DESERTIFICATION

What is it?

    Definition:
   Our definition: desertification is the process from which a certain fertile area becomes a desert, and it may happen naturally or artificially, by man’s predatory action.
    Agenda 21: “the degradation of the soil in arid, semi arid and sub humid arid regions, resultant of a lot of factors, among them the climatic variation and human activities” (chapter XII).
Nowadays, desertification reaches 60 hundred Km2 all around the world, being equal to a prejudice of US$ 10 million.

    Principal causes of desertification:
    - indiscriminate deforestation;
    - use of wrong agro-cattle-raising technologies;
    - uncontrolled exploration of areas which environmental balance is fragile;
    - burns;
    - mining activities;
    - excessive use of agrotoxics;
    - pollution;
    - wrong use of the soil;
    - dries;

    Environmental consequences of desertification:
    - reduction of cultivable areas;
    - diminution of the productivity in affected areas;
    - reduction in hydrical resources;
    - increasing of hydrical and atmospheric pollution;
    - increasing of floods;
    - increasing of sand in productive areas;
    - destruction of flora and fauna.

    Social and economical consequences:
    Desertification not only causes the environmental impacts that were already mentioned, but also social and economical as:
    - uncontrolled migration for urban areas, causing the “swelling” of big metropolis;
    - disintegration of the families units, resultant from the migrations;
    - increasing of poverty because of the soil’s degradation and lose;
    - increasing of pathological consequences because of the lack of water;
    - lose of the agricultural potential of the  reached area;
    - lose of life’s quality in both areas: the reached area and the outskirts one;
    - economic loses.

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