Large areas of crops are now grown under water-stressed conditions on non-irrigated and and under limited irrigation in semi-arid and arid regions. In the future, this area of water-stressed crops will increase as a result of increasing competition from other water users, declining ground water levels, and the bringing into production of fragile lands that have low water-holding capacity, such as sandy desert soils. Consequently, strategies and practices to increase total yields and efficient water use must be improved. After the introductory material and keynotes, the book is divided into four parts. Part I covers soil water management, Part II deals with model approaches to evaluate the soil-water-atmosphere interactions, Part III treats water saving techniques through soil conditioning, and Part IV discusses case studies of water management systems. Water Saving Techniques for Plant Growth thus represents a general account of interest and activities of the various scientific disciplines which are concerned in desert encroachment as part of global change.
