Arid Lands, Humankind and Environment

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Conferences

Constitution of the commission

Documents and application were submitted to the IGU general secretary and were exposed to the general assembly during its meeting in Glasgow, 2004, on the occasion of the 31st IGU conference. It was agreed to form a new IGU commission "Arid lands, Humankind and Environment" to be the commission No C04.02.

Past conferences

Professors Nabil S. Embabi and Mahmoud M. Ashour participated in a meeting organized and hosted by the Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman in April 2005. The main theme of the meeting was desertification and sand encroachment. Coordinator of the meeting was Dr. Ahmed Abdul Salam, member of the steering committee of AHE.

11th International Conference on Luminescence and Electron Spin Resonance Dating, 24-29 July 2005, Cologne, Germany
During the conference it became obvious that the demonstrated dating techniques provide excellent opportunities to get better stratigraphic information of Quaternary sediments, especially in arid regions where organic material is normally very scarce. Olaf Bubenzer contribute with a poster on "Luminescence dating and archaeology of Holocene fluvio-lacustrine sediments of Abu Tartur, Eastern Sahara".

6th International Conference on Geomorphology, 7-11 September 2005, Zaragoza, Spain
The conference offered interesting plenary lectures, scientific sessions and field trips dealing with arid lands. Xiaoping Yang gave a plenary lecture on "Desert and Earth system" - with a special reference to China. In the Session 2 "Geomorphology of arid Regions", Olaf Bubenzer (together with A. Bolten) spoke about "Investigation of Pleistocene Megadunes (Draa) of the Eastern Sahara and the Southern Namib Using New Elevation Data (SRTM/ASTER)", Nabil Embabi (with M.M.A. Azab) about "Ghard Abu Moharik Sand Sea, the Western Desert, Egypt: Geomorphology, movement and age". In the session 9 "Costal Geomorphology", M. Ashour discussed "Geomorphic features on the surfaces of sabkhas, Qatar Peninsula".

Xiaoping Yang presided the working group "Interaction between fluvial, eolian and lacustrine processes" and gave a lecture (together with F. Preusser and U. Radtke) within this working group on "Geomorphological processes forming the Taklamakan Desert, western China".

Professors Ashour and Embabi pursued their work in the Western Desert of Egypt with professor Donner of Helsinki University (Finland). A paper about Dating of lacustrine deposits will be published soon.

Brisbane 2006 (IGU): On this occasion two sessions are arranged. The theme of the first session will discuss papers about desertification and the second one will discuss papers about water crises in arid regions.

Cairns 2007 (INQUA): For planned contributions please contact mmashour_99@yahoo.com.

Tunis 2008 (IGC): Field trips in the Sahara will be organized in cooperation with the Tunisian organizers. The issue of arid lands will cover much of the sessions and the papers in Tunis. We hope that many Arab geographers will participate in this conference. They are certainly welcome to meet other colleagues and to expose their work to the international community.

Upcoming conference participations

International Geographical Congress in Cologne, Germany, August 26-30, 2012

The meeting of our commission will be held in Cologne, Germany, in the course of the International Congress (www.igc2012.org) during the session „Human-Nature Interaction in Arid Lands and their margins“
Deadline for submitting an abstract is December 15, 2011.