The physical geography of Africa

the long version

An International team of distinguished scholars have each contributed a chapter to produce an advanced, full-length, physical geography of Africa. The first chapters provide an overview of both pan-Africa patterns in the physical environment and those aspects of African physical geography that are distinctive, considering in particular the development of the main features through time. The authors review both Francophone and Anglophone literature, discuss the present state of knowledge, and set out the work and methods that have created it. This part of the book is followed by a group of chapters that provide an integrated analysis of geomorphology, biogeography, environmental change, and hydrology within each of the major biomes found in the African continent, forest, savanna, desert, coast, wetland, mountain, and Mediterranean environments. In the final group of chapters, various authors discuss the impact and significance of human activity on African environments. These chapters explore debates about soil erosion, desertification, biodiversity and depletion, and conservation and development. In this integrated physical geography, written in honour of the geographer A.T. Grove, the editors have produced a reference work which provides a new foundation for discussion of the physical geography of the continent of Africa. It should, therefore, prove of enduring value to all scholars and students of the physical geography of Africa and all who are interested in African environments and environmental change.