Desertification is the persistent degradation of dryland ecosystems, principally by unsustainable farming, overgrazing, deforestation and climate change, rather than the natural expansion of an existing desert's boundary. It threatens land that over two billion people depend on, and the United Nations records the current pace of arable-land degradation at thirty to thirty-five times the historical rate.
Facts
Process Type TimescaleLand degradation typically unfolds over years to decades of sustained pressure, though todays pace is measured by the United Nations at thirty to thirty-five times the historical rate. 1 First Proposed YearThe term desertification was coined by French forester and botanist Andre Aubreville in his 1949 book Climat, forets et desertification de l'Afrique tropicale. This fact is documented on Aubreville's own Wikipedia biography page rather than on the main Desertification article itself. Timescale
Timescale (category) Timescale (category) Timescale (category) Connections
Associated With
Demonstrated By
Source China Efforts to Halt the Gobi Provide a Blueprint for Tackling Desertification (UNCCD)
The Sahel is the most widely documented real-world region of active desertification pressure.
Source United Nations
Shaped
Source Thar Desert (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. United Nations
United NationsDesertification background, UN observances
Rather, it is the persistent degradation of dryland ecosystems by climate change and mainly human activities: unsustainable farming that depletes the nutrients in the soil, mining, overgrazing (animals eat away grasses and erode topsoil with their hooves) and clear-cutting of land, when the tree and plant cover that binds the soil is removed.
- Demonstrated By: The Sahel
View the Source 2. Andre Aubreville (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
He was the first scientist to introduce the term "desertification" (in his 1949 book: Climats, forêts et désertification de l'Afrique tropicale (Climates, Forests, and Desertification of Tropical Africa), and wrote a number of floras of former French colonies.
China Efforts to Halt the Gobi Provide a Blueprint for Tackling Desertification (UNCCD)
United Nations Convention to Combat DesertificationDemonstrated By: The Gobi Desert, Lead sectionQuote, Demonstrated By: The Gobi Desert, Lead section
The Three-North Shelterbelt programme, also known as the "Green Great Wall of China," is a national tree-planting project designed to rehabilitate degraded land and stop the desert encroaching into the fertile grasslands and farmlands of northern China.
Thar Desert (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationShaped: Thar Desert, LeadQuote, Shaped: Thar Desert, Lead
Without the thermal low pressure caused by the heating, there was no monsoon over the Indian subcontinent, which led to the deposition of dust and the desertification of the region.
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