Mètode analyses the opportunities, challenges, and threats for drylands

Desertification, overexploitation, or soil degradation are some of the topics addressed in this new monograph on the current state of the world's drylands.

Drylands occupy around 40% of the Earth’s surface. Beyond our vision of them, these areas are home to great biodiversity and are a source of resources for a large part of our planet’s population. However, climate change, mismanagement, and overexploitation of resources are jeopardising the balance of these areas and are leading to increased desertification and degradation. This is the starting point for the new issue of the journal Mètode, published by the University of Valencia: «Drylands: Opportunities, challenges, and threats», coordinated by professors Jaime Martínez-Valderrama and Emilio Guirado, researchers at the Multidisciplinary Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Alacant, and Fernando T. Maestre, director of the Dryland Ecology and Global Change Lab at the University of Alacant.

Issue 112 of the journal includes articles on the ecology of drylands, on the institutional response to desertification, on the effects of grazing on vegetation and soil, and on the use of water resources in various territories. The journal has also benefited from the collaboration of the artist Josep Esteve Adam, author of the cover and of the interior artwork, through which he provides a look at the drylands from his chromatic palette of ochres and sands.

Collaborations, phages, and Haeckel

The journal is completed with several in-depth articles that analyse issues such as the use of phages to fight bacterial resistance to antibiotics, or interviews with the ecologist Nalini Nadkarni (Nat 2022 Award) or the director of the AIDS Research Institute Bonaventura Clotet (Spanish National Research Award). The journal also includes a dossier on the figure of the scientist Ernst Haeckel, as well as the usual sections by contributors such as Ramon Folch, Xurxo Mariño, Gemma Marfany, Alma Bracho, Chantal Ferrer, JM Mulet, and Roberto García Roa, among others.

© Mètode 2022