Read at : Google Alert – Desertification
To promote international cooperation to combat desertification and the effects of drought, World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is observed on June 17, each year.
This year, the day’s theme “Conserving Land and Water: Securing our Common Future,’’ emphasizes how desertification, land degradation, and drought threaten human security by depriving people of their means of life. They undermine national and regional security when they force people to leave their homes or trigger or intensify conflicts.
With the exception of some rapid phases of soil erosion promoted by farming practices, drought, insects and other animals, much soil and water degradation is hidden beneath the ground surface. In many instances, we do not realize the changes to the land until it has reached critical levels that seriously affect the health and quality of our river systems. The resulting problems in water quality will affect both rural dwellers and people who live in coastal cities and towns.
Soil, which is a country’s most precious natural resource, consists of weathered and decomposed bedrock, water, air, organic material formed from animal and plant decay, and thousands of other different life forms, mainly microorganisms and insects. They all play a part in maintaining the complex ecology of a healthy soil. Soil erosions takes place slowly but human activity has increased the rate of natural erosion. It occurs mainly when land is exposed to the action of wind and rain, when soil particles are loosened and washed down the slope of land, ending up in a valley below or washed out to sea by streams and rivers.
There is evidence to support that past civilization in the Mediterranean and in Central America, collapsed as a result of soil erosion due to the cutting of trees on steep slopes and other destructive practices.
Water erosion on the other hand is the commonest form of erosion,
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DESERTIFICATION 