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Desertification - Sahel case study

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Desertification in the Sahel region is a pressing environmental issue with far-reaching consequences. In this article, we will explore the causes, effects, and potential solutions to combat desertification, using a case study from the Sahel region. By examining the unique challenges faced in this area, we can gain insights into the broader fight against desertification and the importance of sustainable land management practices. The Sahel is a semi-arid zone stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in West Africa to the Red Sea in the East, through northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, the great bend of the Niger River in Mali, Burkina Faso, southern Niger, northeastern Nigeria, south-central Chad, and into Sudan ( Brittanica ).

It is a biogeographical transition between the arid Sahara Desert to the North and the more humid savanna systems on its Southern side.

Desertification in the Sahel has increased over the last number of years.  It has been increasingly impacted by desertification, especially during the second half of the twentieth century. The whole Sahel region in Africa has been affected by devastating droughts, bordering the Sahara Desert and the Savannas.

During this period, the Sahara desert area grew by roughly 10% , most of which in the Southward direction into the semi-arid steppes of the Sahel. 

Understanding desertification in the Sahel

The Sahel region, stretching across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, is characterized by fragile ecosystems and vulnerable communities. The combination of climate change, overgrazing, deforestation , and improper agricultural practices has resulted in extensive land degradation and desertification. The consequences of desertification in the Sahel are severe, including food insecurity, loss of biodiversity, and displacement of communities.

in the region, for around 8 months of the year, the weather is dry. The rainy season only happens for a few short months and only produces around 4-8 inches of water. The population growth over the years has caused illegal farming to take place over the last few years and has resulted in major soil erosion and desertification to take place. 

Examining a specific case study in the Sahel region sheds light on the complexities and impacts of desertification. In a particular community, unsustainable farming methods and drought have led to soil erosion and degradation. The once-fertile land has turned into arid, unproductive soil, forcing farmers to abandon their livelihoods and seek alternative means of survival. This case study highlights the urgent need for intervention and sustainable land management practices in the region.

Addressing the challenges

To combat desertification effectively, a multi-faceted approach is necessary. First and foremost, raising awareness about the issue and its consequences is crucial. Governments, NGOs, and local communities must collaborate to implement sustainable land management practices. This involves promoting agroforestry, conservation farming, and reforestation initiatives to restore degraded land and improve soil health. Additionally, supporting alternative income-generating activities and providing access to water resources can help alleviate pressure on the land and reduce vulnerability to drought.

Read more: Preventing desertification: Top 5 success stories

The impact of humans on the Sahel

The impact of humans on the Sahel region is a critical factor contributing to its current challenges and environmental changes. Human activities, including armed violence, climate change, deforestation, and overgrazing, have had significant consequences for both the ecosystem and the local communities. While the area of the Sahel region is already considered to be a dry place, the impact of the human population in the area has really affected how the area continues to evolve. Towns are popping up all over the place, and because of this, more land is being used than ever before. The ground that they are building their lives on quickly began to die and became extremely unhealthy for any type of growth. This has made headlines everywhere and even caught the attention of the United Nations. In 1994, the United Nations declared that June 17th would be known as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. . This was a result of the large-scale droughts and famines that had been taking place and were at their height between 1968 and 1974.

In conclusion, the impact of humans on the Sahel is a multifaceted issue. The region faces a humanitarian crisis alongside security concerns, with climate change and human activities playing significant roles. Desertification caused by climate change, deforestation, and overgrazing has resulted in land degradation, loss of vegetation, and increased vulnerability to droughts and food insecurity. Implementing sustainable land management strategies is essential to mitigate the impact and promote the resilience of the Sahel's ecosystems and communities.

Droughts, grazing, and recharging aquifers

The Sahel’s natural climate cycles make it vulnerable to droughts throughout the year. But, during the second half of the twentieth century, the region also experienced significant increases in human population and resulting in increases in the exploitation of the lands through (cattle) grazing, wood- and bush consumption for firewood, and crop growth where possible.

These anthropogenic processes accelerated during the 1960s when relatively high rainfall amounts were recorded in the region for short periods of time, and grazing and agricultural expansion were promoted by the governments of the Sahel countries, seeing a good opportunity to use the region’s ecosystem for maximizing economic returns.

This resulted in the removal of large parts of the natural vegetation, including shrubs, grasses, and trees, and replacing them with crops and grass types that were suitable for (short-term) grazing.

The world effort for the Sahel:

Natural aquifers, which were previously able to replenish their groundwater stocks during the natural climate cycles, were no longer able to do so, and the regions closest to the Sahara desert were increasingly desertified.

Removing the natural vegetation removed plant roots that bound the soil together, with over-exploitation by grazing eating away much of the grass.

Agricultural activity disrupted the natural system, forcing significant parts of the Sahel region to become dry and barren. Before the particularly bad famine of 1984, desertification was solely put down to climatic causes.

As the Sahel dries, the Sahara advances : and it is estimated to advance with a rate of 60 kilometres the Sahel lost and the Sahara desert gained per year.  Human influence is an important factor in the Sahel’s desertification, but not all can be attributed to human behaviour, says Sumant Nigam, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland.

'There is an important anthropogenic influence there, but it is also being met with natural cycles of climate variability that add and subtract in different periods', Nigam said. 'Understanding both is important for both attribution and prediction.' Ecologists have been meeting all over the world to discuss the desertification of the Sahel at length. While many possible solutions have been proposed, a few goals have been established and are being worked on. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations has not become involved and is working to create a long-lasting impact on the Sahel Region. However, after the mid-1980s , human-caused contributions were identified and taken seriously by the United Nations and many non-governmental organizations. Severe and long-lasting droughts followed throughout the 1960s-1980s, and impacted the human settlements in the forms of famine and starvation, allowing the Sahara desert to continue to expand southward. As a result, a barren and waterless landscape has emerged, with the northernmost sections of the Sahel transformed into new sections of the Sahara Desert. Even though the levels of drought have decreased since the 1990s, other significant reductions in rainfall have been recorded in the region, including a severe drought in 2012. It is estimated that over 23 million people in the Sahel region are facing severe food insecurity in 2022, and the European Commission projects that the crisis will worsen further amidst rising social security struggles. Now, the goal is to see change take place by   2063,  a year that seems far away but is a start in the efforts to rebuild the Sahel Region. 

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Case Study: Sahel Desertification

What is desertification: It is the term used to describe the changing of semi arid (dry) areas into desert. It is severe in Sudan, Chad, Senegal and Burkina Faso

What are the causes:

• Overcultivation: the land is continually used for crops and does not have time to recover eventually al the nutrients are depleted (taken out) and the ground eventually turns to dust.
• Overgrazing: In some areas animals have eaten all the vegetation leaving bare soil.
• Deforestation: Cutting down trees leaves soil open to erosion by wind and rain.
• Climate Change: Decrease in rainfall and rise in temperatures causes vegetation to die

What is being done to solve the problem?

 Over the past twelve years Oxfam has worked with local villagers in Yatenga (Burkina Faso) training them in the process of BUNDING. This is building lines of stones across a slope to stop water and soil running away. This method preserves the topsoil and has improved farming and food production in the village.

Burkina Faso - desertification

This video shows the Sahel region south of the Sahara is at risk of becoming desert. Elders in a village in Burkina Faso describe how the area has changed from a fertile area to a drought-prone near-desert. The area experiences a dry season which can last up to eight or nine months. During this time rivers dry up and people, animals and crops are jeopardised.

This video showcases the Sahel region

Bringing dry land in the Sahel back to life

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Millions of hectares of farmland are lost to the desert each year in Africa’s Sahel region, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is showing that traditional knowledge, combined with the latest technology, can turn arid ground back into fertile soil.

Those trying to grow crops in the Sahel region are often faced with poor soil, erratic rainfail and long periods of drought. However, the introduction of a state-of-the art heavy digger, the Delfino plough, is proving to be, literally, a breakthrough.

As part of its Action Against Desertification (AAD) programme, the FAO has brought the Delfino to four countries in the Sahel region – Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal – to cut through impacted, bone-dry soil to a depth of more than half a metre.

The Delfino plough is extremely efficient: one hundred farmers digging irrigation ditches by hand can cover a hectare a day, but when the Delfino is hooked to a tractor, it can cover 15 to 20 hectares in a day.

Once an area is ploughed, the seeds of woody and herbaceous native species are then sown directly, and inoculated seedlings planted. These species are very resilient and work well in degraded land, providing vegetation cover and improving the productivity of previously barren lands. 

In Burkina Faso and Niger, the target number of hectares for immediate restoration has already been met and extended thanks to the Delfino plough. In Nigeria and Senegal, it is working to scale up the restoration of degraded land.

Farming seen through a half-moon lens

This technology, whilst impressive, is proving to be successful because it is being used in tandem with traditional farming techniques.

“In the end the Delfino is just a plough. A very good and suitable plough, but a plough all the same,” says Moctar Sacande, Coordinator of FAO’s Action Against Desertification programme. “It is when we use it appropriately and in consultation and cooperation that we see such progress.”

The half-moon is a traditional Sahel planting method which creates contours to stop rainwater runoff, improving water infiltration and keeping the soil moist for longer. This creates favourable micro-climate conditions allowing seeds and seedlings to flourish.

The Delfino creates large half-moon catchments ready for planting seeds and seedlings, boosting rainwater harvesting tenfold and making soil more permeable for planting than the traditional - and backbreaking – method of digging by hand.

“The whole community is involved and has benefitted from fodder crops such as hay as high as their knees within just two years”, says Mr. Sacande. “They can feed their livestock and sell the surplus, and move on to gathering products such as edible fruits, natural oils for soaps, wild honey and plants for traditional medicine”.

Women taking the lead

According to Nora Berrahmouni, who was FAO’s Senior Forestry Officer for the African Regional Office when the Delfino was deployed, the plough will also reduce the burden on women.

“The season for the very hard work of hand-digging the half-moon irrigation dams comes when the men of the community have had to move with the animals. So, the work falls on the women,” says Ms. Berrahmouni.

Because the Delfino plough significantly speeds up the ploughing process and reduces the physical labour needed, it gives women extra time to manage their multitude of other tasks.

The project also aims to boost women’s participation in local land restoration on a bigger scale, offering them leadership roles through the village committees that plan the work of restoring land. Under the AAD programme, each site selected for restoration is encouraged to set up a village committee to manage the resources, so as to take ownership right from the beginning.

“Many women are running the local village committees which organise these activities and they are telling us they feel more empowered and respected,” offers Mr. Sacande.

Respecting local knowledge and traditional skills is another key to success. Communities have long understood that half-moon dams are the best way of harvesting rainwater for the long dry season. The mighty Delfino is just making the job more efficient and less physically demanding.

Millions of hectares lost to the desert, forests under threat

And it is urgent that progress is made. Land loss is a driver of many other problems such as hunger, poverty, unemployment, forced migration, conflict and an increased risk of extreme weather events related to climate change.

In Burkina Faso, for example, a third of the landscape is degraded. This means that over nine million hectares of land, once used for agriculture, is no longer viable for farming.

It is projected that degradation will continue to expand at 360 000 hectares per year. If the situation is not reversed, forests are at risk of being cleared to make way for productive agricultural land.

Africa is currently losing four million hectares of forest every year for this reason, yet has more than 700 million hectares of degraded land viable for restoration. By bringing degraded land back to life, farmers do not have to clear additional forest land to turn into cropland for Africa’s rising population and growing food demands.

When Mr. Sacande talks about restoring land in Africa, the passion in his voice is evident. “Restoring degraded land back to productive good health is a huge opportunity for Africa. It brings big social and economic benefits to rural farming communities,” he says. “It’s a bulwark against climate change and it brings technology to enhance traditional knowledge.”

A version of this story first appeared on the FAO website .

• Burkina Faso
• agriculture and food security
• Desertification
• climate action

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Persistence and success of the Sahel desertification narrative

• Original Article
• Published: 21 September 2022
• Volume 22 , article number  118 , ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Fabrice Gangneron   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1460-3040 1 ,
• Caroline Pierre 2 ,
• Elodie Robert 3 ,
• Laurent Kergoat 1 ,
• Manuela Grippa 1 ,
• Françoise Guichard 4 ,
• Pierre Hiernaux 1 , 5 &
• Crystele Leauthaud 6  

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The paradigm of Sahelian desertification, whose roots lie in the colonial period, increased in popularity following the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. This “desertification narrative” was shaped in the international arena by organizations working in the fields of international cooperation, human rights, regional development, economic regulation and environmental questions. This narrative has been deployed to have real-world implications of how risks and responses in the Sahel are understood and prioritised, with particularly tangible implications for civil society and international donor agencies. It is indeed widely used in technical writings, general public media and environmental protection projects, regardless of the fact that the majority of literature in environmental science does not support its underlying rationales. It depicts rural populations as victims and culprits (or villains) partially responsible for the desertification, which in turn justifies external intervention in the Sahelian countries. The desertification narrative has an impact on research and development funding by overemphasizing the role of international development aid to combat desertification, thus favoring research on the subject of Sahelian desertification. Furthermore, we argue that the Sahelian desertification narrative contributes to the political control of rural populations, the latter being stigmatized because of their often-considered excessive use of environmental resources.

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This work is dedicated to Françoise Guichard, who passed away in late 2020. She was an inspiring scientist, colleague and friend. She is deeply missed.

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Gangneron, F., Pierre, C., Robert, E. et al. Persistence and success of the Sahel desertification narrative. Reg Environ Change 22 , 118 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01969-1

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The Sahel, desertification beyond drought

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The periodic crises in the African “Hunger Belt” have provided a more accurate and effective vision of the relationship between desertification and human activities. Regardless of the droughts, poor resource exploitation practices have been determinants of land degradation. The African Great Green Wall project gives hope to the Sahel, one of the most vulnerable areas to the current climate crisis.

©Sahara-NASA

Between 1984 and 1985, international media brought to the world’s attention the existence of what was called the “Hunger Belt”. A massive drought had affected the Sahel, the large 5,400-km strip that crosses Africa from west to east, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. The land was left without water and without a blade of grass, and the inhabitants of this vast area of four million km², mostly shepherds, saw all their livestock die. A great famine broke out, the media repercussions of which changed the way in which the international community related climate to desertification. Scientists and economists pointed out that inadequate human actions were the main cause of desertification and that droughts only triggered its effects.

It was not the first time that the Sahel had been ravaged by a drought. Since systematic records started being kept, at the beginning of the 20 th century, the area has experienced alternating climatic periods of abundant and scarce rainfall. The first recorded drought took place in 1915, causing a great migration towards more fertile areas in the south. During the 1960s, there was a period of abundant rainfall that filled the water wells and caused the return of shepherds and farmers, largely driven by the governments of the countries of the strip, some of them recently decolonized.

But then droughts returned with greater force. Between the years 1968 and 1974 , grazing became impossible and the lack of water triggered a large-scale famine that led to the first mobilization of external aid and the creation of the International Fund for Agricultural Development by United Nations. The soil of the Sahel had degraded to such an extent that, in 1977, the first United Nations Conference on Desertification was organized in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1994, the United Nations declared the 17th June as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought , and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was established in 1996. The UNCCD defined desertification as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities.”

© Jon Evans

A significant aspect of this definition is the separation of two concepts, “climatic variations” and “human activities”, which until then had been unclear for public opinion and many experts, who had traditionally considered desertification as a direct effect of droughts.

The terrible crisis of 1984 brought to light the bad practices carried out in the area until then: the increase of grazing and agriculture, promoted by governments and the farmers themselves in rainy periods, had caused a systematic over-exploitation of the land well above its average capacity to provide water and pasture. The short-term vision of governments and communities, seeking to maximize economic returns in the shortest possible time, had led to a severe degradation of the soil. 

Between the desert and the savannah

The term Sahel comes from the Arab word sā ḥ il, which means “edge or coast”. A geographically and climatically correct meaning for an area bordered to the north by the Sahara Desert and to the south by the savannahs and jungles of the Gulf of Guinea and Central Africa. From the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, the Sahel extends through northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, the central areas of Mali and Niger, northern Burkina Faso, southern Algeria, northern Nigeria, the central strip of Chad and Sudan, virtually all Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.

Sahelmap ©Flockedereisbaer

Annual rainfall ranges from 100–200 mm in the north of the strip up to 600 mm in the south, where climatologists place the beginning of the tropical forests. The Sahel lands are grasslands and savannahs, with scrub areas to the north, alternating areas of trees, mainly acacias, in the south.

There is no accurate data on the population of the Sahel, where there is one of the world’s highest rates of statistical invisibility and uncontrolled migratory movements caused by droughts, armed conflicts and Boko Haram’s terrorism that affect some of its regions. According to United Nations forecasts, the Sahel’s current population is around 75 million and will almost triple by 2050 reaching nearly 200 million. In 2016, those under the age of 24 were between 60% and 70% of the population, and these figures tend to be maintained over the next 20 years. The lack of prospects forces this young population to exert a considerable migratory pressure in southern areas, a pressure that spreads to European countries.

The Great Green Wall, a great hope

In 2007, the Heads of State and Government of Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan and Chad, with the support of the African Union, decided to launch a project to combat desertification in the Sahel and provide a dignified life with a future to its inhabitants: the Great Green Wall of Africa. The initiative reflects the spirit of the Kenyan ecologist  Wangari Maathai, who was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Maathai created the Green Belt Movement, an initiative that planted more than 30 million trees in her country.

The Great Green Wall aims to become a 15 km wide and 8,000 km long plant barrier along the Sahel. The realization of climate change and the last famine of 2010 have provided strength to this initiative that aims to repair the endemic governance errors in the area and the erroneous approach often taken when facing the desertification problem. Based on its dimensions, it surpasses any collective work carried out by mankind and some define it as the eighth world wonder: nothing less than covering 100 million hectares of semi-desert with a green mantle.

©World Bank Photo Collection

The project met with some criticism from ecologists, who considered that the solution was not to “plant trees”, as the project had mainly focused on, but rather to opt for the natural regeneration of the land and identify the flora of each area to protect it. This work necessarily requires the participation of the inhabitants who need to be trained for the process to be sustainable and for the restored areas to be maintained.

There was also criticism from different economists who pointed out that the implementation pace was not realistic and that the attainment of the high investment needed had not been taken into consideration. The achievement of the project was linked to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which implied a regeneration pace of 5 million hectares per year. 

In view of this reality, the African Union proposed a less ambitious but more realistic date: the one set out in the 2063 Agenda. But many point out that it is still necessary to work at a rate of two million hectares per year, much higher than the estimated, which will probably be less than 200,000 hectares per year.

Common commitment, a reference value

The project has collected all criticisms and has restructured itself to attain its goals. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations  (FAO) is currently  committed to ensuring that lasting impacts are generated in the areas of action, and the project already gathers more than 20 African countries and various civil institutions and research centers. An added value of the proposed model is that it can be exported anywhere with dry conditions and fragile ecosystems, such as areas of Fiji and Haiti, countries that have started similar projects.

Regardless of its realism, the African Great Green Wall has as its main value to have brought together governments and communities in a common commitment to combat desertification and move forward in the fight against poverty. It has also allowed the creation of an international observatory that reveals the misery of the lack of access to water and education, and the need for an efficient management of the territory and its resources to combat desertification and remove millions of people from climatic vulnerability. The fight against desertification is a challenge that affects all the inhabitants of the planet. We need to follow what is happening in the Sahel, in India, in China and in the other menaced areas, such as the ones in the Mediterranean Arch, the south of Africa, Central America and large Andean areas. Life of future generations on Earth depends on what we learn from it.

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Desertification, Adaptation and Resilience in the Sahel: Lessons from Long Term Monitoring of Agro-ecosystems

The desertification paradigm has a long history in the Sahel, from colonial to modern times. Despite scientific challenge, it continued to be influential after independence, revived by the dramatic droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, and was institutionalized at local, national and international levels. Collaborative efforts were made to improve scientific knowledge on the functioning, environmental impact and monitoring of selected agricultural systems over the long term, and to assess trends in the ecosystems, beyond their short term variability. Two case studies are developed here: the pastoral system of the arid to semi-arid Gourma in Mali, and the mixed farming system of the semi-arid Fakara in Niger. The pastoral landscapes are resilient to droughts, except on shallow soils, and to grazing, following a non-equilibrium model. The impact of cropping on the landscape is larger and longer lasting. It also induces locally high grazing pressure that pushes rangeland resilience to its limits. By spatial transfer of organic matter and mineral, farmers’ livestock create patches of higher fertility that locally enhance the system’s resilience. The agro-pastoral ecosystem remains non-equilibrial provided that inputs do not increase stocking rates disproportionately. Remote sensing confirms the overall re-greening of the Sahel after the drought of the 1980s, contrary to the paradigm of desertification. Ways forward are proposed to adapt the pastoral and mixed farming economies and their regional integration to the context of human and livestock population growth and expanding croplands.

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GCSE Geography Theme 2 > CASE STUDY 9 : DESERTIFICATION CASE STUDY - SAHEL > Flashcards

CASE STUDY 9 : DESERTIFICATION CASE STUDY - SAHEL Flashcards

OVER CULTIVATION (DEFINITION)

OCCURS WHEN CROPS ARE GROWN ON THE SAME PIECE OF LAND YEAR AFTER YEAR AND THE NUTRIENTS RUN OUT AND THE CROPS DIE LEAVING THE SOIL BARE

OVER 350,OOO STARVED IN NIGER IN 2010 DUE TO DROUGHT AND DESERTFICATION

2,500KM (SQUARED) OF LAND LOST EACH YEAR TO DESERTIFICATION IN NIGER

INLAND AND MADE UP OF COUNTRIES SUCH AS CHAD, SUDAN, AND NIGER

SOUTH OF SAHARA DESERT = VERY HOT AND DRY

ALSO NORTH OF THE CONGO RIVER BASIN = ECOSYSTEM IS A RAINFOREST

OVER GRAZING (DEFINITION)

WHEN LIVESTOCK IS ALLOWED TO EAT TOO MUCH VEGETATION. THIS CAUSES THE SOIL TO BECOME BARE AND VULNERABLE TO RAIN AND WIND EROSION.

AFFORESTATON ( ESTABLISHMENT OF FOREST) WITH ACACIA

RAINWATER HARVESTING

BUILDING ROCK BUNDS TO PREVENT SOIL EROSION AND MAINTAIN MOISTURE

INTERNATIONAL GREEN WALL

PROVIDE A WALL OF VEGETATION PLANTED IN A LONG LINE ACROSS THE SAHEL TO PROVIDE A BARRIER AGAINST THE ADVANCE OF THE SAHARA DESERT.

DIFFICULT TO DO AS ALL COUNTRIES OF THE SAHEL HAVE TO AGREE TO DO THIS

DESERTIFICATION (DEFINITION)

THE PROCESS OF BECOMING MORE DESERT LIKE

DESERTIFICATION IS ENCOURAGED WHEN THE TOPSOIL IS REMOVED BY EROSION. ANYTHING THAT REMOVES VEGETATION FROM THE SOIL LEAVES IT VULNERABLE TO EROSION

AFFORESTATION

ESTABLISHMENT OF FOREST

CREATES HABITAT FOR ANIMALS LONG PERIOD OF TIME FOR GROWTH

HAND MADE ROCK DAMS TO PREVENT SOIL EROSION AND MAINTAIN MOISTURE

+ SIDE = CHEAP

=-VE SIDE = LOOKS AWFUL

HUMAN CAUSES

MORE GOATS ARE KEPT FOR FOOD AND MILK = OVERGRAZING KILLS VEGETATION

LOCAL PEOPLE ARE MORE SETTLED (LESS NOMADIC) = SAME AREAS CLOSE TO VILLAGE ARE GRAZED

GCSE Geography Theme 2 (12 decks)

• Geography Theme 2 - Weather/Climate
• Geograhy Theme 2 - Ecosystems
• Geography Theme 2 - Drought
• Geography Theme 2 - Rivers
• Georgraphy Theme 2 - Coastal Processes and landforms
• CASE STUDY 10 : FLOODING CASE STUDY - BANGLADESH
• CASE STUDY 7 : EXTREME WEATHER EVENT CASE STUDY - TYPHOON HAIYAN, PHILIPPINES
• Geography Theme 2 - The hydrological cycle
• CASE STUDY 9 : DESERTIFICATION CASE STUDY - SAHEL
• CASE STUDY 8 : ECOSYSTEMS CASE STUDY - AMAZON RAIN FOREST
• CASE STUDY 11 : FLOODING (LOCAL SCALE) CASE STUDY - HOE STREAM
• CASE STUDY 12 : COASTS CASE STUDY - BARTON ON SEA : DORSET/HAMPSHIRE COAST LINE
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Case Study: Sahel Desertification

This video showcases desertification in the Sahel region of the Sahara.

To read the case study about the desertification of the Sahel region visit Revision World .