Some statistics have shown that, since 1900, the Sahara has expanded by 250 km to the south over a stretch of land from west to east 6,000 km long.
This wall is a much larger-scale version of what American farmers did in the 1930s to stop the great Midwest dust bowl.
This plan was proposed in the late 1970s, and has become a major ecological engineering project that is not predicted to end until the year 2055.
They were widely encouraged by development agencies from the middle of the 1980s in the Sahel area of Africa. Some soils (for example, clay), due to lack of water can become consolidated rather than porous (as in the case of sandy soils).
Since 1980, this method to reforest degraded landscape has been applied with some success in Niger.
The lake has shrunk by over 90% since the 1987, displacing millions of inhabitants.
The loss of topsoil means that plants cannot take root firmly and can be uprooted by torrential water or strong winds. The United Nations Convention (UNC) says that about six million Sahelian citizens would have to give up the desertified zones of sub-Saharan Africa for North Africa and Europe between 1997 and 2020. Lake Chad, located in the Sahel region, has been hit particularly hard by this phenomenon.
==Definitions of words== As recently as 2005, considerable controversy existed over the proper definition of the term "desertification." Helmut Geist (2005) identified more than 100 formal definitions.
Due to the success that China has been finding in stopping the spread of desertification, plans are currently being made in Africa to start a "wall" along the borders of the Sahara desert as well to be financed by the United Nations Global Environment Facility trust. In 2007 the African Union started the Great Green Wall of Africa project in order to combat desertification in 20 countries.
With the increasing population of Mongolia it is very difficult to stay a herder for long. The number of these environmental refugees grows every year, with projections for sub-Saharan Africa showing a probable increase from 14 million in 2010 to nearly 200 million by 2050.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched the FAO Drylands Restoration Initiative in 2012 to draw together knowledge and experience on dryland restoration.
In 2015, FAO published global guidelines for the restoration of degraded forests and landscapes in drylands, in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency. The "Green Wall of China" is a high-profile example of one method that has been finding success in this battle with desertification.
The loss of topsoil means that plants cannot take root firmly and can be uprooted by torrential water or strong winds. The United Nations Convention (UNC) says that about six million Sahelian citizens would have to give up the desertified zones of sub-Saharan Africa for North Africa and Europe between 1997 and 2020. Lake Chad, located in the Sahel region, has been hit particularly hard by this phenomenon.
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Page generated on 2021-08-05