In turn, many farmers may lose their livelihood, since they often solely rely on farming as their single source of income. Climate change, bad management of scarce resources, weak political structure only lead to hunger, which in turn gives rise to conflicts. Advancements could help us find more ways to prevent the issue from becoming an epidemic. The following are some of the primary causes of desertification in our world. (And 7 Ways to Reuse Them). Also, due to desertification, the soil becomes unsuitable for agriculture, and there may be a huge loss of food. Desertification reduces the ability of land to support plant life. The reasons why this has happened are longer periods of droughts and the overextraction of water for irrigation and mining projects [12]. 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. But Collobrative effort s are needed especially from the powerful nations of the world leaving behind their egotism. Salt buildup on cultivated lands, then, makes it difficult for crops and other plants to grow, further exacerbating degradation of these lands. Since small subsistence farmers do not have the means to ward off sand dunes crashing their houses and burying their crops, all they have left is to gather their possessions and leave. Desertification is one of the world's most pressing environmental issues, but it's not irreversible. 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. Thus to fulfill our demand, we have to optimize our farming processes to harvest even higher crop yields. Desertification is the degradation process by which a fertile land changes itself into a desert by losing its flora and fauna, this can be caused by drought, deforestation, climate change, human activities or improper agriculture. Because of ambitious cotton farming projects in the dry Aral Sea basin that needed irrigation. For mining, large areas of land have to be used, which causes deforestation as well as pollution of the nearby areas. However in the long run the soil would gradually lose its nutrients, land is degraded and desertification creeps in. According to the newest data, the Sahara Desert has been gradually spreading over the grasslands in the neighboring Sahel area. The region currently faces extensive desertification caused by numerous factors. 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. Countries affected by desertification do not have to be located only in hot regions of the world because it is the local climate and land use that shape the health of the land. Villages that were once surrounded by forests so dense that you could get lost in them, are now disappearing under the sand. With plants dying, already scarce rainwater gets washed away instead of being drawn into the soil, which only scales up the problem as remaining plants do not have enough moisture to survive dry spells as they used to. That doesn’t sounds like such a bright future, does it? If their land becomes arid, they may no longer be able to provide sufficient crop yields to make a living out of it. We need abundance of plants and animal species richness to have oxygen to breathe, clean water to drink and nutritious food to eat. Drylands, the most susceptible areas to desertification, are characterized by a scarcity of water during certain periods of the year. Overgrazing: ADVERTISEMENTS: By pounding the soil with their hooves, livestock compact the substrate, increase the proportion of fine material, and reduce the percolation rate of the soil, thus encouraging erosion by wind and water. Overpopulation and excessive consumption, 9. Causes of Desertification: 1. They can cope with incremental challenges and adapt, but beyond a certain tipping point they collapse. We are working hard to improve our content. When the trees and other vegetation in an area are gone, there are no roots that would hold soils in place, there is no canopy that would shield the ground from the direct rainfall or from the sun’s heat. The desertification results in a decline in population for which species may become endangered or even extinct. Once land turns from arable to arid, it is often on longer suitable for farming purposes anymore. The loss of land to desertification has major impact on many places on our planet today and is expected to affect humanity even more in the future as population numbers will grow bigger and the availability of natural resources will decline. Our entire life support system depends on the well-being of … Formerly, the second largest lake in Bolivia filled with diversity of fish and birds had completely dried up just in the span of three years, 2014 to 2017. And it is these fertilizers that are poisoning scarce sources of potable water, as they are flushed with every rain into the river and drinking wells of people [10]. But the problem appears when we try to change these natural cycles and expect a steady crop production or sufficient pasture for livestock from these lands all year long. When ecosystems cease to support us and our livestock, only bad things happen. A long-term change in climate could make an area more desert-like without human intervention, but so far there is no evidence to support that this is happening. The future is already in place. Other causes can be as simple … If they fail to do so, they will become extinct for their inability to cope with a sudden change of their environment. 10 Facts About Desertification. Superb Article . Deforestation is one of the leading human causes of desertification. And together with ecosystems disappear even natural resources that were once present. Unable to grow crops, farmers had to leave their villages in search of better lands. Read more about us. Some of these families then end up living in poverty in slums. Desertification is a serious form of land degradation that results in the destruction of natural ecosystems and the end of services they provide for us. According to UNESCO, one-third of world’s land surface is threatened by desertification, and across the world, it affects the livelihood of millions of people who depend on the benefits of ecosystems that drylands provide. Its depletion causes desertification as the water table falls disrupting the equilibrium. The Aral Sea used to be the world’s fourth largest saline lake until 1960s, when the Soviet government diverted the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which have been feeding the lake with fresh water. The main causes of desertification include: Population growth - the population in some desert areas is increasing. These pollutants then remain deposited in the soil or wash off into rivers, creeks or lakes. Due to unrestricted grazing of the steppe by livestock combined with the influence of climate change, Syrian land has become so damaged that it has turn into lifeless dust. If an area of land has natural resources like natural gas, oil, or minerals, people will come and mine it or take it out. Decades after the Dust Bowl, federal conservation programs were able to restore the Great Plains to fertility. Humans degrade soils when they compact it, erode it, disrupt its organic and inorganic structure, raise its salinity, and cause desertification. Desertification is caused by a combination of factors that change over time and vary by location. UNCCD estimates that advancing desertification could displace globally 50 million people in the next 10 years [21]. “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. Causes of desertification range from the removal of trees and plants to intensive farming that depletes the fertile soil. The same happens even at this very moment and will be happening in the future. When soil becomes polluted due to various human activities, the respective area of land may suffer from desertification in the long run. Let us know if you liked this article. Desertification is another major environmental concern and a significant barrier to meeting basic human needs in drylands and is being constantly threatened by increases in human pressures and climatic variability. It means that the effects of desertification can be extremely serious and not only for us, but for the balance of the whole planet. Since 1990s, when the lack of jobs due to the breakup of the Soviet Union forced people to rear livestock as their only possibility to earn money [6]. If biodiverse ecosystems disappear, we will be left with pollution, drought, hunger and lack of resources. Desertification propels the loss of biodiversity on a large-scale. We are a couple of environmentalists who seek inspiration for life in simple values based on our love for nature. However, the main reason why desertification goes widely unnoticed is that 90 percent of people affected by this phenomenon currently live in developing countries, mainly in Africa and Asia, and belong to the world’s poorest [4]. And it was good they did, because since then, the area they have been cultivating became one of the biggest deserts on Earth – the Sahara Desert. Desertification makes natural disasters worse because it reduces natural resilience of ecosystems. ), Can You Recycle Trophies? One of the latest humanitarian crises has been declared in countries that have been dependent upon resources provided by lake Chad, where lake water gets quickly replaced by inhospitable sand dunes, destroying fishing and farming communities. Desertification is caused by a number of different issues. Majority of those who are affected the most by this problem are as usual the world’s poorest nations where people struggle daily with the direct impacts of climate turning against them, and deserts claiming more of their already scarce soils. Causes and effects of environmental degradation in Bangladesh. The link between soil erosion and other consequences of desertification only confirms this, as erosion is another negative outcome but also a catalyst of previously mentioned problems. The Causes of Desertification. The adverse effects of desertification also include floods in heavy rainfall regions, land, water, and air pollution, storms and several other natural disasters, all of which can be fatal to human life. and space to grow food and build settlements. The bare soil then easier dries out and turns to dust, which can be blown and washed away in a single storm. Conflict over land also increases. 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