Soil Erosion, Desertification and Dust Storms
Category: erosion
Invasive sedge protects dunes better than native grass
Photo credit: Science Daily
The Superstorm Sandy storm surge breached the dune line and created a channel that is stabilized by American beachgrass (Ammophila breviligulata) on the left and Asiatic sand sedge (Carex kobomugi) on the right.
Credit: Bianca Charbonneau
Invasive sedge protects dunes better than native grass, study finds
- Date:
- January 25, 2017
- Source:
- University of Pennsylvania
- Summary:
- An invasive dune plant has an advantage over its native counterpart: the invasive is better at preventing erosion of dunes during big storms, report investigators.
The invasive species Carex kobomugi, or Asiatic sand sedge, was first found along the East Coast of the United States at New Jersey’s Island Beach State Park in 1929. The species is aggressive, outcompeting native vegetation and reducing local biodiversity. In many places, land managers have made great efforts to remove it.
But a new study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology and led by University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate Bianca Charbonneau finds that the invasive plant does have one advantage over its native counterpart, Ammophila breviligulata, or American beach grass: the invasive is better at preventing erosion of dunes during big storms.
With a warming climate battering the coast with more severe storms, the research suggests that, to protect coastal communities, managers may want to give weight to the virtues of the non-native species.
“In order to make an informed management decision, you really need to know all the cards at play and this is an important one,” said Charbonneau, a student in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Biology Department. “If you value the natural composition and habitats afforded by native plant diversity, you should be trying to control this invasive. If your priority is protecting houses on the coast, you might consider letting it lie, or at least letting it lie until there is a plan to replace it so you do not leave a vulnerable unvegetated area in a dune. However, there is a caveat in that we do not know how dunes develop with one species versus another in terms of growth rate and shape.”
Read the full story: Science Daily
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Protecting the environment, empowering people(IFAD)
https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/e036916a-9d15-463f-8952-56d1566d7ac8
The Drylands Advantage
Protecting the environment, empowering people
“Recognition of the true value of ecosystem services, and of the opportunities they offer, will enable better planning and realization of the full economic potential of dryland ecosystems, rebutting the common perception that drylands are ‘economic wastelands’” (IUCN, 2009).
Table of Contents
Acronyms 4
Introduction 5
China: Boosting biodiversity for benefits to people and the environment 9
Jordan: Sustainable land management 15
Nicaragua: Nutrition security in the Dry Corridor in the face of El Niño 21
Senegal: What a little freshwater can do 27
Swaziland: Grass-roots governance beats overgrazing and gully erosion 32
Conclusions and next steps 37
References and resources consulted 39
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How to prevent desertification in NW China
Photo credit: Xinhua
Ecological barrier under construction to prevent desertification in NW China
(Xinhua)
Farmers build barriers with hay to create grid patterns that stabilize sand dunes in Minqin County, Wuwei, northwest China’s Gansu Province, Nov. 19, 2016. Local government planned to spend six years from 2015 to build an ecological barrier to stabilize sand and prevent desertification, which is 500km long and 1000 meters wide. (Photo/Xinhua)
Read the full story: People’s Daily
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Willows and cottonwoods can be grown from cuttings into full, healthy plants to stabilize the soil.
Volunteers stabilize stream bank
The weather might have been cool and wet this fall, but that didn’t stop the Elk River Alliance and their amazing volunteers from joining forces to work on a couple of stream bank restoration projects. Thanks to the world of ecological restoration, it is possible to stabilize and rehabilitate an eroded bank by using plants instead of conventional methods, such as riprap. A major benefit of using plants as opposed to conventional bank stabilization methods is that they add to the longterm health of the aquatic ecosystem by providing shelter, habitat and adding nutrients to the stream.
Stream banks can be bioengineered by placing live plant material in the side of the bank and allowing the material to grow. Many plant species, such as willows and cottonwoods, can be grown from cuttings into full, healthy plants.
This means that shoots can be harvested and planted in the fall while they are dormant and then in the spring, when it warms up and the snow melts, they will start to bud and grow roots and shoots. These roots will continue to grow into the eroded soil over the next several years and will stabilize the ground.
This is exactly what volunteers did to help a stream bank on Lizard Creek! The site had failed in 2013 and the ERA had previously banded together with concerned citizens and park users to restore the site. The slope was well on its way to becoming stabilized, but to reduce the erosion that was still occurring they came around for a second pass. More cottonwood and willow cuttings were harvested and planted into the bank between the existing rows. By this time next year, these new cuttings will already be stabilizing the soil.
Another way that stream banks can be stabilized is by planting young plants that will continue to grow in them. This technique is more costly, but can be equally effective if care is taken to give the plants their best shot with lots of water and soil amendments.
Read the full article: The Free Press
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TerraCottem for erosion control of sandy soils all over the world
Photo credit: WVC
Erosion control of sandy soil by appying TerraCottem soil conditioner in the Antwerp harbour area
by Prof. Dr. Willem Van Cotthem (Ghent University, Belgium)
With the purpose of creating a new dock in the vicinity of Antwerp (Belgium), a large area was covered with sandy bottom sediments of the river Schelde, excavated by dredging. As these newly formed sandy soils are mostly nutrient deficient, it is extremely difficult to cover them with a vegetation layer to control wind erosion. Their fertility and water retention capacity is generally too low, so that seeding with traditional grass species is mostly inefficient. Even if these grasses germinate after some good rains, the young plants perish because the sand is unable to retain sufficient moisture and nutrients.
As a result of this drought and nutrient poverty, the young grasses will soon dry, which automatically leads to erosion, particularly in between the seeding lines of the grasses (see picture above).
In order to sustain an efficient vegetation layer on newly formed sandy soils, one has to condition those soils to improve their water retention capacity and fertility. Thats’s where the soil conditioning technology TerraCottem (www.terracotten.com) plays an important role.
The TerraCottem soil conditioners are a proprietary mixture of more than twenty components each from different groups all assisting in the plant growth processes in a synergetic way (see: http://www.terracottem.com/terracottem-soil-conditioning-technology):
- The growth precursors play a very important role in the initial growth phase of the plant. They activate root cell elongation and differentiation, and promote leaf development and biomass production. In addition, roots are encouraged to grow more rapidly to depths where more water is present.
- The cross-linked hydroabsorbent polymers absorb and store water that is normally lost to evaporation and leaching, reducing the volume and frequency of necessary irrigation by up to 50%. This water is then kept at the disposal of the plant that accesses the stored water on demand through its root hairs, keeping the water in the root zone for a longer period of time.
- The specially selected fertilizers provide balanced nutrition to the plants based upon macro and microelements.
- TerraCottem’s carrier materials are selected for their chemo-physical properties (CEC, WRC, etc.) and their characteristics which allow homogeneous distribution of all components.
In view of an optimal development of a grass layer (turf), TerraCottem Turf has been developed. “Based on the TerraCottem principle, it contains zeolite, a 100 percent natural volcanic mineral that helps increase soil fertility and water retention. The product’s benefits are further boosted by the inclusion of turf specific fertilizers and humic acids which have a positive effect on water retention capacity, soil structure and microbiological activity. All this, to get quicker grass establishment, enhanced root and plant growth and improve the quality of turf, seeded grass and sprigs.”
At the start of our experiment in the Antwerp harbour area, the yellow sandy surface was completely barren and wind erosion was dramatic. The experimental perimeter was divided into two parts:
(1) Left side of the photo above: The untreated part where a mixture of traditional grasses was directly sown in the sandy soil.
(2) Right on the photo: The TerraCottem-treated part (100 g per square meter, to a depth of 30 cm).
Thanks to some good rains, the grasses of the untreated part germinated and developed into a vegetation layer in which the seeding lines remained visible weeks after the start of the experiment. During windy periods, sand grains were blown out from these uncovered parts between the grass lines. Wind erosion and drought effect continued and finally the grasses died (see brown grasses in the picture).
Due to the improved water retention capacity and the higher fertility at the TerraCottem-treated part, the grasses developed soon into a closed turf layer, where wind erosion was totally reduced (see green “pasture” at the right hand side of the picture).
This experiment showed clearly that the soil conditioner TerraCottem is an excellent tool in the combat of erosion. It deserves to be applied at the largest scale in the combat of desertification and all the applications to mitigate drought.
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Cooperation of all countries is an absolute must if the problem of desertification is to be addressed.
Photo credit: The Media Express
Wind Erosion Control
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Erosion and pollution, major concerns about degraded soil
Earth has lost a third of arable land in past 40 years, scientists say
Experts point to damage caused by erosion and pollution, raising major concerns about degraded soil amid surging global demand for food
The world has lost a third of its arable land due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years, with potentially disastrous consequences as global demand for foodsoars, scientists have warned.
New research has calculated that nearly 33% of the world’s adequate or high-quality food-producing land has been lost at a rate that far outstrips the pace of natural processes to replace diminished soil.
The University of Sheffield’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, which undertook the study by analysing various pieces of research published over the past decade, said the loss was “catastrophic” and the trend close to being irretrievable without major changes to agricultural practices.
The continual ploughing of fields, combined with heavy use of fertilizers, has degraded soils across the world, the research found, with erosion occurring at a pace of up to 100 times greater than the rate of soil formation. It takes around 500 years for just 2.5cm of topsoil to be created amid unimpeded ecological changes.
Read the full article: The Guardian
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Major concerns about degraded soil amid surging global demand for food
Earth has lost a third of arable land in past 40 years, scientists say
Experts point to damage caused by erosion and pollution, raising major concerns about degraded soil amid surging global demand for food
The world has lost a third of its arable land due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years, with potentially disastrous consequences as global demand for foodsoars, scientists have warned.
New research has calculated that nearly 33% of the world’s adequate or high-quality food-producing land has been lost at a rate that far outstrips the pace of natural processes to replace diminished soil.
The University of Sheffield’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, which undertook the study by analysing various pieces of research published over the past decade, said the loss was “catastrophic” and the trend close to being irretrievable without major changes to agricultural practices.
The continual ploughing of fields, combined with heavy use of fertilizers, has degraded soils across the world, the research found, with erosion occurring at a pace of up to 100 times greater than the rate of soil formation. It takes around 500 years for just 2.5cm of topsoil to be created amid unimpeded ecological changes.
“You think of the dust bowl of the 1930s in North America and then you realise we are moving towards that situation if we don’t do something,” said Duncan Cameron, professor of plant and soil biology at the University of Sheffield.
Read the full article: The Guardian
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En España, un 20% del territorio ya ha perdido casi la totalidad de su vegetación
Photo credit: SINC
Los cultivos herbáceos son la vegetación más propensa a desaparecer por la desertificación del país. / José Alfonso Gómez Calero
El 20% del paisaje español ya se ha desertificado
La desertificación es una de las consecuencias más visibles del cambio climático. En España, un 20% del territorio ya ha perdido casi la totalidad de su vegetación, según un estudio del CSIC. Los investigadores constatan, además, que un uno por ciento sigue erosionándose y que los cultivos herbáceos son el paisaje más proclive a desaparecer.
Hace tiempo que los expertos vienen advirtiendo que España se está desertificando, pero ahora podemos ponerle números a este hecho: un 20% del territorio ya se ha desertificado, y un 1% está degradándose actualmente. Esta es la conclusión de un grupo de investigadores del Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) publicada en Science of the Total Environment.
Para desarrollar este trabajo, liderado por Jaime Martínez Valderrama, investigador de la Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas en Almería, se han utilizado dos herramientas. Por un lado, un mapa de condición de la tierra les ha permitido conocer la situación de degradación del territorio y su tendencia de futuro. Por otro lado, gracias a un conjunto de modelos de simulación sobre cada paisaje de desertificación detectados en el programa, se ha estimado el riesgo de desertificación de cinco casos representativos. A partir de este análisis, los científicos han logrado establecer la jerarquía de los factores que intervienen en este proceso agravado por los efectos del cambio climático.
“Los factores que más afectan son los climáticos, por encima de los socioeconómicos”, asegura el investigador
Read the full article: SINC
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World Day to Combat Desertification
Photo credit: Google – Imgres.jpg
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
World Day to Combat Desertification to be held on 17 June
“Let us find long‐term solutions, not just quick fixes, to disasters that are
destroying communities,” urged Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD.(See PRESS RELEASE below).
COMMENTS
Willem Van Cotthem: We keep hoping that success stories and best practices will be applied at the global level. Priority should be given to methods and techniques providing daily fresh food to the hungry and malnourished. It cannot be denied that hunger and malnutrition are constantly undermining the performances of people. Application of existing success stories in local food production (kitchen gardens, school gardens, hospital gardens, …) would positively influence the efforts to combat desertification (limiting erosion, stimulating reforestation, etc.). We keep hoping.
Reply: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification “Hi Willem Van Cotthem, would you like to share some success stories you have? We always welcome all to share!”
Reply: Willem Van Cotthem : Hello Friends at the UNCCD Secretariat: It will be my pleasure to select a series of success stories in the literature. However, I am convinced that the UNCCD secretariat has the necessary documentation to compile even a book on this subject (to the best of my knowledge the documents, e.g. presentations at COPs and meetings of CST and CRIC, have been there during my active period in the CST and in Bonn). Please consider a consultancy to achieve top class work that would serve all member countries, the CST and the CRIC. To be presented at the next World Day June 17th 2016.
PRESS RELEASE
UNCCD’s Monique Barbut Calls for Long‐Term Solutions Not Just Quick Fixes To Drought Bonn, Germany, 22/02/2016 –
“Protect Earth. Restore Land. Engage People. This is the slogan for this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification to be held on 17 June. I am calling for solidarity from the international community with the people who are battling the ravages of drought and flood. Let us find long‐term solutions, not just quick fixes, to disasters that are destroying communities,” urged Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
The droughts and floods beating down on communities in many parts of the world are linked to the current El Niño, which is expected to affect up 60 million people by July. In some areas, including in North Eastern Brazil, Somali, Ethiopia, Kenya and Namibia, the El Niño effects are coming on the back of years of severe and recurrent droughts. It is impossible for households that rely on the land for food and farm labor to recover, especially when the land is degraded.
What’s more, these conditions do not just devastate families and destabilize communities. When they are not attended to urgently, they can become a push factor for migration, and end with gross human rights abuses and long‐term security threats.
“We have seen this before – in Darfur following four decades of droughts and desertification and, more recently, in Syria, following the long drought of 2007‐2010. It is tragic to see a society breaking down when we can reduce the vulnerability of communities through simple and affordable acts such as restoring the degraded lands they live on, and helping countries to set up better systems for drought early warning and to prepare for and manage drought and floods,” Barbut said.
Ms Barbut made the remarks when announcing the plans for this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification, which will take place on 17 June.
“I hope that World Day to Combat Desertification this year marks a turning point for every country. We need to show, through practical action and cooperation, how every country is tacking or supporting these challenges at the front‐end to preempt or minimize the potential impacts of the disasters, not just at the back‐end after the disasters happen,” she stated.
The United Nations General Assembly designated 17 June as the observance Day to raise public awareness about international efforts to combat desertification and the effects of drought.
Ms Barbut thanked the Government and People of China, for offering to host the global observance event, which will take place at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
“China has vast experience in nursing degraded lands and man‐made deserts back to health. This knowledge can and should benefit initiatives such as Africa’s Great Green Wall, the re‐ greening in southern Africa and the 20 X 20 Initiative in Latin America. We can create a better, more equal and climate change‐resilient world,” she noted.
“I also call on countries, the private sector, foundations and people of goodwill to support Africa when the countries meet later in the year to develop concrete plans and policies to pre‐ empt, monitor and manage droughts,” Ms Barbut stated.
The 2016 World Day campaign is also advancing the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in September last year. The Goals include a target to achieve a land degradation‐neutral world by 2030. That is, a world where the land restored back to health equals to, or is more than, the amount degraded every year.
For more information on the Day and previous events, visit: http://www.unccd.int/en/programmes/Event‐and‐campaigns/WDCD/Pages/default.aspx
For background information and materials for the 2016 Observance, visit: For information about the Global Observance event, visit: http://www.unccd.int/en/programmes/Event‐and‐ campaigns/WDCD/wdcd2016/Pages/default.aspx
Contact for World Day to Combat Desertification: Yhori@unccd.int
For Media information: wwischnewski@unccd.int
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Recommended: Use spineless Opuntia for soil erosion
Photo credit: Confraria do Figo da Índia
Opuntias in Somalia!:
https://www.facebook.com/ConfrariaDoFigoDaIndia/posts/935545829866698
I have created a Facebook group called “OPUNTIA AMBASSADORS” :
“Any person, young and old, wanting to contribute to the improvement of our environment and to the production of edible plants by planting pads of edible spineless cacti is hereby invited to become a member of the OPUNTIA AMBASSADORS group. We want to promote the growing of the spineless variety of the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica var. inermis).“
Recently I received a message from Nelson Ventura who shared a Confraria do Figo da Índia‘s post, showing people in Somalia planting the prickly pear cactus on sand dunes, thus protecting the dunes from wind erosion.
We know that the spiny variety of the prickly pear can be a real nuisance, an invasive species, difficult to destroy. But that negative aspect is not valid for the spineless variety (var. inermis). Thousands of hectares of these spineless cacti are grown in huge plantations in Central- and South America, where people enjoy very much the “nopales” (see Google). Why should people in Africa or Asia not enjoy the same “edible” plants?
It looks like a fantastic technique to protect the soil. I am tempted to recommend this method to all the countries suffering from this global erosion problem.
DESERTIFICATION 
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