South Africa is losing about 300 to 400 million tons of topsoil every year. Areas such as the Northern Cape are especially prone to desertification. To halt desertification the number of animals on the land must be reduced, allowing plants to regrow.
What are the impacts of desertification in Africa?
Desertification in Senegal and Beyond
Agriculture in Africa tends to result in low productivity, as most of the land is characterized as a semi-desert. Clearing the land of trees also reduces the structure of the soil. Coupled with wind erosion, the topsoil blows away and leaves a desert-like land.
What are the impact of desertification?
Desertification affects topsoil, groundwater reserves, surface runoff, human, animal, and plant populations. Water scarcity in drylands limits the production of wood, crops, forage, and other services that ecosystems provide to our community.
What are three effects of desertification?
Higher food prices, water availability, violent conflicts for land, migration, increasing poverty, pollution from wind-blown dust particles coming from distant lands, could be the outcomes of desertification if we let it consume more of our planet.
What is desertification and how is it affecting Africa?
Desertification is, “land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities”. Excluded in the definition are areas that have a hyper-arid or a humid climate. … Desertification processes affect about 46% of Africa.
Why is desertification a huge problem in Africa?
It has been estimated that 319 million hectares of Africa are vulnerable to desertification hazards due to sand movement. … Deforestation exposes the soil to high temperatures which break down the organic matter, increase evaporation and make the soils vulnerable to erosion.
Why is desertification bad?
Agriculture is a main source of income for many desert communities. The increase in desertification in these regions has degraded the land to such an extent where people can no longer productively farm and make a profit. This has negatively impacted the economy and increased poverty rates.
How does desertification affect human health?
The result is crop failure, soil erosion, famine and hunger: people are then less able to work when their need is greatest. It becomes a vicious circle and can result in many deaths, especially among infants and the elderly.
What is the main impact of deforestation?
The loss of trees and other vegetation can cause climate change, desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a host of problems for indigenous people.
How can desertification be prevented?
Preventive actions include:
- Integrating land and water management to protect soils from erosion, salinization, and other forms of degradation.
- Protecting the vegetative cover, which can be a major instrument for soil conservation against wind and water erosion.
What are the harmful effects of desertification quizlet?
Population increase, cutting trees, over-cultivation, overgrazing and opening up marginal land. Change in ecological system, effect on human activities, decrease in crop yield, sandstorms and flooding. Desertification not only affects the local people, but also the rest of the world.
What is the importance of droughts and desertification in South Africa?
The significance of these problems in the region is demonstrated by outlining the impact that drought and desertification have on economic growth and poverty reduction, agriculture and food security, water, biodiversity, energy and migration.
What is the main cause of desertification in Africa?
Poverty-related agricultural practices are a major contributor to desertification. Continuous cultivation without adding supplements, overgrazing, lack of soil and water conservation structures, and indiscriminate bushfires aggravate the process of desertification.
What will happen if desertification continues?
Across the world, desertification affects the livelihoods of millions of people who rely on the benefits that dryland ecosystems can provide. … Some 10 to 20% of drylands are already degraded, and ongoing desertification threatens the world’s poorest populations and the prospects of poverty reduction.