• United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
• FAO desertification pages

About Rub' al-Khali

• The Rub' al-Khali translates as Empty Quarter in English, is one of the largest sand deserts in the world, encompassing the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula, including southern Saudi Arabia, and areas of Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen (from www.wikipedia.org).
• The first documented journeys made by Westerners to the Empty Quarter were those made by Bertram Thomas in 1931, but the most important explorer of the empty quarter was Wilfred Thesiger, that between 1946 and 1950 crossed the area several times and mapped large parts of the Empty Quarter (author of the travel book “Arabian sands”)

About sand dunes

• Reference book: Ralph A. Bagnold , “The physics of blown sand and desert dunes”, 1941, HarperCollins
• K. Kroy, G. Sauermann, H. Herrmann, “Minimal model for sand dunes” Physical review letters (2002)
• Geology of sand dunes: very clear and nice explanation of sand dunes formation mechanism and shapes.