RM 100 lecture 5: Desertification

Desertification is the formation of desert like conditions, largely through human

activities, in areas that do not have desert climates. Human activities associated with or
act as causes of desertification includes; uncontrolled livestock grazing, burning, wood
cutting, temporary cultivation, and abandonment of semiarid to arid lands.
Desertification is the extreme deterioration of land in arid and dry sub-humid areas due
to loss of vegetation and soil moisture; desertification results chiefly from man-made
activities and influenced by climatic variations. It is principally caused by overgrazing,
over drafting of groundwater and diversion of water from rivers for human consumption
and industrial use, all of these processes fundamentally driven by overpopulation.

About 3,6 billion of the world's 5.2 billion hectares of useful dryland for agriculture has
suffered erosion and soil degradation. In more than 100 countries, 1 billion of the 6
billion world population is affected by desertification, forcing people to leave their farms
for jobs in the cities. Desertification is devouring more than 20,000 square miles of land
worldwide every year. Desertification affects 74% of the land in North America. In
Africa, more than 2.4 million acres of land (73% of its drylands) are affected by
desertification. According to a UN study, about 30% of earth's land - including the 70%
of dryland - is affected by drought. Every day, about 33,000 people starve to death.

Desertification takes place in dryland areas where the earth is especially fragile, where
rainfall is nil and the climate is harsh. The result is the destruction of topsoil followed by
loss of the land's ability to sustain crops, livestock or human activity. The economic
impact is horrendous, with a loss of more than $40 billion per year in agricultural goods
and an increase in agricultural prices.

Desertification creates conditions that intensify wildfires and stirring winds, adding to the
tremendous pressure to earth's most precious resource, water, and, of course, the animals
dependant on it. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the world lost
about 30% of its natural wealth between 1970 and 1995. Dust from deserts and drylands
is blown into cities around the world. Dust from Africa reaches Europe through the Pasat

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wind, and even reaches US cities. Dust particles, which are less than 2,5 millionths of a
meter in size, are inhaled, causing health problems and have been shown to boost death
rates.

Changes of amount of rangelands;

The amount of rangelands in the world is expected to decline substantially in the next 30
years. Large amount of rangelands in Africa and America are presently being concerted
to farmlands. This trend is expected to continue as a result of rapid increase in human
population. There are number of factors that facilitate the conversion of rangeland to
farmland. Among these are; the relative low price in beef compared to those of wheat,
introduction of irrigation system, large-scale human immigration, urbanization and
government polices.
Some researchers urge that in most developing countries of Africa and South America, a
considerable reduction in amount of rangeland will probably occur. However, regardless
of these changes, rangelands will continue to be the major type of land in the world.

Africa has been the focal point of concern over desertification during 20 years because of
continuous drought in the Sahel Region. However, the effects of drought on vegetation
have been magnified in recent years because of rapid increase in human and livestock
population. As human population increase in semiarid to arid areas, desertification
increases. Desertification has become a major problem in other parts of the world as well.
Drought has caused human hardship and tremendous losses of livestock. Application of
range management practices has considerable potential to reduce or reverse the
desertification problem in many areas for year’s betterment.

Deserts
Deserts may be separated from surrounding, less arid areas by mountains and other
contrasting landforms that reflect fundamental structural differences in the terrain. In
other areas, desert fringes form a gradual transition from a dry to a more humid
environment, making it more subtle to determine the desert border. These transition zones
can have fragile, delicately balanced ecosystems. Desert fringes often are a mosaic of

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microclimates. Small pieces of wood support vegetation that picks up heat from the hot
winds and protects the land from the prevailing winds. After rainfall the vegetated areas
are distinctly cooler than the surroundings.

In these marginal areas activity centres may stress the ecosystem beyond its tolerance
limit, resulting in degradation of the land. 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. Grazing and
collection of firewood reduce or eliminate plants that bind the soil and prevent erosion.
All these come about due to the trend towards settling in one area instead of a nomadic
culture.

Sand dunes can encroach on human habitats. Sand dunes move through a few different
means, all of them assisted by wind. One way that dunes can move is through saltation,
where sand particles skip along the ground like a rock thrown across a pond might skip
across the water's surface. When these skipping particles land, they may knock into other
particles and cause them to skip as well. With slightly stronger winds, particles collide in
mid-air, causing sheet flows. In a major dust storm, dunes may move tens of meters
through such sheet flows. And like snow, sand avalanches, falling down the steep slopes
of the dunes that face away from the winds, also moving the dunes forward.

Desertification/causes

It is a common misconception that droughts by themselves cause desertification. While

drought is a contributing factor, the root causes are all related to man's overexploitation
of the environment. Droughts are common in arid and semiarid lands, and well-managed
lands can recover from drought when the rains return. Continued land abuse during
droughts, however, increases land degradation. Increased population and livestock
pressure on marginal lands has accelerated desertification. In some areas, nomads
moving to less arid areas disrupt the local ecosystem and increase the rate of erosion of
the land. Nomads typically try to escape the desert, but because of their land-use
practices, they are bringing the desert with them.

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Relatively small climate changes could result in abrupt changes to vegetative cover. In
2006, Woods Hole Research Center, reporting on the second consecutive year of drought
in the Amazon basin and an experiment that had been running since 2002, said that the
Amazon forest in its present form could survive only three successive years of drought
before potentially turning into desert. Scientists at the Brazilian National Institute of
Amazonian Research argued that this drought response was pushing the rainforest
towards a "tipping point". It concluded that the forest is on the brink of being turned into
savanna or desert, with catastrophic consequences for CO 2 in the atmosphere. According
to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the combination of climate change and deforestation
increases the drying effect of dead trees that fuels forest fires.

Some arid and semi-arid lands can support crops, but additional pressure from greater
populations or decreases in rainfall can lead to the few plants present disappearing. The
soil becomes exposed to wind, causing soil particles to be deposited elsewhere. The top
layer becomes eroded. With the removal of shade, rates of evaporation increase and salts
become drawn up to the surface. This increases soil salinity which inhibits plant growth.
The loss of plants causes less moisture to be retained in the area, which may change the
climate pattern leading to lower rainfall.

This degradation of formerly productive land is a complex process. It involves

multiple causes, and it proceeds at varying rates in different climates. Desertification may
intensify a general climatic trend toward greater aridity, or it may initiate a change in
local climate. Desertification does not occur in linear, easily mappable patterns. Deserts
advance erratically, forming patches on their borders. Areas far from natural deserts can
degrade quickly to barren soil, rock, or sand through poor land management. The
presence of a nearby desert has no direct relationship to desertification. Unfortunately, an
area undergoing desertification is brought to public attention only after the process is well
under way. Often little data are available to indicate the previous state of the ecosystem
or the rate of degradation. Burning and wood cutting (from both forests and woodlands)
also cause desertification of words ecosystem leading to changes in climatic condition
and environmental hazards such wind, dust storms, flooding etc.

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Desertification and poverty

Desertification is both an environmental and developmental problem. It affects local

environments and populations’ ways of life. Its effects, however, have more global
ramifications concerning biodiversity, climatic change and water resources. The
degradation of terrain is directly linked to human activity and constitutes both one of the
consequences of poor development and a major obstacle to the sustainable development
of dryland zones.

Numerous authors underline the strong link between desertification and poverty. The
proportion of poor people among populations is noticeably higher in dryland zones,
especially among rural populations. This situation increases yet further as a function of
land degradation because of the reduction in productivity, the precariousness of living
conditions and difficulty of access to resources and opportunities.

A downward spiral is created in many underdeveloped countries by overgrazing, land

exhaustion and overdrafting of groundwater in many of the marginally productive world
regions due to overpopulation pressures to exploit marginal drylands for farming.
Decision-makers are understandably averse to invest in arid zones with low potential.
This absence of investment contributes to the marginalization of these zones. When
unfavorable agro-climatic conditions are combined with an absence of infrastructure and
access to markets, as well as poorly-adapted production techniques and an underfed and
undereducated population, most such zones are excluded from development.[

Historical and current desertification

Overgrazing and to a lesser extent drought in the 1930s transformed parts of the Great
Plains in the United States into the "Dust Bowl". During that time, a considerable fraction
of the plains population abandoned their homes to escape the unproductive lands.
Improved agricultural and water management have prevented a disaster of the earlier
magnitude from recurring, but desertification presently affects tens of millions of people
with primary occurrence in the lesser developed countries.

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Impacts of desertification
A major impact of desertification is biodiversity loss and loss of productive capacity,
for example, by transition from land dominated by shrublands to non-native grasslands.
In the semi-arid regions of wolrdwide, many coastal sage scrub and chaparral ecosystems
have been replaced by non-native, invasive grasses or wood plants due to the
shortening of fire return intervals. This can create a monoculture of annual grass that
cannot support the wide range of animals once found in the original ecosystem. In
Madagascar's central highland plateau, 10% of the entire country has been lost to
desertification due to slash and burn agriculture by indigenous peoples.

Countering desertification

Combating desertification is complex and difficult, usually impossible without alteration

of land management practices that led to the desertification. Over-exploitation of the
land and climate variations can have identical impacts and be connected in feedbacks,
which makes it very difficult to choose the right mitigation strategy. Investigating the
historic desertification plays a special role since it allows better distinguishing of human
and natural factors. In this context, recent research about historic desertification in Jordan
questions the dominant role of man. It seems possible that current measures like
reforestation projects cannot achieve their goals if global warming continues.

Fig 1 (left) Trees are planted instead of sand fences to reduce sand accumulating in a
UAE highway. Fig. 2 (right) Anti-sand shields in north Sahara, Tunisia.

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Desertification is recognized as a major threat to biodiversity. Some countries have
developed Biodiversity Action Plans to counter its effects, particularly in relation to the
protection of endangered flora and fauna.

A number of methods have been tried in order to reduce the rate of desertification;
however, most measures treat symptoms of sand movement and do not address the root
causes of land modification such as overgrazing, unsustainable farming and deforestation.
In developing countries under threat of desertification, many local people use trees for
firewood and cooking which has increased the problem of land degradation and often
even increased their poverty. In order to gain further supplies of fuel the local population
add more pressure to the depleted forests; adding to the desertification process.
Techniques focus on two aspects: provisioning of water (e.g. by wells and energy
intensive systems involving water pipes or over long distances) and fixating and hyper-
fertilising soil.

Fixating the soil is often done through the use of shelter belts, woodlots and windbreaks.
Windbreaks are made from trees and bushes and are used to reduce soil erosion and
evapotranspiration. They were widely encouraged by development agencies from the
middle of the 1980s in the Sahel area of Africa. Another approach is the spraying of
petroleum or nano clay over semi-arid cropland. This is often done in areas where either
petroleum or nano clay is easily and cheaply obtainable (eg Iran). In both cases, the
application of the material coats seedlings to prevent moisture loss and stop them being
blown away. Some soils (e.g. clay), due to lack of water can become consolidated rather
than porous (as in the case of sandy soils). Some techniques as tillage are then used to
still allow the planting of crops.

Enriching of the soil and restoration of its fertility is often done by plants. Of these, the
Leguminous plants which extract nitrogen from the air and fixes it in the soil, and food
crops/trees as grains, barley, beans and dates are the most important.

When housing is foreseen in or near a reforestation area, organic waste material (e.g.
hazelnut shells, bamboo, chicken manure) can be made into biochar or Terra preta nova

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by a pyrolysis unit. This substance may be used to enrich planting spaces for high-
demanding crops. Finally, some approaches as stacking stones around the base of trees
and artificial groove-digging also help increase the local success of crop survival.
Stacked stones help to collect morning dew and retain soil moisture. Artificial grooves
are dug in the ground as to retain rainfall and trap wind-blown seeds.

In order to solve the problem of cutting trees for personal energy requirements,
solutions as Solar ovens and efficient wood burning cook stoves are advocated as a
means to relieve pressure upon the environment; however, these techniques are generally
prohibitively expensive in the very regions where they are needed.

At the local level, individuals and governments can temporarily forestall desertification.
Sand fences are used throughout the Middle East and the US, in the same way snow
fences are used in the north. Placement of straw grids, each up to a square meter in area,
will also decrease the surface wind velocity. Shrubs and trees planted within the grids
are protected by the straw until they take root. However, some studies suggest that
planting of trees depletes water supplies in the area. In areas where some water is
available for irrigation, shrubs planted on the lower one-third of a dune's windward side
will stabilize the dune. This vegetation decreases the wind velocity near the base of the
dune and prevents much of the sand from moving. Higher velocity winds at the top of the
dune level it off and trees can be planted atop these flattened surfaces.

Desertification - a threat to the Sahel

Land covers 14.9 billion hectares of the earth's surface. A UNEP (United Nations
Environmental Programme) study shows that 6.1 billion hectares are dryland of which 1
billion hectares are naturally hyperarid desert. The rest of the dryland has either become
desert or is being threatened by desertification. One quarter of the world's population
inhabit the drylands and depend on this area for their livelihood.

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The desert itself is a somewhat stable environment. The landscape varies from flat
terrain to lofty sand dunes and mountains. Extreme aridity and powerful winds
characterise the Sahara Desert. These winds reach 100km/h, carry sand long distances,
erode rocks and reduce visibility to zero in severe storms. Unprotected car windows
become 'frosted' and car paint is quickly removed in such storms. Ozenda mentions that
the Sahara boasts the highest shade temperature recorded in the world - 58°C in a locality
in Libya - and the average maximum for the hottest month reaches 45°C in several
places. Many locations experience an average annual rainfall below 25mm. Sand dunes
move during violent storms and would be a huge threat if they reached farmers' fields.
Deserts generally support a very sparse vegetation cover and this is certainly true of the
Sahara. Wild animals live off the meagre resources and have special mechanisms to
conserve water. Pastoralists use the desert where possible for grazing while isolated oases
sustain date palms and other thirsty crops. These small pockets of human activity are
minute compared to the vast expanse of the desert.

The misconception that the Sahel is directly exposed to the Sahara has been widely
accepted. The Sahara is sometimes pictured as a sea of sand dunes washing onto the
Sahel exposing farmers to waves of sand that roll in from the desert, yearly swallowing
large chunks of farming land. If true it would be understandable that projects plant green
belts in order to defend the Sahel from the invasion. In reality the situation is much more
complex. In some places such as parts of North Africa and Mauritania the Sahara directly
threatens farming land. However in Niger the pastoral zone to the north of Tanout (the
town 13km N. of Eden's field station) is well vegetated with many bushes and trees. It is
in fact a natural green belt that protects farmers from the Sahara.