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For example, temperature increase by 1.5–2.1 percent across the Nile Basin over the next 30–40 years could change the region from semi-arid to arid, significantly reducing the land usable for agriculture. In addition, changes in land use can increase demands on soil water and thereby increase aridity. [6]
Aridification is the process of a region becoming increasingly arid, or dry.It refers to long term change, [1] rather than seasonal variation. It is often measured as the reduction of average soil moisture content.
Aridity is different from drought because aridity is permanent whereas drought is temporary. [1] A number of aridity indices have been proposed (see below); these indicators serve to identify, locate or delimit regions that suffer from a deficit of available water, a condition that can severely affect the effective use of the land for such ...
There is a significantly greater proportion of drylands in developing countries (72%), and the proportion increases with aridity: almost 100% of all hyper-arid lands are in the developing world. Nevertheless, the United States , Australia , and several countries in Southern Europe also contain significant dryland areas.
Desertification is a gradual process of increased soil aridity.Desertification has been defined in the text of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities."
A modern example of desert farming is the Imperial Valley in California, which has high temperatures and average rainfall of just 3 in (76 mm) per year. [121] The economy is heavily based on agriculture and the land is irrigated through a network of canals and pipelines sourced entirely from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. The ...
An example of this is the Patagonian Desert in Argentina, bounded by the Andes ranges to its west. In the case of Central Asia, mountains restrict precipitation from the eastern monsoon. The Kyzyl Kum, Taklamakan and Katpana Desert deserts of Central Asia are other significant examples of BWk climates.
For humanity, this phenomenon has particularly important implications for agriculture, as shifts in life zones happening in a matter of decades inherently result in unstable weather conditions compared to what that area had experienced throughout human history. Developed regions may be able to adjust to that, but those with fewer resources are ...