The results indicate that whereas Asia has the greatest concentration of areas of rapid land-cover change, in particular dryland degradation, existing data do not support the claim that the African Sahel is a desertification hotspot. The Amazon Basin remains a hotspot of tropical deforestation, the assessment concludes, and rapid cropland increase is prominent in Southeast Asia. But forest degradation is also increasing rapidly in Siberia, mostly as a result of logging, and the southeastern United States and eastern China are experiencing rapid cropland decrease.
Lepers and her colleagues note that information is not complete globally, and the synthesis was complicated by varying definitions used in different data sets. An extensive process of consultation nevertheless allowed a useful picture to emerge; the assessment includes global maps showing regions of rapid land-cover change. The most populated areas of the world, the study notes, are located in the Gangetic Plain of northern India, the plain and north plateau of China, and the island of Java in Indonesia. Cities that are changing most rapidly are located throughout the tropical belt.
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BioScience publishes commentary and peer-reviewed articles covering a wide range of biological fields. The journal has been published since 1964. AIBS is an umbrella organization for professional scientific societies and organizations that are involved with biology. It represents 89 member societies and organizations with a combined membership of about 240,000.
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