Today, the UN is warning that parts of the world could become 'economic deserts', unviable for people or agriculture, and may have to be abandoned. Even in rich countries, people are hitting the limits of what can be done with money and infrastructure because there simply isn't enough water anymore. Disaster is feared as desertification spreads.
1) In China's northwest, desertification has escalated from 1,560 sq km annually in the 1970s to 2,100-2,400 sq km in the 1990s. Dust storms from the Gobi desert regularly blow through Beijing, and the government's response is getting more desperate: Chinese authorities have begun telling hundreds of villagers that farming will cease and that they will have to give up their animals.
2) Strong desertification processes have been developing in Latin America with several countries of the region, as well as significant sectors within some countries, in a state of water stress. This situation is projected to worsen significantly over the medium term.
3) Decades of war and mismanagement, compounded by two years of drought, are wreaking havoc on Iraq's ecosystem, drying up riverbeds and marshes, turning arable land into desert, killing trees and plants, and generally transforming what was once the region's most fertile area into a wasteland.
4) The Sahara desert is encroaching into the Nigerian landmass at the speed of 600 meters per annum, thereby threatening the country's food base. Most villages in the northern states have already been overtaken by sand dunes.
5) 90 percent of the water in Lake Chad, which is considered to be the sixth largest in the world and is bordered by four countries (Chad, Niger, Nigeria and the Cameroon) has been lost to the adverse effects of climate change. Lake Chad served as source of fresh water to the more than 30 million people living around its bank.
6) The Sahara Desert is crossing the Mediterranean, and the livelihoods of 6.5 million people living along its shores could be at risk.
7) 74 million acres of fertile land along the Mediterranean is turning to desert, giving rise to the term Sahelisation (ie: becoming part of the Sahara desert).
8) In Egypt, brackish groundwater has already compromised half the country's farmland.
9) Aquifers around the Po Delta in northern Italy are also showing signs of saltwater contamination.
10) Spain has implemented its first Program of National Action against Desertification after recognizing that 37 percent of the country is at risk from desertification and is in danger of becoming "eroded forever".
11) A new desert is forming 250 km from the 'Garden City of India', Bangalore. This new desert is the result of continued indiscriminate water use by village inhabitants even as sand from floods and wind started covering the region. Now thousands of acres of land are covered by sand dunes.
12) This September, Sydney residents woke to scenes from a Hollywood apocalypse movie as the worst dust storm in 70 years, carrying an estimated 5 million tons of soil from drought-ravaged farmland, turned the sky blood red.
Save for the Antarctica, desertification affects all continents. New deserts are growing at a rate of 20,000 square miles (51,800 square kilometers) a year. More than 70 percent of drylands in Africa, Asia and Latin America that are being used for agricultural purposes are already experiencing the effects of desertification. Desertification leads to famine, mass starvation and unprecedented human migration.
Весьма занятно, хотя краски излишне сгущаются; вообще говоря, этот автор - куда ни посмотрит - везде видит сплошной Epic Fail. Потому либо кроме этой самой дезертификации происходит еще какая-то зеленизация не меньших масштабов, либо плодородных земель в пропорции с этой ежегодной цифрой ну очень много, либо одно из двух...
