What its effects are
Desertification has many disastrous effects to the environment and the people who live in the area and/or rely on the land for food/water. The negative effects on the people of the area are vast:
Effects there are on the farming and agriculture industry:
Flash floods can easily destroy crops on farm land from occasionally. Approximately 3.5 million km^2 of land is arid in the Middle East. The loss of topsoil will result in the reduction of food production which will cause a food shortage for the community which will in turn result in hunger, poverty and migration. There is also a huge shortage of water. This is because most water on land will evaporate quickly as the soil does not have the ability to retain water very well. The flash floods will also carry the water out of the area quickly making it harder to retain.
The pictures below show how the rain water on arid land can either completely evaporate or runoff into a stream in as little as a night. The picture on the left shows the rain on the Tihamah Desert on the 04/10/81. The picture of the left is the same desert though on the next day.
Desertification has many disastrous effects to the environment and the people who live in the area and/or rely on the land for food/water. The negative effects on the people of the area are vast:
Effects there are on the farming and agriculture industry:
Flash floods can easily destroy crops on farm land from occasionally. Approximately 3.5 million km^2 of land is arid in the Middle East. The loss of topsoil will result in the reduction of food production which will cause a food shortage for the community which will in turn result in hunger, poverty and migration. There is also a huge shortage of water. This is because most water on land will evaporate quickly as the soil does not have the ability to retain water very well. The flash floods will also carry the water out of the area quickly making it harder to retain.
The pictures below show how the rain water on arid land can either completely evaporate or runoff into a stream in as little as a night. The picture on the left shows the rain on the Tihamah Desert on the 04/10/81. The picture of the left is the same desert though on the next day.
Effects on the community:
The people who leave trying to find a new home can cause more desertification to occur as excess migration will lead to over population and that will indirectly lead to the desertification of that dry land, as discussed previously. It also is hard for the people who remain as under population of the area can lead desertification as there are not enough people of the community to sustainably manage the crop land. This will eventually lead to the complete desertification of that area forcing people to move out. There is also a huge economic loss as it is estimated that the annual income reduction in the areas affected by desertification is around US$42 billion per annum.
Who it affects most
The places that are now facing desertification are the ones that are semi-arid (Look at map below). This includes Israel, the states of Palestine, Turkey, Lebanon and the western parts of Syria and Jordan. The soil in these areas is being degraded slowly mainly because of poor farming and agricultural techniques but also the climate. Places including Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and most of Syria and Jordan are mostly arid and are in the middle of final stages of desertification. The soil in these areas are mostly sand as are almost completely barren and unfertile. In these countries it is mainly the people who live in the rural areas that are affect, mainly farmers and outlying villages as the cities imported food and can survive of that instead.
From the map below, it can be seen that the most arid areas (hyper-arid) are in most of the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. These areas faced desertification long ago and people there have either adapted or have moved out to other areas. The soil in these areas is just sand and is completely useless for growing crops or for grazing. The people living in hyper-arid areas depend on importing food. Altogether around 85% of the Middle East has been desertified.