As a consequence, these dryland populations are frequently unable to play a significant role in political decision-making processes. Their marginalization leads to reduced human security and increased vulnerability to factors of change, like drought C Regional and Global Consequences of Desertification beyond Drylands.
Desertification has environmental impacts at the global and regional scale. Affected areas may sometimes be located thousands of kilometers away from the desertified areas.
Desertification-related processes such as reduction of vegetation cover, for instance, increase the formation of aerosols and dust. These, in turn, affect cloud formation and rainfall patterns, the global carbon cycle, and plant and animal biodiversity. For example, visibility in Beijing is often adversely affected by dust storms originating in the Gobi Desert in springtime.
Large dust storms emanating from China affect the Korean peninsula and Japan and are observed to even have an impact on North American air quality.
An increase in desertification -related dust storms is widely considered to be a cause of ill health fever, coughing, and sore eyes during the dry season. Dust emanating from the East Asian region and the Sahara has also been implicated in respiratory problems as far away as North America and has affected coral reefs in the Caribbean.
Dust storms can also have positive impacts, however; for example, air-transported dust deposits from Africa are thought to improve soil quality in the Americas.
The societal and political impacts of desertification also extend to non-dryland areas. Droughts and loss of land productivity are predominant factors in movement of people from drylands to other areas, for example medium certainty. Such migration may exacerbate urban sprawl and by competing for scarce natural resources bring about internal and cross-boundary social, ethnic, and political strife.
Desertification-induced movement of people also has the potential of adversely affecting local, regional, and even global political and economic stability, which may encourage foreign intervention C This summary is free and ad-free, as is all of our content. It is aiming to reduce the effects of desertification.
It does this by creating a wall of plants along the Sahel region. The organization has already restored 15 million hectares of degraded land in Ethiopia. Additionally, 12 million drought-resistant trees have been planted in Senegal. The goal is not only to rehabilitate the land but also to create a symbol of sustainable environmental practices around the world.
In addition, the Global Drylands Initiative is being used to create global discourse around this topic. The International Union for Conservation Nature manages the initiative. It aims to reduce the effects of desertification through advocacy work. The mission is to create government policies which monitor desertification through scientific basis. Desertification is a climate issue that is occurring on almost every continent. People living in areas where desertification is occurring are more likely to face poverty.
Those affected by poverty are less likely to practice environmentally-sustainable actions. This, in turn, creates a vicious cycle of poverty and environmental deterioration. The good news is that there are people looking to help. Organizations such as the Great Green Wall and the Global Drylands Initiative are working to create a world in which desertification can be prevented for future generations. This situation is acute in Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya, where the combination of weak governments and a lack of annual rains linked to climate change are driving desertification levels.
This article first appeared on guardian. Email Tweet Share. Vicious circle Efforts to boost agricultural production often lead to deforestation, a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.
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