Alterra - part of Wageningen University and Research Centre - has been given the leadership of a worldwide project on desertification. The aim of the project is to seek out ways to combat desertification and land degradation. The project will last five years and involves a budget of some 9 million euros. In total, 28 institutes, representing all regions of the world, will collaborate in the effort. The research will be done in 18 different threatened locations, spread throughout the world.
What is land degradation?
Land degradation and desertification form a great threat to fragile, usually dryland areas. They are brought about, for example, by water and wind erosion, floods, aridity, fires, siltification, etcetera. The fertility and livability of the affected areas are oftentimes irreversibly damaged. Humans are almost always at the root of the problems, for example, by overgrazing of animals, destruction of forests, use of unsuitable irrigation systems and many other similar triggers. Poverty and political instability often contribute as well.
How serious is land degradation?
Right now, more than 250 million people and one-third of the world's surface area are already directly affected by the consequences of land degradation and desertification. As is so often the case, most of those affected are in the world's poorest areas. If corrective measures are not taken quickly, degradation and desertification will soon threaten the livelihoods of more than one billion (!) people in more than 110 countries. In the Mediterranean, for example, aridity and forest fires now threaten some 16.5 million Europeans and 300,000 square kilometers of land. This makes land degradation one of the most critical environmental problems that the world is facing today. But it is also perhaps the least known.
What can we do about it?
There has not always been a well understood relation between land degradation, on the one hand, and sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity, water management, food security and the diverse socioeconomic factors associated with land use on the other. The year 2006 was therefore declared the United Nations Year of Deserts and Desertification. The objective was to alert the world to the role of sustainable land use in combating poverty and in the development of threatened areas. Scientists from 28 institutes from throughout the world have seized this opportunity and to join together in a large-scale, 9 million euro research project under the name DESIRE.
The aim of this project is to arrive at alternative strategies for the use and protection of fragile areas. The project selected 18 areas under threat of severe degradation or desertification from all regions of the world. From Spain, Italy and Greece to Russia, China, Chili, Australia and the United States. Researchers will join forces with local populations in these areas to look at how the problems can be tackled at each location. This will provide not only direct help to these specific areas and the people living there, but also yield a large body of knowledge that will be useful for other areas. The results will be translated into practical guidelines for using and managing agricultural lands and the natural environment as responsibly as possible, for farmers and land-owners, as well as for policymakers and governments - and as such benefiting the local communities as a whole.