Talk:Desertification

Lake Chad image
I am unsure why the second image in this article is Lake Chad: 1) Desertification is defined as: a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. Is Lake Chad a dryland?

2) It is unclear from the image or the article that the area that Lake Chad has retreated from is indeed becoming desert. From the large photo it looked pretty green, but it it is indeed turning into desert it would be good to have a reference clarify this.

3) The typical cause for desertification is stated as overgrazing. As nothing is grazing in Lake Chad, so the retreat of Lake Chad is not a typical example of desertification (if an example at all, see point 2). Should the second image of the article not be something that is typical for the process? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:285:8180:1A10:5C21:C3F2:217A:3D3C (talk) 19:43, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I have moved that image to Lake Chad now. Note that article doesn't even mention desertification. EMsmile (talk) 09:48, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed long list with "bibliography"
I don't thinks this long and outdated list of bibliography (= further reading ?) is useful here so I have taken it out:


 * Barbault R., Cornet A., Jouzel J., Mégie G., Sachs I., Weber J. (2002). Johannesburg. World Summit on Sustainable Development. 2002. What is at stake? The contribution of scientists to the debate. Ministère des Affaires étrangères/adpf.
 * Batterbury, S.P.J. & A.Warren (2001) Desertification . in N. Smelser & P. Baltes (eds.) International Encyclopædia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier Press. pp. 3526–3529
 * Holtz, Uwe (2007). Implementing the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification from a parliamentary point of view – Critical assessment and challenges ahead. Online at
 * Holtz, Uwe (2013). Role of parliamentarians in the implementation process of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. A guide to Parliamentary Action, ed. Secretariat of the UNCCD, Bonn ISBN 978-92-95043-69-5. Online at
 * Lucke, Bernhard (2007): Demise of the Decapolis. Past and Present Desertification in the Context of Soil Development, Land Use, and Climate. Online at
 * Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Desertification Synthesis Report
 * Moseley, W.G. and E. Jerme 2010. “Desertification.” In: Warf, B. (ed). Encyclopedia of Geography. Sage Publications. Volume 2, pp. 715–719.
 * Reynolds, James F., and D. Mark Stafford Smith (ed.) (2002) Global Desertification – Do Humans Cause Deserts? Dahlem Workshop Report 88, Berlin: Dahlem University Press
 * UNCCD (1994) United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
 * The End of Eden a 90-minute documentary by South African filmmaker Rick Lomba in 1984 on African desertification
 * Lucke, Bernhard (2007): Demise of the Decapolis. Past and Present Desertification in the Context of Soil Development, Land Use, and Climate. Online at
 * Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Desertification Synthesis Report
 * Moseley, W.G. and E. Jerme 2010. “Desertification.” In: Warf, B. (ed). Encyclopedia of Geography. Sage Publications. Volume 2, pp. 715–719.
 * Reynolds, James F., and D. Mark Stafford Smith (ed.) (2002) Global Desertification – Do Humans Cause Deserts? Dahlem Workshop Report 88, Berlin: Dahlem University Press
 * UNCCD (1994) United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
 * The End of Eden a 90-minute documentary by South African filmmaker Rick Lomba in 1984 on African desertification
 * Reynolds, James F., and D. Mark Stafford Smith (ed.) (2002) Global Desertification – Do Humans Cause Deserts? Dahlem Workshop Report 88, Berlin: Dahlem University Press
 * UNCCD (1994) United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
 * The End of Eden a 90-minute documentary by South African filmmaker Rick Lomba in 1984 on African desertification
 * UNCCD (1994) United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
 * The End of Eden a 90-minute documentary by South African filmmaker Rick Lomba in 1984 on African desertification


 * Li, S.G., Harazono, Y., Oikawa, T., Zhao, H.L., He, Z.Y. and Chang, X.L., 2000. Grassland desertification by grazing and the resulting micrometeorological changes in Inner Mongolia. Agricultural and forest meteorology, 102(2-3), pp.125-137.


 * Hassan, M.H.A., 2012. under the auspices of the International Center for Theoretical. Physics of desertification, p.1.


 * Dregne, H.E., 1986. Desertification of arid lands. Physics of desertification, pp.4-34.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-4388-9_2


 * Hulme, M. and Kelly, M., 1993. Exploring the links between desertification and climate change. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 35(6), pp.4-45.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00139157.1993.9929106?journalCode=venv20 EMsmile (talk) 09:40, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Improvements in Sept and Oct 2023
Hi User:ASRASR, I see you have done some improvements on this article recently. Could you please summarise here what improvements you have made, and what still remains to be done? I wonder if the section on "causes" needs to be beefed up. It seems rather short when I compare it to the causes in the deforestation article and also in comparison to the rest of the article (see above on this talk page a table on section sizes, for comparison). I think we should explain better (also in the lead) whether climate change is a main cause or only "another cause". I assume it's not the main cause of desertification that we are seeing but I am no expert on this, nor have I read the available literature. EMsmile (talk) 12:20, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * P.S. with regards to climate change, it would be good to check what the IPCC AR 6 report, Working Group II, says about the effects of climate change on desertification. It's not yet used as a reference for this article. EMsmile (talk) 12:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.academia.edu/41269769/Desertification_Causes_and_Effects https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344600730_Greening_the_desert_areas_of_northern_Nigeria https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342944088_A_review_of_impact_of_recurrent_bush_burning_on_the_climate_change_paradigm_The_Nigerian_experience. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

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Map Description wrong (image in the lead)
Hello,

I saw the map for the 1998 desertification threat (the first to appear on the page) and either the year is wrong or the map is wrong as it says "1998" but Germany is still divided into GDR and FRG. Yugoslavia is also still on the map, so it must have been before 1990. My guess would be that the date is wrong and should read 1989 but I have no idea if that is correct.

Best regards David 170.133.4.62 (talk) 12:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Good point. I couldn't find the root source of this map. It was uploaded in 2006. I think we should replace it with a more recent one. Would any of the maps in this paper be suitable?: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17710-7 Or maybe someone knows how to find a better map to illustrate the lead of this article. EMsmile (talk) 10:02, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you to User:ASRASR for replacing the lead image with a newer map. However, in which sense does it show "desertification", i.e. the process of more deserts, compared to just deserts? Would we need two maps side by side that show the changes? Also, I think the caption is not really clear for laypersons: "Global distribution of dryland subtypes based on the aridity index (1981-2010)". What does the 30 year time period mean? Is this an average over 30 years, taking yearly snapshots and then averaging this?
 * Would images from the Nature publication perhaps be better, as they show changes? But then again, they are probably too detailed for our purposes. We need something simple. EMsmile (talk) 08:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Desertification is a gradual process of increased aridity. This map shows the 30-yr average 1981-2010 of the various stages of desertification. The hyper-arid category is the typical desert with no significant vegetation. The caption has been improved to explain all this. Thanks. ASRASR (talk) 10:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. I like your sentence of "Desertification is a gradual process of increased aridity.". I've added it to the definition section and re-arranged that a bit, as it was rather confusing. Could you take another look at that definition section, User:ASRASR? EMsmile (talk) 11:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's good. I added a qualification to the definition - "soil" aridity. The Princeton Dictionary definition doesn't seem to have any traceable origin. ASRASR (talk) 12:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's good. I added a qualification to the definition - "soil" aridity. The Princeton Dictionary definition doesn't seem to have any traceable origin. ASRASR (talk) 12:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Scientific debate on contribution of land use practices (and climate change) to desertification
Hello,

I have made edits to this article to include some discussion of the scientific controversy surrounding the role of overgrazing and other land use practices in causing desertification. Particularly in the Sahel region, which is the poster child for desertification, the modern scientific consensus is that overgrazing and agricultural mismanagement had a relatively minor role in causing the 1980s drought. This is discussed extensively in " The End of Desertification? " by Behnke and Mortimore and the causes of drought/desertification are reviewed in "Rainfall trends in the African Sahel: Characteristics, processes, and causes" by Biasutti (2019).

It is my reading of the modern scholarship that desertification/loss of vegetation is largely driven by climate change and variability, not the other way around. It would be advisable to revise the article to soften language implicating overexploitation as the primary cause of desertification. I may undertake this later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acceptability (talk • contribs) 00:35, 25 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I was just going to post something about the role of climate change and now I see your comment from 2 years ago. So I am putting my comment here as it fits into the section that you have started:
 * Copied from the talk page of effects of climate change on the water cycle:
 * Would agree that drylands undergoing desertification is in part an impact of climate change. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17710-7 ASRASR (talk) 00:24, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That's a really useful paper from 2020. Easy to understand and compatibly licenced. I have copied some info from its abstract to the desertification article now, and brought it back to effects of climate change on the water cycle by using an excerpt. More info could be taken from that paper to show the complexities, also with respect to the opposite trend (global greening). We could also take some of the figures. EMsmile (talk) 10:05, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There is also a related discussion with lots of interesting content from the IPCC AR 6 report on the talk page of the article "effects of climate change on agriculture". Pinging also User:Jarble and User:InformationToKnowledge in case they have time to comment. EMsmile (talk) 20:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)