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Global climatic change will most likely affect natural resources and human living conditions in semiarid regions. This volume presents disciplinary as well as integrative methods to assess these impacts considering the interactions between climate variability and change, water availability, land-use systems, and quality of life. Taking the semiarid northeastern area of Brazil as an example, a wide range of expertise and knowledge (from integrated water analyses to transregional migration) is necessary to understand the complex relationship between natural and socio-economic systems. Tools to integrate this knowledge and make it available for the strategic planning of sustainable development are described. This book is a summary of the main research results and the presentations given at the final conference of the WAVES Program on June 25-26 2001 in Fortaleza (Brazil).
From the reviews:
\"This book focuses on results from a joint German-Brazilian program (Water Availability and Vulnerability of Ecosystems and Society
