182 THE FUTURE OF ARID LANDS 
increased, so has also the conflict between shepherd and cultivator 
in the struggle for dwindling land resources in an environment of 
increasing desiccation which is their common inheritance. 
Possible Measures for Improvement 
The present picture indicates the consequences of using arid and 
semi-arid lands beyond their capabilities and of inducing aridity 
in regions not actually arid or semi-arid climatically. What are 
the possibilities of increasing and maintaining sustained produc- 
tion from grazing, cultivated and forest lands in these climatic 
zones, while at the same time ensuring optimal conservation of 
soil and water and reducing desiccation? 
Basic Surveys 
It is considered to be essential in the first place to survey and 
map the existing plant cover on the uncultivated land, and also 
to map the cultivated lands in relation to their farming systems 
and the crops grown thereon. This information, combined with 
our present knowledge of the possible extent of improvement, will 
contribute materially, as far as the arid and semi-arid lands are 
concerned, to correct land classification and so to the resources 
survey upon which FAO is likely to be engaged in the coming 
years. 
There is, in the regions under review, considerable activity at 
the moment in the survey, analysis, and mapping of the natural 
vegetation. Teams of ecologists trained in France are working in 
French Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Work is in progress in 
Portugal, an FAO botanist-ecologist is working in the countries 
covered by the Near East Working Party, and a grassland survey 
team of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research is studying 
the grass vegetation of that country with reference to botanical 
composition, yield, and carrying capacity and the relation of the 
existing grass vegetation to the potential grass sub-climaxes, to 
soil type, and to the climax type of forest in each vegetation zone. 
The data which are becoming available from these plant sociologi- 
cal and ecological studies will be of great practical value in the 
optimal development of land resources, by the use of vegetation- 
