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With growing evidence of unsustainable use of the world's resources, such as hydrocarbon reserves, and related environmental pollution, as in alarming climate change predictions, sustainable development is arguably the prominent issue of the 21st century. This volume gives a wide ranging introduction focusing on the arid Gulf region, where the challenges of sustainable development are starkly evident. The Gulf relies on non-renewable oil and gas exports to supply the world's insatiable CO2 emitting energy demands, and has built unsustainable conurbations with water supplies dependent on energy hungry desalination plants and deep aquifers pumped beyond natural replenishment rates. Sustainable Development has an interdisciplinary focus, bringing together university faculty and government personnel from the Gulf, Europe, and North America -- including social and natural scientists, environmentalists and economists, architects and planners -- to discuss topics such as sustainable natural resource use and urbanization, industrial and technological development, economy and politics, history and geography.

Paul Sillitoe FBA is Professor of Anthropology at Durham University and former Shell Chair in Sustainable Development at Qatar University. His research interests focus on natural resources management, appropriate technology, and sustainable development, and he seeks to further the incorporation of local knowledge in development, having experience with several international development agencies. His recent books include 'Grass-Clearing Man' A Factional Ethnography of Life in the New Guinea Highlands(2009 with J. Sillitoe, Waveland Press) and From land to mouth: the agricultural 'economy' of the Wola of the New Guinea Highlands (2010, Yale University Press).