An overview of desertification

1. Desertification
Presented By
Kanwar Bhan Godara
18MSCEST11
Supervised By
Dr. Puneeta Pandey

2. Content
• What is Desertification ?
• Categories
• Causes
• Impacts
• Indian Scenario (Thar Desert)
• Controlling Techniques
• UNCCD COP 14
• References

3. Desertification or Expanding desert
• The United Nations official definition says desertification is
land degradation in typically dry areas resulting from various
factors, including climatic variations and human activities.
typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and
wildlife.
• It occurs mainly in semi-arid lands which border the world’s
major desert.
• According to UNESCO (1994), one third of world’s land
surface is threatened by desertification and across the world it
affects livelihood of millions of people.

4. Categories of Desertification
• Light desertification- slight damage occurs in vegetation
cover and soil, not much affect biological capacity.
• Moderate desertification- soil reduce productivity by
10-25 %, formation of small dunes, salinization
• Severe desertification- Increase erosion, weeds and
unwanted shrub, reduce production upto 50%
• Very Severe- active naked great sand dunes, vagitation
almost vanished
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0341816208001951
Ha-Lin Zhao, Yu-Hui He, Rui-Lian Zhou, Yong-Zhong Su, Yu-Qiang Li, Sam Drake, (2009)
Effects of desertification on soil organic C and N content in sandy farmland and grassland of Inner Mongolia,
CATENA, Volume 77, Issue 3,Pages 187-191.

5. Causes
• Illegal mining
• Human Activities which affect climatic area
• Over population
• Overgrazing
• Deforestation
• Farming practices
• Climate change
• Natural disasters
http://www.cpuh.in/academics/pdf/DrKirti-Sarvansh-Singh-Himanshu-Jain.pdf
Sharma, Kirti Mohan, Singh, Sarvansh, Jain, himanshu, (2017), Reasons for the Expansion of Thar Desert & Methods to Control this Spreading . CPUH-Research Journal:
2017, 2(1), 12-17 ISSN (Online): 2455-6076, pg no. 15

6. Impacts
1. Physical Impacts
• Soil erosion
•Dry river
•Flash flood
•Drought (precipitation decrease)
• Increase in sand storms
David S. G. Thomas. “Sandstorm in a Teacup? Understanding Desertification.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 159, no. 3, 1993, pp. 318–
331. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3451281.

7. 2. Impacts on human
• Crops and cattle die, resulting in famine.
• Deaths
• Socio-economic, migration towards cities, overpopulated
urban areas.

8. The Great Indian Desert
• Area- 2,00,000 sq. km (World 17th
Largest )
• 80% in India, Mainly in Rajasthan ,
Extend in Gujarat, Haryana , Punjab
• Desert extend between Aravalli hills
in East, Great Rann of Kutch in
South and Indus in West
• Most dense populated desert of
world.
Satellite image of Thar desert
(Google Earth, 2016)

9. 1992 1997
2002 2007
Water bodies continue shrinking near Sriganganagar (Rajasthan)
Google Earth

10. Thar desert spreading towards
north-east direction
http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Aravali_range
•The Indian desert is
spreading annually over
12000 ha of productive land
degrading it and slowly
advancing towards the
national capital New Delhi
at the rate of 0.5 km per
year
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2270
01410_Desertification_Control_and_Manage
ment_of_Land_Degradation_in_the_Thar_De
sert_of_India/

11. Tackling Desertification
• Plant Trees- the roots of trees hold the soil together and
help to reduce soil erosion from wind and rain. Improving the
quality of the soil.
• Indira Gandhi Canal plays
significant role to increase
the vegetation cover and
land use in western
Rajasthan.
Also launch Indira Gandhi
canal region afforestation
programme .
•
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article
/abs/pii/S0001706X03002924

12. The Great Green Wall
•Started in 1978
•Hold back the expansion of Gobi desert
•4500 km long
•Completed in 2050 (expected)
https://www.unccd.int/actions/great-green-wall-initiative
•Imagine a green wall- 15 km wide, and up to
7800km long – a living green wall of trees
and bushes, full of birds and other animals.
Imaggine it just south of the sahara, from
Djibouti in the east, all the way aross the
continent to Senegal, in the west.
•This wall pass through 11 countries.
•The building of this Great Green Wall
(GGW) was approved by an international
summit in Bonn (1994), to combat
desertification (UNCCD)
China’s Green wall

13. Afforestation in India
• National Afforestation Programme(NAP) (2009) “Additional
support for amelioration of soil in alkaline/ saline, ravine,
marshy, high-altitude, desert areas etc.”
Under NAP mission plantations of jojoba at Fatehpur, Shekhawati
National Mission for Green
India (GIM) (2018) ,
Mission goal To increase
forest/tree cover to the
extent of 5 million hectares
(mha)
•

14. • Counter Trenching- involves
the digging of 150m long, 1m
deep trenches in the soil. The
trenches are made parallel to
the height lines of the
landscape, preventing the
water of flowing within the
trenches and causing erosion.
• Magic Stones- (or bunds) are circles
of stones placed on the ground to hold
water on the soil rather than letting it
run quickly over the surface.
https://dunghong.wordpress.com/geography/
https://farmingfirst.org/2012/09/stone-bunds-as-soil-and-
water-conservation-measures-in-sahelian-countries/

15. • Drip irrigation-
Micro-irrigation system that has
the potential to save water and
nutrients by allowing water to
the roots of plants, either from
above the soil surface or buried
below the surface.
https://gardensgrownright.com/gardening-supplies/drip-irrigation-
garden-kits/gator-1000-drip-irrigation-kit/

16. UNCCD COP 14
• The UNCCD COP 14 ended on 13
September 2019, after ten days of
meetings, 11 high-level, 30 committee
and over 170 stakeholder meetings, 44
exhibitions and 126 side events.
• The Conference adopted the Delhi
Declaration
India will resolve to do three things
1. Restore 50 lakh hectares of degraded
land in 10 years.
2. Provisions of the New Delhi
declaration to be adopted at the end of
the conference.
3. Center of Excellence to be established
at Forest Research Institute. indiatoday.in/india/story/modi-united-nations-desertification-
meet-news-live-updates-noida-address-1597086-2019-09-09

17. References
• http://www.unesco.org/science/desertification.shtml
• https://www.unccd.int/actions/great-green-wall-initiative
• https://www.unccd.int/conventionconference-parties-cop/cop14-2-13-september-new-delhi-india
• Ha-Lin Zhao, Yu-Hui He, Rui-Lian Zhou, Yong-Zhong Su, Yu-Qiang Li, Sam Drake, (2009) Effects of desertification on
soil organic C and N content in sandy farmland and grassland of Inner Mongolia,CATENA, Volume 77, Issue 3,Pages
187-191.
• Sharma, Kirti Mohan, Singh, Sarvansh, Jain, himanshu, (2017), Reasons for the Expansion of Thar Desert &
Methods to Control this Spreading . CPUH-Research Journal: 2017, 2(1), 12-17 ISSN (Online): 2455-6076, pg no. 15
• Sinha, R. K., Bhatia, S., & Vishnoi, R. (1996). "Desertification control and rangeland management in the Thar
desert of India".
• Chauhan, Surendra. (2003). Desertification Control and Management of Land Degradation in the Thar Desert of
India. The Environmentalist. 23. 219-227. 10.1023/B:ENVR.0000017366.67642.79.
• David S. G. Thomas. “Sandstorm in a Teacup? Understanding Desertification.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 159,
no. 3, 1993, pp. 318–331. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3451281.
• https://earth.google.com/web/
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001706X03002924
• https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11480-Can-China-s-afforestation-knowledge-green-the-world-
• https://www.jica.go.jp › evaluation › oda_loan › post › pdf › 2-41_third
• http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Aravali_range
• indiatoday.in/india/story/modi-united-nations-desertification-meet-news-live-updates-noida-address-1597086-
2019-09-09
• https://gardensgrownright.com/gardening-supplies/drip-irrigation-garden-kits/gator-1000-drip-irrigation-kit/
• https://farmingfirst.org/2012/09/stone-bunds-as-soil-and-water-conservation-measures-in-sahelian-countries/
• https://dunghong.wordpress.com/geography/