Above: Laguna Diamante (image by Ricardo Ojeda)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Global Collaboratory for
Drylands and the City?
The Global Collaboratory for Drylands and the City is a joint venture of seven strategically located and internationally known research institutions concerned with issues of urbanization and the sustainable economic development of drylands.
Who are its members?
Members of the collaboratory are the Argentina’s Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas (IADIZA), China’s Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Egypt’s Desert Research Center, Israel’s Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Namibia’s Desert Research Foundation, the USA’s Desert Research Institute (part of the Nevada System of Higher Education), and Australia's Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre.
What is a collaboratory?
A collaboratory is “An amalgamation of Collaboration and Laboratory, conveying the concept of a collective research organization where a high value and focus is placed on the sharing of effort and findings such that the quality and progress of the research is highly optimized and relevant, and every member of the research organization receives benefits greater than their actual investment.” Source: Interoperability Clearinghouse Glossary of Terms.
The term Collaboratory was coined by William Wulf, Assistant Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation, in 1989. A collaboratory, he said, is a “center without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform their research without regard to physical location, interacting with colleagues, … sharing data and computational resources, [and] accessing information in digital libraries.” The Global Collaboratory is a natural extension of this concept.
What are drylands?
As defined by the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, are “…lands where annual precipitation is less than two thirds of potential evapotranspiration—from dry subhumid areas (ratio ranges 0.50–0.65) through semiarid, arid, and hyperarid (ratio <0.05), but excluding polar areas…. Dryland systems cover about 41% of Earth’s land surface and are inhabited by more than 2 billion people (about one third of the total population)…. The current socioeconomic condition of people in dryland systems, of which about 90% are in developing countries, is worse than in other areas. Freshwater availability in drylands is projected to be further reduced from the current average of 1,300 cubic meters per person per year in 2000, which is already below the threshold of 2,000 cubic meters required for minimum human well-being and sustainable development. Approximately 10–20% of the world’s drylands are degraded (medium certainty). Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis (link). Island Press, Washington, DC., p. 28.
What counts as a city?
Following the definitions of the Millennium Assessment (MA), “Urban systems are built environments with a high human population density. For mapping purposes, the MA uses known human settlements with a population of 5,000 or more, with boundaries delineated by observing persistent night-time lights or by inferring areal extent in the cases where such observations are absent. The world’s urban population increased from about 200 million in 1900 to 2.9 billion in 2000, and the number of cities with populations in excess of 1 million increased from 17 in 1900 to 388 in 2000.” Dryland cities, then, are urban systems in drylands. Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis (link). Island Press, Washington, DC., p. 27.
Why do we need a collaboratory for drylands and the city?
Historically, most drylands have been rural lands. Until the modern era, the scarcity of water for people, animals and crops naturally resulted in sparsely settled and often nomadic dryland populations, with limited areas of irrigated agriculture. Historically, urbanization in drylands depended on locally available water for drinking and irrigation sufficient to support a given population. Before the advent of mass transportation in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the resulting possibility of importing food and water, urban development of drylands was constrained by these resources.
Today, arid lands play an important role in the global economy. They provide energy and about half of the world’s minerals including oil, natural gas, uranium, bauxite, copper, phosphate, and iron ore. Arid lands are increasingly a destination for tourists, whether for wilderness beauty, for indigenous cultures, or for resorts built in warm and sunny climates. Deserts also export agricultural produce from irrigated areas and from hydroponic greenhouses.
Throughout the world, human population growth is expanding the areas of settlement in arid lands and creating new demands for water. The population of arid lands is increasing at a rate much faster than the global average and is becoming increasingly urbanized. The growth of cities in some arid regions has attracted migrants from non-desert regions who remit monies to their home areas. Global climate change, whether from natural or anthropogenic sources, will likely increase over the next century and contribute to water stress, in patterns and ways that are not well understood.
According to the Millenium Assessment Desertification Synthesis, people living in drylands are the poorest in the world, lagging far behind in indicators for human well-being and development. The assessment concludes that, “…scenarios for future development show that the desertified area is likely to increase, and the relief of pressures on drylands is strongly correlated with poverty reduction….”
“Urban growth,” the Millenium Assessment finds, “when undertaken with adequate planning and provision of services, infrastructure and facilities, can be a major factor in relieving pressures that cause desertification in drylands. This view is relevant when considering the projected growth of the urban fraction in drylands, which will increase to around 52% by 2010 and to 60% by 2030.” Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Desertification Synthesis (link). World Resources Institute, Washington, DC., p. 15.
The six institutions that comprise the collaboratory believe there to be an urgent and growing need for coordinated research to better understand the nature of urban-dryland ecosystems and the urban-dryland interface to inform policy making for the economic development of drylands. There is a need for science-based technology development for addressing the problems of sustainable water supply, energy production at industrial levels, pollution and waste management, dust control, and minimizing urban impacts on fragile dryland ecosystems. There is a corresponding need for the test, evaluation and demonstration of solutions in pilot projects. These are the activities we propose to mutually undertake through the organization of the Global Collaboratory for Drylands and the City.