Plenary Lecture
Drylands, Land Degradation, Desertification – 3 Hot Topics, Many Hot Questions
Assistant Professor Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir
Hydrotechnical Engineering Department
„Politehnica” University of Timisoara
Romania
E-mail: raresh_81@yahoo.com
Abstract: We are living in a world strongly influenced by drylands. Millions of people are depending on these lands but they also exercise a high pressure on them. Drylands are complex systems, without having a single agreed definition, but in the same time they are vulnerable in challenging human living necessities. Presenting a high variability over time, many drylands are failing in facing the human pressure and after a continuous process of degradation are turning to desert.
The any factors of drylands degradation as well as the consequences of this process remain controversial and many times poorly understood creating difficulties for sciences to establish or at least to reach a consensus about a standard set of indicators used in monitoring desertification. A question rise from here: It is always desertification an outcome of land degradation? But this is not the only hot question. How we can quantify and qualify the factors leading to land degradation if they act across the scales and more than that, how we can quantify the large diversity of different combination between these factors?
It is known so far that we must work with at least two dimensions: humanity and biophysical. The process of incorporating actual knowledge in a conceptual framework developed on these two dimensions may offer some answers. The third dimension is time. During the last century we observed changes in human’s number, culture, policies, mentality, all of them having a significant impact on land degradation.
This lecture will try to offer some answers at the previous questions and will present a new view on drylands degradation.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Dr. R. Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from the „Politehnica” University of Timisoara (RO), a MSc in Environment Protection and a PhD in Civil Engineering (2010) from „Politehnica” University of Timisoara. He works as Assistant Professor at Hydrotechnical Engineering Department, Civil Engineering Faculty.
His research interests are: land reclamation and improvement, integrated water management, water scarcity, soil sciences, environment protection, urban and rural development, regional development, sustainable development, human resources.
He is involved in several research projects, as Project Manager and Working Group leader, funded by European Union through INTERREG IVC, Leonardo, COST programs. He is member of Editorial Board and reviewer for International Journals covered by EBSCO, Index Copernicus, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Google Scholar etc. Dr. R. Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir published in 8 years of activity more than 40 papers from which 14 are rated in ISI Journal and conference proceedings indexed by ISI Web of Science.