According to the UN, 77.6% of the Earth’s surface has become drier in the last 30 years, from 1990 to 2020, compared to the same previous period, from 1960 to 1990. The UN Convention report the United Nations to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), contrasts with the generalized perception about the natural disasters that predominate today, which are related to water.
The UNCCD scientific analysis mentions that three quarters of the world became permanently drier. In three decades, drylands expanded by 4.3 million square kilometers (km2). The planet has gained a portion of dry area equivalent to a country like India, whose surface area is calculated at 3.2 million km2.
7.6% of lands were displaced across aridity thresholds. In other words, areas that were wet landscapes became dry and those that were already dry became arid. The report indicates that this change was due to agricultural techniques that depleted the ecosystem and the exploitation of the areas by humans. If this continues in the same way, by the end of the 21st century, 3% of humid areas will become arid.
Drought in the world
Aridity should not be confused with drought. The latter is a stage that a site goes through and that, in the long term, does not affect its ecosystem. Aridity, on the other hand, is a permanent transformation where the land loses the ability to return to previous conditions.
In the report presented at the sixteenth UNCCD meeting held in Saudi Arabia, Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw assured that this is the first scientific effort to clearly document the aridity crisis on the planet. Areas especially affected by the drought trend include 95.9% of the land in Europe, the western United States, Brazil, East Asia, and central Africa. The areas now show significant drought trends, with widespread forest fires and aridity-related land degradation (desertification).
The current coverage of arid areas affects at least 2.3 billion people. The UNCCD even refers to this condition as “the new normal that requires durable and adaptive solutions.” If the planet continues to increase its global temperature as it has done so far, up to 5 billion people will have to live in places with dry lands by the end of the century. This means dealing with depleted soils, scarce water resources and the collapse of thriving ecosystems.
“The general trend is clear: drylands are expanding, pushing ecosystems and societies to suffer the deadly impacts of aridity,” says a UN statement.
This report marks a turning point in the measurement of ecosystem aridity. It leverages advanced climate models and standardized methodologies to provide a definitive assessment of global drying trends.
“For decades, the world’s scientists have pointed out that our increasing greenhouse gas emissions are behind global warming. Now, for the first time, a UN scientific body warns that the burning of fossil fuels is also causing permanent drying in much of the world, with potentially catastrophic impacts that affect access to water and could push people and nature even closer to disastrous tipping points,” said Barron Orr, chief scientist at UNCCD.
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