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Last Updated: Friday, 17 June, 2005,
10:35 GMT 11:35 UK

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World's dry regions set to expand

Regions around the Sahara are among those at
greatest
risk

Desertification
is a growing menace that puts at risk global efforts to tackle
poverty and hunger, a new report from a coalition of scientists
states.

The group says bad crop management and the misuse of irrigation
in a number of regions is putting unsustainable pressure on dryland
areas.

The UN-led team estimates that 10-20% of drylands are already
degraded.

They warn that unless practices change these areas will become
unproductive, blighting the lives of millions.

Their report is called Ecosystems and Human Well-Being:
Desertification Synthesis. It is the latest document produced by the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) project.

This $22m, four-year study by 1,300 experts from 95 countries has
been described as the most detailed "green healthcheck" yet on the
state of the planet.

In the case of drylands, preventing their degradation into
deserts is an immense global problem, say the authors.

"Given the size of population in drylands, the number of people
affected by desertification is likely larger than any other
contemporary environmental problem," they write.

Dust storms

Drylands cover 41% of the planet's land surface, and are growing.
They are home to over two billion people, including the world's most
impoverished, in areas such as central Asia and northern Africa.

Sand from the Sahara Desert blows over the
Mediterranean Sea

One of the
biggest problems is that as land dries up, it becomes unsuitable for
farming. This exacerbates poverty and creates environmental
refugees.

The authors estimate that hundreds of thousands of people will be
in need of new homes and lifestyles over the next 30 years as the
Earth dries up.

The effects are also felt far beyond the desert areas themselves.
Dust storms from the Gobi Desert in Asia and the African Sahara are
responsible for respiratory problems as far away as North America,
says the report.

Co-author Professor Uriel Safriel, of Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, says population pressure and bad land management
practices are the cause of degradation.

"The process of desertification starts from direct impact of
people by transforming range lands to cultivated lands that cannot
be covered by protective vegetation cover during the whole year," he
told BBC News.

"In the dry season, they become bare, their soil then is not
protected from the wind or from floods and erodes or becomes dust."

Better management of crops, more careful irrigation and
strategies to provide non-farming jobs for people living in drylands
could help address the problem. But it is easier to prevent
desertification than to reverse it, says the report.

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