Desertification - soil degradation factor

Author: Salome Lomidze
Co-authors: Salome Lomidze
Keywords: Desertification, degradation.
Annotation:

Desertification and drought are a global scale problem in terms of land degradation. They are damaging all the regions of the world, fighting against it requires the joint action of the international community. Desertification threatens to one third of the Earth's population, leaving about 1 billion people without income source and living conditions. Today, there are 24 million eco-migrants in the world in the result of desertification. According to statistical estimates, by 2050 their number can reach 200 million. Notwithstanding that desertification caused by climate factors is a natural phenomenon, direct influence of anthropogenic factor on this process is quite impressive. In particular, it is unsustainable agricultural practice, excessive cutting the forests, wrong irrigation, artificial fires, disruption of amelioration systems, pollution of soils, erosive processes, secondary withering and salting of the soils, mining of minerals and building materials, etc. One of the well-known forms of land degradation is desertification, which causes gradual loss of dry steps and semi-desert vegetation cover. Georgia is not in the immediate vicinity of the desert zone, but in the case of systemic drought some regions in its eastern part (Kakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli) can be under a real threat of local desertification on the background of the expected global warming. The process of desertification in Georgia is suffered by 3,000 km 2, or 300 000 ha; The activation of the process of desertification is observed in the southern Georgia as well - in Akhaltsikhe Kvabuli and Shida Kartli (Caspian region), where the wind erosion process has been strengthened on the background of the increased temperature in the conditions of almost completely destroyed windbreak zones, the increased frequency of the droughts and the deficit of the precipitation during the last decades.