Desertification Backgrounder
Desertification is a process whereby the productivity of drought- prone land decreases because of a variety of factors including deforestation, overcultivation, drought, overgrazing (poor rangeland management), poor irrigation (waterlogging and salinization), soil erosion, chemical action and other practices.
Many of the problems associated with deforestation are linked to desertification.
Some analysts believe desertification is only a phase in a natural climatic process that does not receive attention because it occurs slowly over a long time. Others believe that drought triggers a crisis, but does not cause it. They say that overcultivation and overgrazing weaken the land, allowing no margin for recovery when drought does occur. Human pressure then continues during a drought, leading to even greater and more visible damage to the land than the deaths of large numbers of animals, according to Alan Grainger (Desertification, London, Earthscan, 1986).
In the late 1980s, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) estimated that the world will lose one-third of its arable lands through desertification by the year 2000. A more recent UNEP estimate is that "twenty-five percent of the Earth's total land area--are threatened by desertification," which threatens "...the home and source of livelihood to nearly 900 million people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population." (a href="http://www.law.indiana.edu/glsj/vol3/no1...">Danish.)
Most of the 82 to 92 percent of the Asian soil resource affected by drought, mineral stress, shallow depth, excess water and permafrost is in south and southeast Asia. Suffering most from desertification are Bangladesh, China and India. Desertification is no less a problem in Australia, west Asia (Afghanistan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan) and other Asian countries.
Reports of China's deserts say they are widely distributed throughout the northern districts and cover 13 percent of its land area. Reportedly, China was losing 120,000 hectares of farm and pasture land to drifting sand dunes each year in the late 1980s and 1990s.
In the same period, an estimated 12 percent of India suffered from the threat of desertification in the arid northwest and in a broad semi-arid zone from the Punjab in the northwest to Tamil Nadu in the south. There were an estimated 1.7 million square kilometres of arid land in India and Pakistan, according to Grainger.
Because desertification is a long-term process--long in terms of its development and impact--it is difficult to pin-point its cause and effect relationships. It is also a difficult issue for the general public to understand other than as an existing fact of life. The public usually perceives only the
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