vi PREFACE 
portance of translating scientific findings into action at the level 
of operating farmers, herders, and land owners. This is a problem 
wherever science and technology advance in agricultural societies, 
but it has special relevancy to large-scale reduction in the zone’s 
resources. Much of the deterioration of semi-arid lands now being 
used at low efficiency is due to such conditions as tenure, property 
rights, political control, social attitudes and taxes which impede 
application of new knowledge and techniques. The investigator 
of plant physiology or the geomorphologist sees his results gaining 
usefulness only to the extent that there are peaceful means of 
promoting social change toward accepted, wise ends. And this 
leads him to encourage research which will reveal the processes of 
decision in resource management or will point the way to public 
education. 
Preparation of the proceedings for the printer has been greatly 
aided by Anne U. White. A separate report containing discussion 
on the final day of the Albuquerque Conference of “Problems of 
the Upper Rio Grande River” is to be published by local insti- 
tutions cooperating through the Division’s Committee on Desert 
and Arid Zone Research. 
Although the papers from the Symposium and the recommenda- 
tions from the Conference are printed in this volume, the more 
important scientific outcomes are not recorded. They are showing 
themselves and will continue to show themselves for years to 
come in the work of individual scientists who took part or have 
been influenced by the suggestions which emerged there. In this 
sense the Symposium was a point of departure rather than a 
summing up, and in this sense the future of the arid lands is in 
some part shaped by those who sought to assess its prospect in 
1955- 
GILBERT F. WHITE 
Department of Geography 
University of Chicago 
May, 1956 
