Desertification around the world
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Desertification is the permanent decrease in biological productivity of dryland areas.
The term “desertification” was first used by Lavauden (1927) to describe severely overgrazed lands in Tunisia and was then used by Aubreville (1949) to show excessive soil erosion due to deforestation in French West Africa.
About 5172 million hectares area of the world (or 39.7 percent of the world’s land area) is under the drylands (deserts) and is susceptible to desertification. This excludes 978 million hectares area of the hyper-arid zone (7.5 percent). Out of the total dryland area, arid lands (excluding hyper-arid areas) cover 26 percent area, semi-arid 38 percent, and dry sub-humid 21 percent. It has been estimated that about 1035 million hectares (or 20 percent of the total area) are affected by desertification (17 percent slight to moderately affected; 3 percent strongly affected), while 467 million hectares are estimated to be susceptible to water erosion, and 432 million hectares is assessed to be under wind erosion.
The deserts are confined mostly to the five major belts:
- The Sonoran desert of northwestern Mexico, and its continuation in the desert basins of the southwestern United States;
- The Atacama desert, a thin coastal strip running west of Andes from Southern Ecuador to Central Chile;
- A vast belt running from the Atlantic ocean to China including the Sahara, the Arabian desert, the desert of Iran and the erstwhile USSR, the Thar desert of India, and the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts of China and Mongolia;
- The Kalahari and its surrounding arid lands in southern Africa
- Most of the continent of Australia.B
Kar, Amal. Desertification.
Drylands are home to roughly two billion people or 34 percent of the earth’s population.
