The present volume contains six reports which have arisen from the work of the Collaborative Research Centre 389 Arid Climate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa (University of Cologne/Germany, 1995-2007). They provide the reader with an overview of the multiple aspects of the current research projects, especially in the sub-unit Land-Usage and Survival Strategies in Southwestern Africa. The underlying thesis of the research conducted by the unit is that the study of the processes of adaptation to deteriorating environmental conditions taking place in southern Africa in recent times yields fundamental results that can be applied to the much older processes that took place in the desert areas of Northeastern Africa. In the course of the research projects the whole plethora of methodology and source material of ethno-history and current history is used on as wide a geographical and ethnical basis as possible.