As humans, we need food to survive. This is a basic need and want and has always been primarily done by farming the land. That farmed land requires sunlight, nutrients, and fresh water. If one of these three criteria is missing, the land is no longer able to birth vegetation. The biggest issue we face here in Canada is desertification. This term means that the land being classified with this is losing its water either to drought or to human causes. Desertification is a form of land degradation and is found to be an issue all over the globe. These dry lands are not just centered on a small percentage of people but affect up to half of the world’s population. This type of soil erosion is due to many factors. The biggest is the latitude of the area under concentration. Of course the closer you are to the equator the hotter and less precipitation is going to reach the land and this also affects natural weather cycles. The sad thing is however that where there is desertification, poverty will not be far. This makes sense for the reason we have poverty is because there are people without food and shelter. This connects to the lack of vegetation for with desertification the food and materials needed cannot grow to make a successful civilization. Looking at what causes desertification we can at least attempt to reverse the results. Desertification is caused by human error by globalizing prematurely.
Dry lands is a previous stage into what can develop the atrocity of desertification. These plains of ground lack moisture. These areas lose it either to evaporation or by transpiration of plants. Generally the land that is considered dry lands is still used by primitive technologies within herding and farming. This weak land is put on even l...
... middle of paper ...
...to being good stewards of the earth. We have been so graciously given this tender earth. It comes with easy land to tend, and difficult land to tend. Each situation requires a different strategy. The fall into sin is what makes us have to so strenuously work the land. It is a blessing however that we are given the technology and know how to make the best out of the situation. It is not a simple task. You do not only have to combat the harsh environment of earth but also the harsh environment of governmental organizations. The topic itself is simple, but needs to be focused on, for it is a global issue that can have many side effects. The idea of a solution is simple but requires strenuous research and policy emplacements. The lists of land issues are endless of course, but desertification is one of the biggest and should be on top of the government’s to-do list.
A food desert is a location in which a wide variety of nutrition food is not generally available (Wrigley et al. 261). Food deserts exist in places such as inner cities and isolated rural areas (Morton and Blanchard 1). The purpose of the paper supported by this annotated bibliography is to argue that food deserts do not exist because of discrimination against the poor, but because of forces related to supply and demand. This hypothesis ought to be kept in mind when considering each of the sources (Just and Wansink; Wrigley, Warm and Margetts; Jetter and Cassady; Epstein et al.; Schafft, Jensen and Hinrichs; Bitler and Haider) described in the annotated bibliography.
As time passes, our population continues to increase and multiply; yet, on the other hand, our planet’s resources continue to decrease and deplete. As our population flourishes, human beings also increase their demands and clamor for the Earth’s natural products, yet are unable to sacrifice their surplus of the said resources. Garret Hardin’s work highlighted the reality that humans fail to remember that the Earth is finite and its resources are limited. Hardin’s article revealed that people are unable to fathom that we indeed have a moral obligation to our community and our natural habitat — that we are not our planet’s conquerors but its protectors. We fail to acknowledge and accept that we only have one Earth and that we must protect and treasure it at all costs. Despite all our attempts at annihilating the planet, the Earth will still be unrelenting — it will still continue to be present and powerful. Human beings must recognize that we need this planet more than it needs us and if we persist on being egocentric and covetous, in the end it is us who will
Desertification to The Sahel The region known as the Sahel is a wide stretch of land running from the Atlantic ocean to the African "Horn", an area that contains the countries of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia And it is the strip of land that separates savanna from the desert, the issue I have been researching is Desertification to the Sahel, in other terms, The Sahel is shrinking at an alarming rate. Animals have been allowed to graze on its fragile land, which has destroyed the vegetation. The people who live along the Sahel have caused it to shrink by cutting trees and bushes for fuel.
Canada’s climate has a big impact on Canadian farming. Some years, the growing season is too short or too cool. This is a problem because then crops cannot grow to their full potential when the season is too short, or when it’s too cool, the crops don’t grow at all because it is too cold and they need more warmth. Leaching is also a problem due to the climate. Leaching occurs in wet climates. Leaching removes the minerals and ruins the chances of crop growing in the area. Calcification is the opposite of leaching and it is also a problem for Canadian farmer but it occurs in drier climates. Calcification is when the water...
British Columbia is the third largest province in Canada with an area of 95 million hectares, about 64% of it is covered in forest. The majority of this forest is used for timber production, a smaller chunk is protected as park land and the rest is unavailable to log because of remotes. Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. The majority of the trees are coniferous. With the increase of many ecological problems the preservation of forests play an important role in British Columbia. Forest are one of the most valuable resources for the economy since their wood products are being exported all over the world. It is however crucial that the environmental impacts of deforestation
The rich dark soil of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado—an area also known as the Great Plains—formed from thousands of years of soil forming factors in action (Surviving the Dust Bowl). From the beginning of human populations living in the area, the soils, for the most part, remained untouched and unscathed by the plow. Thick prairie grasses covered the area and held the soils in the ground even during the periodic times of drought. This area of land was suitable for grazing practices and it was in this area that the large cattle ranches flourished. Little did the newly arrived farmers realize that this seemingly plentiful land followed a pattern of several years of rain followed by several years of drought and high winds.
When sunlight is emitted from the sun it is either reflected or absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere. The reason for this is because the sun’s rays are either absorbed or reflected according to the dark and light colors of the earth’s surface. But the deforestation and urbanization of the terrain on the earth is damaging this effect by changing the way the earth’s landscape visually appears. Deforestation and Urbanization causes drastic climate changes in the specific areas in which they occur, because of the constant changing of the visual appearance of the earth’s surface. If the climate seems strange or sporadic within the general area in which you live either deforestation or urbanization may be to blame. This kind of human activity is continuing to change the earth’s reflectivity. Reflectivity and its effects may seem small when observed together as a whole across the earth; but it has caused global change due to the sporadic c...
The high levels of deforestation in Haiti has caused to the country to suffer from massive amount of soil erosion. This erosion is being washed into the sea and has highly degraded the reefs around the country. The degradation of the reefs has caused local fish populations to vacate the area. This erosion caused by deforestation has led to the failing of the farming, fishing, and forest related occupations. Global warming is having a large effect on rainfall patterns in many poorer countries in the world. This change in rainfall and access to clean water has the potential seriously threaten agriculture productivity in these countries. Brown believes that climate change will lead to increased violence because people will begin to lose
World Ecology Repert (Spring 2009), SPECIAL FOCUS: Desertification: Its Effects on People and Land http://worldinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/library/wer/english/2009_Spring_Vol_XXI_no_1.pdf
A common misconception about desertification is that it spreads from a desert core like a ripple from the splash of a stone hitting water. The truth is that land degradation can and does occur...
The total annual mean temperature and evapotranspiration in the south of the country is very much higher than that of north. Whereas, the amount of rainfall is very low in southern parts as compare to northern parts of the country. Because of this, the gap between evapotranspiration and rainfall cause dryness in the region i.e. greater the difference between these two greater will be the aridity of a region. Climate of ar...
The rehabilitation of degraded soil and water resources will be critical in meeting future global food demand in the context of future climate variability and in addressing associated negative impacts on the environment that are a consequence of current agricultural systems. At the global level, combating soil degradation (soil rehabilitation) will help offset greenhouse gas emissions, provide a better environment, guarantee more food to an increasing population, and contribute to the economic progress of future generations. However, in Ethiopia there is practice of rehabilitating the degraded low-potential areas mainly by construction of physical soil and water conservation
Desertification originally received media attention in the 1970’s when over a decade of severe drought brought a devastating famine to impoverish parts of the Sahara Desert. The drought reduced water available for irrigation, which led to fewer crops being produced as well as a massive die off of livestock in the region. Between the years of 1972 and 1984, over 100,000 people living in the southern-Sahara region, were estimated to have died of either dehydration or starvation. Thousands more were left dependent of international relief to avoid starvation. By 1977, the U.N. had officially recognized that desertification had become a serious global threat...
Deserts of the World I have been presented with the task of researching deserts, hot & cold, where they are, what type they are and so on. I have therefore created the following graphs containing the information needed. Cold Deserts of the World The main form of precipitation in a cold desert is snow -- but only ten inches or less per year. Cold Deserts of the World Name Location Size Physical Features Some Plants & Animals Special Facts Atacama Coasts of Peruand Chile 54,000 mi2 140,000 km2 Covered by sand dunes and pebbles.
...e public destruction" of the situation, and ultimately reach the purpose of combating desertification. Therefore, combating desertification must be combined with poverty, poor governance must sand. Only effective control of desertification, economic development is sustainable; only achieve poverty alleviation, people will consciously safeguard the achievements in combating desertification. So, compared to only consider combating desertification, which is a positive and effective way. Visible only to find a developing country can protect the environment, but also bring economic benefits of the method, the poverty resides in protecting the environment, the protection of the environment in which resides in poverty, in order to embark on economic and environmental coordination broad road .This is developing choice! This is the inevitable choice for developing countries!