After branching off into some different topics over the past few weeks, it's time to return to some more of this website's original content. There are a lot more environmental issues to talk about and many solutions that I have yet to discuss. That being said, the garden guide will continue next week, and I may start branching off into some different topics in the foreseeable future, but for this week I wanted to talk about another important environmental issue: Desertification. Desertification is an environmental topic that isn't talked about very commonly in the grand scheme of things, but it has an importance nonetheless. Let's start the discussion by talking about what exactly desertification is, and why it may occur.
What is desertification?
Defined by greenfacts.org, desertification, "refers to the persistent degradation of dry land ecosystems by climatic variations and human activities." Now, I didn't understand that definition when I first read it, so let me break it down. Essentially, desertification means the process through which a normally fertile area (like forests, pastures, etc.) is turned into a desert-like biome, or dryland. And in case you don't know what a dryland is, it is an area that that has very little rain and frequent droughts/heat waves, resulting in an area that has a very low water supply.
As you can probably tell already, desertification is not healthy for any environment. Without water, nothing can survive, and thus areas heavily affected by this phenomenon lose a lot of the biodiversity they once had. Lush forests can be turned into literal deserts, with nothing but the most hardy of plants left in its wake. Desertification can affect nearly any type of environment, and its effects are very, very hard to reverse. It's estimated that nearly 12 million hectares of land are lost to desertification every year, and that trend keeps increasing. But, before we go further into why it's so important, we need to discuss why desertification happens in the first place.
Why does desertification occur?
As is the case for most environmental issues, desertification CAN occur naturally, but is often sped up or caused more frequently by human action. If it didn't occur naturally, we wouldn't have had deserts in the first place, but human interference has caused the process to be much more dangerous and frequent. So, to better understand the many causes of this phenomenon, let's break it down into two categories: natural and human made causes.
Natural causes
The most common natural cause of desertification is drought. As we all know, having no rain for a long period of time will mean that the land not receiving rain dries out over time. For shorter droughts, desertification may not occur, as once the rain begins again the effects die down. However, if the drought continues on for long periods of time, the land in question is at a very high risk of becoming a desert, as with no water many plants begin to die off.
Surprisingly enough, another natural cause of desertification is disease among plants. If a particular strain of disease is strong enough to take out the majority of plants in a singular area, the soil is more at risk of drying out. Without the shade and stability provided by plants, the soil in the area is more easily blown away. In most cases, the top layer of dirt is the one that has the most nutrients. So, if these nutrients are constantly blown away, the soil fails to support the amount of plants that it used to. And, less plants means that more soil is blown away, and the process goes on and on until there is nothing but a barren wasteland left. While this is not usually the sole cause of desertification, disease certainly renders an area more susceptible to it.
Human causes
Again, as is the case with most environmental issues, there are many things humans are doing to make desertification worse. The first on the list has to do with agriculture. When irrigating plants, many farmers may divert nearby streams or rivers to support their crops. While this may lead to healthier crops for us, it also means that many plants once getting water from that stream no longer do so, and they die off. Over time, this creates a very harmful desert landscape that is difficult to inhabit.
Additionally, cattle farms can sometimes overgraze, meaning that farmers allow their livestock to eat too much of the surrounding area, destroying the vegetation. If this is done consistently, the vegetation never has a chance to grow back, and the area ends up devoid of life. Additionally, both deforestation and climate change play a huge role in this problem. Forcefully removing vegetation, like in deforestation, can kill off many other organisms in that area. By removing animal's and plant's homes in trees, they die off and there is nothing left to inhabit that particular location.
By increasing the temperature of the Earth, as is occurring because of climate change, some environments become uninhabitable because of excessive temperature. Many plants require a specific amount of heat to survive, so if the temperature remains consistently too warm, the vegetation can't grow back, and the area eventually becomes a desert.
Why should we care?
Desertification has huge consequences for both the environment and humanity. The ever increasing area of deserts means that less and less plants are able to survive. Animals are forced from their homes, and thrust into new environments that they most often don't survive in. Less fertile land means less biodiversity too. Entire species can be killed off just because their environment changed too quickly, and over time we may lose many of the beautiful and interesting animals we have today. What's worse is that desertification can't be reversed naturally. Once an area becomes a desert, it stays that way. And as more and more land is permanently damaged, more and more plants and animals are affected.
But desertification doesn't just hurt plants and animals, it hurts humans. Less fertile land means less space to plant and grow agricultural crops. It means less food for the animals we eat, and in turn less food for us. We already have to worry about the amount of food our population needs, and desertification is making the supply shrink smaller and smaller. None of us want a world where there isn't enough food to go around, but desertification ensures that hunger and starvation will be the terrible reality we continue to face, unless we decide to do something about it.
Conclusion
So while it isn't talked about as often as other problems, desertification is just as important. If we let it continue, it will surely cause huge problems for both us and the environment. It has never been a better time to act against it, so why not start now? There are countless groups working to counteract the negative effects of desertification, but they need help. Our support is vital if we hope to succeed. If you would like to learn about how you can help in the fight against desertification, I highly suggest you check out the links provided below. Not only do they give more information on desertification, but they also give you some ways to help. Also, you may want to stick around, as I will be posting some possible at home solutions to desertification on this website in the coming weeks. Thanks for reading.
All credit for information used in this post goes to:
http://www.who.int/features/qa/69/en/
https://www.greenfacts.org/en/desertification/l-2/1-define-desertification.htm
http://www.gdrc.org/uem/Trialogue/whatis-desert.html
http://www.fao.org/dryland-forestry/background/what-are-drylands/en/
http://study.com/academy/lesson/desertification-caused-by-human-activity.html
https://www.ifad.org/topic/tags/desertification/1953395
Images:
https://greentumble.com/causes-and-effects-of-desertification/
http://www.techgape.com/2014/12/land-degradation-in-india.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523171256.htm
https://www.reference.com/science/difference-between-acre-hectare-453edb8e4b12eb05
http://stpaulscb.org/2017/01/25/answering-the-why-questions/
https://waswrong.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/no-more-rain/
https://www.omicsonline.org/scholarly/bacterial-diseases-of-plants-journals-articles-ppts-list.php
http://insidebusinessonline.com/index.php/2016/11/10/fg-gives-asa-irrigation-contractor-two-weeks-complete-project/
https://www.thegrassseedstore.co.uk/product/meadow-fescue-timothy/
https://kchanews.com/2017/05/02/iowa-sees-temperature-extremes-during-april-from-20-degrees-into-the-80s
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/species/poison-dart-frog
http://gawker.com/5820377/americans-love-paying-more-for-less-food
http://vagisil.com/en-uk/lets-do-something-en-uk/
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