climate change and role of rural services on poverty reduction. He is a member of the editorial board of the African Journal of Agricultural and Resourc

e Economics. He also serves as a reviewer to a large number of referred journals.