Desert. Currently, the size of the Sahara Desert has been found to be increasing at an alarming rate, 30 to 35 times the historical rate. This process of increasing the amount of productive land into arid infertile desert is known as desertification. Desertification originally received media attention in the 1970’s when over a decade of severe drought brought a devastating famine to impoverish parts of the Sahara Desert. The drought reduced water available for irrigation, which led to fewer crops
devastating process of desertification. There are over one hundred definitions for the term ‘desertification’, however the most widely used and current definition is as follows: desertification refers to the land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions due to human activities and climate variations, often leading to the permanent loss of soil productivity and the thinning out of the vegetative cover (UNCCD, 2003). It is important to note that desertification is not the expansion and
and unusable every single year. What is the cause of all this? The answer is desertification. What exactly is desertification? Desertification can be understood by knowing what it is, how it is caused, where it happens most around the world, and what can be done to prevent it. In order to understand how desertification is in relation to the world, it must be defined first. To be completely clear, desertification is the process of fertile grasslands becoming unusable desert because of natural
DESERTIFICATION Desertification of the arid lands of the world has been proceeding--sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly-- for more than a thousand years. It has caused untold misery among those most directly caught in it's path, yet environmental destruction continues. Until recently, few if any lessons seemed to have been learned from the past, in part because the problem went unrecognized in it's early stages or was seen as a local one only affecting a small population, and in part because
The Measurements of Desertification “Drought and desertification threaten the livelihood of over one billion people in more than 110 countries” warned general Kofi in 2001 (Kovach,2003). Desertifications definition is highly disputed but it is generally the shift of arid or semi-arid regions to desert-like conditions, which support: little vegetation, a low soil fertility and high evaporation rates (Haggett, 2001). This work will overlook how deserts are measured by a variety of different
Desertification And Deforestation The Amazon Rainforest is probably the most important region that is threatened by deforestation. With over four million squared kilometers it is roughly the size of the United States. The Amazon spreads across nine South American Countries and contains one-fifth of the Worlds fresh water and one-third of the known living species. The land is home to hundreds of indigenous groups and is considered by many to be “the lungs of the planet”. Most of the Amazon
Desertification is an increasing global issue that has caused many concerns throughout the world. Desertification affects mostly Africa; however it has (and still is) taking its toll on the Arabian Peninsula, southern Asia, Australia, southern South America, and the southwest region of the North American continent (“Desertification”, 2013). According to “Desertification: A Forgotten Threat”, every year, some 23,000 square miles of arable and range land are uncontrollably lost to desert, leaving
What is desertification? Desertification is the procedure through which constructive land turns non-productive as a result of poor land management, climatic changes, and human activities. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) defines desertification as, “land degradation in arid, and semi-arid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities.” Across the globe, desertification affects the subsistence of millions of people, who largely
requires sunlight, nutrients, and fresh water. If one of these three criteria is missing, the land is no longer able to birth vegetation. The biggest issue we face here in Canada is desertification. This term means that the land being classified with this is losing its water either to drought or to human causes. Desertification is a form of land degradation and is found to be an issue all over the globe. These dry lands are not just centered on a small percentage of people but affect up to half of the
down, so desertification is not as severe a threat. In developing countries, by contrast, poverty has created a threat to trees, which can be sold or used as fuel. In these areas erosion is also common, and along with deforestation, it is causing heavy desertification. References: Deforestation 1) The Choice: Doomsday or Arbor Day-by Jocelyn Stock and Andy Rochen 2) Biology Notes –by Mary P. 3) The Causes of Tropical Deforestation -by John Revington Desertification 1) Biology
in that time, about 80% of the Earth's forests are gone. If we continue at this rate, all of the rain forests in the world could disappear in a hundred years. Deforestation is harmful because it can lead to biodiversity loss, soil erosion, and desertification. According to the World Wildlife Fund, tropical rain forests hold about 80 percent of the known species on Earth, which is where a majority of deforestation is taking place. Endangered species that live in forests, such as bonobos, giant pandas
environmental crisis because we have a people crisis is valid because our environmental problems have largely resulted from population growth, which has lead to apathy and inaction with regard to the wasteful consumption of resources. Examples are the desertification of the Sahel in Africa, the one child policy in China and the mis-management of our oceans. The Sahel is a strip of land that extends for more than 6000 kilometres across the southern edge of the Sahara desert. It stretches from Senegal and Mauritania
more than 100 countries were directly affected by desertification and more are at risk (This number would have increased already). The situation is more severe in Africa, where 66% of the total land area are arid or semi-arid. Not only is desertification harmful to the earth and its inhabitants, but it is also expensive each year, the world loses US$42 billion to desertification and its effects” (World Ecology Report, Spring 2009) . Desertification in Nigeria is a very delicate issue, because of the
Chinese climatic history is colored with desertification. Desertification is the transformation of arable or habitable land to desert, by means of a change in climate or destructive land use.1 China is covered by deserts, however this becomes problematic during times of drought and aridity as the deserts expand and threaten local populations. The Gobi desert is the most threatening to Beijing, the capital of China. A study of desertification illustrates Beijing and China ’s weather, climate, and
What is Desertification Desertification is the degradation of lands in dry area, not the expansion of existing deserts. Natural deserts occur because of high pressure zones or due to “rain shadow effects” both products of atmosphere interacting with geography; however modern desertification is result of degrading lands due to human use. Desertification primarily occurs in arid regions as precipitation is already sparse making any other disturbance, such as over cultivation, amplified. Alan Grainger
physical forces of water and wind or through forces associated with farming activities. Soil erosion reduces cropland productivity and contributes to the pollution of nearby watercourses, wetlands and lakes. Soil is a non-renewable resource. Desertification: Without soil and plants the land becomes desert-like and unable to support life. Runoff: Something that drains or flows off from the land in streams. The loss of protective vegetation through deforestation, overgrazing, ploughing, and fire
In what was one of the most fertile areas of the United States, one of the Nation’s worst agricultural disasters occurred. No rain came so crops did not grow, leaving the soil exposed to the high winds that hit the area in the 1930s. Stretching over a 150,000 square mile area and encompassing parts of five states—these being Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico—the Dust Bowl was a time where over 100 million acres of topsoil were stripped from fertile fields leaving nothing but barren
Droughts in Chad In our world, we are faced with many severe phenomenons. In the continent of Africa, droughts are one of the many phenomenons that have been acknowledged. An African country like, Chad, located east of Niger and southwest of Egypt, is a old victim of this phenomenon The Sahel regions, consisting of countries like Chad, Mauritania, Mali, etc…, face droughts regularly. Half of the country is in the Saharan Desert, while the other half, in the Sahel region. Its regular scarcity of
Know to be one of the worst man made disasters of all time, the Dust Bull of 1930 caused thousands of families to starve as they searched for a new home. This event's occurrence was not a coincidence, but rather happened because of poor farming habits. The crops would suck all the nutrients out of the ground leaving a light layer of dirt on top. This dirt was then blown into the air thus creating the Dust Bull. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a novel, which portrays a poor farming family
Surviving the Dust Bowl Summary During the 1930s, the Untied States’ southern plains suffered a period of horrible dust storms known as the Dust Bowl. These terrifying storms carrying great amount of dusts were also known as black blizzards. The Dust Bowl dwelled and encircled massive sections of five states: the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico, and western Kansas. Residents believed that they could determine where the dust was coming depending on