Environmental Hazard – Desertification

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Welcome to class! 

In today’s class, we will be talking about desertification. Enjoy the class!

Environmental Hazard – Desertification

Desertification can be defined as the process by which fertile land becomes desert due to loss of water, vegetation, soil moisture, and wildlife. It is the gradual transformation of once productive land into a barren land (desert). A desert is characterized by the amount of rainfall recorded or lack of rainfall.

Desert can be classified into four, based on:

1. Climatic condition: hot and cold desert
2. Location: Inland and coastal desert.
3. Appearance: sandy and rocky desert.
4. Level of vegetation: low, low ground cover, shrubby bushes.

Geographical zones prone to desertification

Geographically, most desert prone areas are found in either inland or coastal regions. Geographical areas where rain is not heavy and regular are prone to desertification. Some parts in Northern Nigeria, e.g Sokoto, Kano, Kastina, etc. all have low or irregular rainfalls.

Cold deserts are away from the equator and usually in the centre of continents in high mountain areas, e.g the Gobi desert found in Asia (Northern China, Mongolia).

Hot deserts are located near the equator, e.g the Sahara Desert in Africa (Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Mali, Sudan, etc.)

Human practices that lead to desertification

Some of the causes of desertification include:

1. Deforestation
2. Bush burning
3. Overgrazing
4. Over cultivation
5. Urbanization
6. Tillage practices for agriculture
7. Over drafting of groundwater
8. Overpopulation
9. Stripping land of its natural resources (mining)

Effects of desertification

1. It makes farming more difficult due to low soil fertility.
2. It can lead to deforestation.
3. Desertification can cause flooding.
4. It can cause drying up of water bodies such as rivers, streams, lakes, etc.
5. It can disrupt the activities of microorganisms in the soil.

Control measures of desertification

Some of the control measures that can be taken against desertification include:

1. Educating the public on the effects of desertification.
2. Encouraging afforestation.
3. Introducing technological advances to research desertification.
4. Applying sustainable practices that prevent desertification from happening
5. Providing rehabilitation centres on desertification.
6. Appropriate environmental laws should be enacted.

 

In our next class, we will be talking about Environmental Hazard – Depletion of the Ozone Layer.  We hope you enjoyed the class.

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