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Desertification is land degradation in drylands, involving increasing aridity, vegetation loss, soil erosion, and declining productivity rather than simply the outward spread of deserts.
Desertification is the gradual degradation of fertile land into increasingly arid, unproductive conditions. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification defines it as land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions resulting from climatic variations and human activities. It is not limited to the physical expansion of existing deserts; rather, it includes declining soil quality, vegetation loss, erosion, reduced water availability, and decreased land productivity. The immediate cause is usually the loss of vegetation cover, which leaves soil vulnerable to wind and water erosion. Desertification can result from drought, climate change, overgrazing, overcultivation, deforestation, unsustainable irrigation, and other forms of poor land management, often acting together with natural climate variability. It affects approximately 40–41% of Earth’s land area and threatens the livelihoods of more than two billion people, especially in developing countries and regions such as the African Sahel, the Gobi Desert and Mongolia, and parts of South America. Its scope includes environmental, economic, and social consequences such as dust storms, food insecurity, poverty, migration, and conflict over resources.
Desertification is land degradation in drylands, involving increasing aridity, vegetation loss, soil erosion, and declining productivity rather than simply the outward spread of deserts.
It arises through interactions between natural factors, including drought and climatic variability, and human activities such as overgrazing, deforestation, overcultivation, and unsustainable water use.
Drylands cover about 40–41% of Earth’s land area and support more than two billion people, making desertification a major environmental, economic, and social issue.
The concept has evolved over time, and its definition remains debated; current interpretations emphasize interconnected land-use, climate, soil, and livelihood processes.
The gradual process of land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions caused by climatic variations and human activities.
The decline in the biological, physical, or economic productivity and ecological condition of land.
Arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions characterized by limited water availability and low or highly variable precipitation.
The proportion of land surface covered by plants, which helps protect soil from erosion and maintain its fertility.
The degree to which a region has insufficient moisture, generally determined by the relationship between precipitation and potential evaporation.
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