David Dent

Martin Keulertz

Michael Gilmont

This book follows Tony Allan’s journey through the maze of water management and global awareness of the risks of mismanagement, tracing the trajectory of the hydraulic mission from a time of infinite possibilities—fiat panis and piped water—to risk aversion, loss of confidence and political will, and post-water societies. Part I, spanning fifteen chapters, explores Tony Allan’s formative years at SOAS, his groundbreaking work in remote sensing, and his Middle Eastern studies. It examines his influential contributions to understanding the political economy of water, the concept of virtual water, and the intricacies of transboundary water disputes. His keen insights into power dynamics shaped his perspective on regional agriculture, environmental issues, and cross-border water management. Part II investigates two decades of profound societal and economic transformation. It highlights the expanding influence of the private sector and showcases Tony Allan's transdisciplinary collaboration with diverse stakeholders, from institutions to communities. The narrative follows his strategic pivot from conventional water issues to food systems—the primary water consumer—culminating in the comprehensive Oxford Handbook of Water Food and Society. Through sixteen detailed chapters, this book examines the mixed legacy of privatization and the complex politics of the water-energy-food nexus. It tackles contentious issues of sustainability and governance, ultimately advocating the rebalancing of power dynamics within food systems and broader society. This book offers critical insights for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in the fields of water management, agriculture, and the environment. Most of the chapters in this volume were originally published in Water International.

An Intellectual Journey

Tony Allan

Richard H. Binks

An undergraduate and postgraduate textbook covering the key principles, methodologies, approaches and practical examples of insect pest management in agricultural, post harvest systems, horticulture, insect vectors and medical and veterinary entomology. The book covers the underpinning monitoring and forecasting of pest outbreaks, yield loss and impact assessments and all of the latest methods of control and management of insects from insecticides, host manipulation, plant resistance, biological control, use of interference, agronomic and precision control methods as well as socio-economic and research management aspects of developing integrated approaches to pest management. The new edition also reflects the key advances made in the disciplines of molecular biology, biochemistry and genomics related to insects and their management, as well as the importance and role of biodiversity, climate change, precision agriculture, data management and sustainability of production and supply in delivering integrated management solutions.

Insect Pest Management, 3rd Edition

Soil as World Heritage celebrates a half century of field experiments on the Balti Steppe, in Moldova - where Dokuchaev first described the Typical Chernozem in 1877, protected from the elements by a unique system of shelter belts designed by the great man, and now provisionally listed as the first World Heritage Site for soil. The book presents contributions to the 2012 international symposium attended by researchers, practitioners and policy makers from the European Commission and countries as diverse as Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy , the Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA and, of course, Moldova itself. The experimental data demonstrate the damage caused by human activity to the productivity and integrity of the black earth and, also, ways to restore its fertility. Results from even longer-established trials worldwide also demonstrate that agricultural practices are driving global warming, leaching of nutrients, pollution of water resources, diversion of rainfall away from replenishment of soil and groundwater to destructive runoff, and destroying soil organic matter and biodiversity. These are pressing issues for our generation and will press harder on future generations. Long-term field experiments, and the scientific skills and experience that they nurture, will be more and more valuable as a foundation and focus for interdisciplinary teams studying the effects of farming practices on the soil and soil life so as to devise a sustainable alternative. Europe-wide and worldwide contributions also discuss economic incentives - carbon and green water credits - which themselves require robust supporting data, and legislative aspects of promoting more sustainable farming systems. The outcomes of the conference include recommendations for institutional support for sustainable farming and a draft of the law on land and soil management for the Parliament of Moldova.

Soil as World Heritage

The first edition of this book, published in 1991, was well-received as an upper-level undergraduate textbook for courses in agricultural entomology and pest management. Since the publication of the first edition, many new advances have taken place in the subject, and these have been incorporated into the new version. The content has been updated throughout to provide balanced, comprehensive coverage.

Insect Pest Management

Boris Boincean

This book deals with the sustainability of agriculture on the Black Earth by drawing on data from long-term field experiments. It emphasises the opportunities for greater food and water security at local and regional levels. The Black Earth, Chernozem in Russian, is the best arable soil in the world and the breadbasket of Europe and North America. It was the focus of scientific study at the very beginnings of soil science in the late 19th century—as a world in itself, created by the roots of the steppe grasses building a water-stable granular structure that holds plentiful water, allows rapid infiltration of rain and snow melt, and free drainage of any surplus. Under the onslaught of industrial farming, Chernozem have undergone profound but largely unnoticed changes with far-reaching consequences—to the point that agriculture on Chernozem is no longer sustainable. The effects of agricultural practices on global warming, the diversion of rainfall away from replenishment of water resources to destructive runoff, and the pollution of streams and groundwater are all pressing issues. Sustainability absolutely requires that these consequences be arrested.

Sustainable and Climate-Smart Management of Chernozem Soils

Farming the Black Earth

Igori Arcadie Krupenikov

Boris P Boincean

Soil is the Earth’s living skin. It provides anchorage for roots, holds water long enough for plants to make use of it and the nutrients that sustain life – otherwise the Earth would be as barren as Mars. It is home to myriad micro-organisms and armies of microscopic animals as well as the familiar earthworm that accomplish biochemical transformations from fixing atmospheric nitrogen to recycling wastes; it receives and process all fresh water, provides the foundations for our built environment; and comprises the biggest global carbon store that we know how to manage. This book is about the best soil in the world - the black earth or chernozem: how it is being degraded by farming and how it may be farmed sustainably. Industrialisation of farming has laid bare contradictions between the unforgiving laws of ecology and economics. Soil organic matter is the fuel that powers soil systems and the cement that holds the soil together – and in place – but agriculture is burning it up faster than it is being formed: even the chernozem cannot long survive this treatment. Here is the evidence for this trend and, based on long-term field experiments, ecological principles for sustainable agriculture that can reverse the trend and, at the same time, feed the world. Unlike other volumes in the series, this is not an edited collection of scientific papers. The authors have chosen the classical monograph to be near to the reader from beginning to end - to convey their anxiety about the state of the land and their optimism about the possibility of retrieving the situation by changing the social and political approach to the land so as to provide the necessary incentives for sustainable land use and management.

Ecological Principles for Sustainable Agriculture on Chernozem Soils

The Black Earth

Genesis T. Yengoh

Lennart Olsson

Anna E. Tengberg

Compton J. Tucker III

This report examines the scientific basis for the use of remotely sensed data, particularly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), primarily for the assessment of land degradation at different scales and for a range of applications, including resilience of agro-ecosystems. Evidence is drawn from a wide range of investigations, primarily from the scientific peer-reviewed literature but also non-journal sources. The literature review has been corroborated by interviews with leading specialists in the field. The report reviews the use of NDVI for a range of themes related to land degradation, including land cover change, drought monitoring and early warning systems, desertification processes, greening trends, soil erosion and salinization, vegetation burning and recovery after fire, biodiversity loss, and soil carbon. This SpringerBrief also discusses the limits of the use of NDVI for land degradation assessment and potential for future directions of use. A substantial body of peer-reviewed research lends unequivocal support for the use of coarse-resolution time series of NDVI data for studying vegetation dynamics at global, continental and sub-continental levels. There is compelling evidence that these data are highly correlated with biophysically meaningful vegetation characteristics such as photosynthetic capacity and primary production that are closely related to land degradation and to agroecosystem resilience.

David Dent

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