What is Desertification?
Desertification is defined as a process of land degradation in arid,
semi-arid and sub-humid areas due to various factors including climatic
variations and human activities. Or, to put it in another way,
desertification results in persistent degradation of dryland and
fragile ecosystems due to man-made activities and variations in
climate. Desertification, in short, is when land that was originally of
another type of biome turns into a desert biome because of changes of
all sorts. A huge issue that many countries have is the fact that there
are large pockets of land that are going through a process that is
known as desertification.
Overgrazing is the major cause of desertification worldwide. Other
factors that cause desertification include urbanization, climate change,
overdrafting of groundwater, deforestation, natural disasters and
tillage practices in agriculture that place soils more vulnerable to wind.
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.
WE ALREADY HAVE THE STATISTICS FOR THE
FUTURE: THE GROWTH PERCENTAGES OF
POLLUTION, OVERPOPULATION,
DESERTIFICATION. THE FUTURE IS ALREADY IN
PLACE.
– GUNTHER GRASS
According to UNESCO, one third of world’s land surface is threatened
by desertification and across the world it affects livelihood of millions
of people who depend on the benefits of ecosystems that drylands
provides. Desertification is another major environmental concern and a
major barrier to meeting human basic needs in drylands and are being
constantly threatened by increases in human pressures and climatic
variability. In this article, we’re going to give you an idea as to what
are the causes of desertification, the effects that desertification has,
and what we can do in order to deal with the problem at hand. Let’s
take a closer look at all of these topics.
According to Wikipedia,
“Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry
land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of
water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of
factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is
a significant global ecological and environmental problem.”
Causes of Desertification
Overgrazing: Animal grazing is a huge problem for many
areas that are starting to become desert biomes. If there are
too many animals that are overgrazing in certain spots, it
makes it difficult for the plants to grow back, which hurts
the biome and makes it lose its former green glory.
Deforestation: When people are looking to move into an
area, or they need trees in order to make houses and do other
tasks, then they are contributing to the problems related to
desertification. Without the plants (especially the trees)
around, the rest of the biome cannot thrive.
Farming Practices: Some farmers do not know how to use
the land effectively. They may essentially strip the land of
everything that it has before moving on to another plot of land.
By stripping the soil of its nutrients, desertification becomes
more and more of a reality for the area that is being used for
farming.
Urbanization and other types of land development. As
mentioned above, development can cause people to go
through and kill the plant life. It can also cause issues with the
soil due to chemicals and other things that may harm the
ground. As areas become more urbanized, there are less
places for plants to grow, thus causing desertification.
Climate Change: Climate change plays a huge role in
desertification. As the days get warmer and periods of drought
become more frequent, desertification becomes more and
more eminent. Unless climate change is slowed down, huge
areas of land will become desert; some of those areas may
even become uninhabitable as time goes on.
Stripping the land of resources. If an area of land
has natural resources like natural gas, oil, or minerals, people
will come in and mine it or take it out. This usually strips the
soil of nutrients, which in turn kills the plant life, which in turn
starts the process toward becoming a desert biome as time
goes on.
Natural Disasters: There are some cases where the land gets
damaged because of natural disasters, including drought. In
those cases, there isn’t a lot that people can do except work to
try and help rehabilitate the land after it has already been
damaged by nature.
Effects of Desertification
Farming becomes next to impossible. If an area becomes
a desert, then it’s almost impossible to grow substantial crops
there without special technologies. This can cost a lot of money
to try and do, so many farmers will have to sell their land and
leave the desert areas.
Hunger: Without farms in these areas, the food that those
farms produce will become much scarcer, and the people who
live in those local areas will be a lot more likely to try and deal
with hunger problems. Animals will also go hungry, which will
cause even more of a food shortage.
Flooding: Without the plant life in an area, flooding is a lot
more eminent. Not all deserts are dry; those that are wet could
experience a lot of flooding because there is nothing to stop
the water from gathering and going all over the place. Flooding
can also negatively affect the water supply, which we will
discuss next.
Poor Water Quality: If an area becomes a desert, the water
quality is going to become a lot worse than it would have been
otherwise. This is because the plant life plays a significant role
in keeping the water clean and clear; without its presence, it
becomes a lot more difficult for you to be able to do that.
Overpopulation: When areas start to become desert, animals
and people will go to other areas where they can actually
thrive. This causes crowding and overpopulation, which will, in
the long run, end up continuing the cycle of desertification that
started this whole thing anyway.
Poverty: All of the issues that we’ve talked about above
(related to the problem of desertification) can lead to poverty if
it is not kept in check. Without food and water, it becomes
harder for people to thrive, and they take a lot of time to try
and get the things that they need.
Solutions for Desertification
Policy Changes Related to How People can Farm. In
countries where policy change will actually be enforced on
those in the country, policy change related to how often people
can farm and how much they can farm on certain areas could
be put into place to help reduce the problems that are often
associated with farming and desertification.
Policy Changes to Other Types of Land Use. If people are
using land to get natural resources or they are developing it for
people to live on, then the policies that govern them should be
ones that will help the land to thrive instead of allowing them
to harm the land further. The policy changes could be
sweeping or they could be depending on the type of land use
at hand.
Education: In developing countries, education is an incredibly
important tool that needs to be utilized in order to help people
to understand the best way to use the land that they are
farming on. By educating them on sustainable practices, more
land will be saved from becoming desert.
Technology Advances. In some cases, it’s difficult to try and
prevent desertification from happening. In those cases, there
needs to be research and advancements in technology that
push the limits of what we currently know. Advancements
could help us find more ways to prevent the issue from
becoming epidemic.
Putting Together Rehabilitation Efforts. There are some
ways that we can go back and rehabilitate the land that we’ve
already pushed into desertification; it just takes some
investment of time and money. By putting these together, we
can prevent the issue from becoming even more widespread in
the areas that have already been affected.
Sustainable practices to prevent desertification from
happening. There are plenty of sustainable practices that can
be applied to those acts that may be causing desertification.
By adding these to what we should be doing with land, we can
ensure that we don’t turn the entire world into a desert.
Desertification is a huge problem that needs to be addressed
accordingly, and if we take the time to do it now, we can prevent other
problems from happening with it in the future. By taking that critical
look at desertification, we have the tools that we need in order to get
through the processes effectively.
