Table of Contents
What areas of the world are affected by desertification?
More specifically, desertification plays its largest role in the grasslands of East Africa, the Kalahari Desert and the Sahara Desert. These regions span over 65 percent of the land.
Which area is facing the major problem in desertification?
Mongolia and China are being deeply affected by land degradation and top soil loss. PRC, about 27% of the country’s land mass is “desertified”. Almost 400 million people live in areas prone to desertification, and the economic loss to the PRC has been estimated at around $6.5 billion a year (www.unccd.int).
Where is desertification the worst in the world?
The United Nations Convention (UNC) says that about six million Sahelian citizens would have to give up the desertified zones of sub-Saharan Africa for North Africa and Europe between 1997 and 2020. Lake Chad, located in the Sahel region, has been hit particularly hard by this phenomenon.
What areas of the world have experienced the most desertification?
Severe land degradation leading to desertification is now affecting over 168 countries around the world. Africa and Asia are the most affected areas in the world by desertification.
Which areas of the world are most at risk of drought and desertification?
A recently published JRC study identified the following geographic regions as prone to desertification: north-eastern Brazil, south-western Argentina, the southern Sahel, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Sub-Himalayan India, and north-eastern China.
Why is desertification a global problem?
Desertification contributes to global climate change by increasing exposed land surface, hence albedo; increasing the potential and decreasing the actual evapotranspiration rate; changing the ground surface energy budget and adjoining air temperature; and adding dust and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
What is the serious problem of desertification?
Desertification affects topsoil, groundwater reserves, surface runoff, human, animal, and plant populations. Water scarcity in drylands limits the production of wood, crops, forage, and other services that ecosystems provide to our community.
Where is desertification a problem today?
Africa is the worst affected continent; with two-thirds of its land either desert or drylands. Almost a third of land in the U.S. is affected by desertification; and one quarter of Latin America and the Caribbean, and one fifth of Spain. * Desertification is mainly a problem of sustainable development.
What are the effects of desertification on humans?
The area naturally experiences alternating wet and dry seasons. If the rains fail it can cause drought. The result is crop failure, soil erosion, famine and hunger: people are then less able to work when their need is greatest.
Where are the risk of drought and desertification in Africa?
While recurrent droughts are a common feature throughout most of the drylands in Africa, three distinct areas have been identified as most at risk: Mediterranean Africa, the Sudano-Sahelian region and the Kalahari-Namib region in southern Africa.
What are the causes of drought and desertification in South Africa?
Whereas over cultivation, inappropriate agricultural practices, overgrazing and deforestation have been previously identified as the major causes of land degradation and desertification, it is in fact a result of much deeper underlying forces of socio-economic nature, such as poverty and total dependency on natural …
How many countries are affected by the desertification crisis?
Severe land degradation is now affecting 168 countries across the world, according to new research released by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The figure, based on submissions from countries to the UN, is a marked increase on the last analysis in the mid-1990s, which estimated 110 states were at risk.
Why are there so many deserts around the world?
Lands turn to desert due to a number of reasons, but much of the desertification that is occurring around the world today is caused by human activity on lands that are extremely vulnerable to overexploitation and improper agricultural methods. The following are some of the primary causes of desertification in our world.
How is overgrazing and desertification related to each other?
Overgrazing and desertification have been always closely linked together. In dry regions, grass and other small vegetation is necessary to keep the soil in place to prevent erosion and further damage to the soil.
How is water scarcity affecting the desertification of the world?
Freshwater scarcity, which already affects 1-2 billion people globally, is expected to increase, causing greater stresses in drylands and ultimately a worsening of desertification.