Kavita Basu's List: Desertification

• • Good site for homework.
• deserts have grown and shrunk independent of human activities.
• Desertification has played a significant role in human history, contributing to the collapse of several large empires, such as Carthage, Greece, and the Roman Empire, as well as causing displacement of local populations
• estimated that some 10–20% of drylands are already degraded
• approximately 40-41% of Earth’s land area
• desertification being between 6 and 12 million square
• 90% of the inhabitants of drylands live in developing nations
• Reforestation gets at one of the root causes of desertification and isn't just a treatment of the symptoms.
• Fixating the soil is often done through the use of shelter belts, woodlots and windbreaks. Windbreaks are made from trees and bushes and are used to reduce soil erosion and evapotranspiration
• Some soils (for example, clay), due to lack of water can become consolidated rather than porous (as in the case of sandy soils). Some techniques as zaï or tillage are then used to still allow the planting of crops.^[24]

8 more annotations...

• • A lot of notes.