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Desertification is a gradual process of increased soil aridity.Desertification has been defined in the text of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities."
The causes of desertification are a combination of natural and human factors, with climate change exacerbating the problem. Despite this, there is a common misconception that desertification in Africa is solely the result of natural causes like climate change and soil erosion.
Historic desertification is the study of the desert-forming process from a historic perspective. It was presumed in the past that the main causes of desertification lay in overuse of the land resulting in impoverishment of the soil, reduced vegetation cover, increased risk of drought and the resulting wind erosion. However recent projects to ...
Sand and water on the side of the road, causing erosion on the environment Plastic bags dumped by the road side in Katete in mbarara district in western Uganda. The erosion caused by rains, rivers and winds as well as over-use of soils for agriculture and low use of manures have resulted in turning the soils infertile, as for example, in the plains of the Nile and the Orange River.
Humans are the cause of the current mass extinction, called the Holocene extinction, driving extinctions to 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate. [ 119 ] [ 120 ] Though most experts agree that human beings have accelerated the rate of species extinction, some scholars have postulated without humans, the biodiversity of the Earth would ...
It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature reserves. It can also be caused by immobile, travel restricted populations of native or non-native wild animals. Overgrazing reduces the usefulness, productivity and biodiversity of the land and is one cause of desertification and erosion.
At least 90% of Mongolia's pastureland has experienced some level of desertification. [3] Between 1996 and 2009 up to a third of rivers dried out or were impacted by drought conditions. [3] It has been found that desertification is predominantly (approximately 87%) caused by human factors rather than natural factors.
Deforestation, [30] with resulting desertification, water resource degradation, and soil loss has affected approximately 94% of Madagascar's previously biologically productive lands. Since the arrival of humans 2000 years ago, Madagascar has lost more than 90% of its original forest. [31]