Latest Desertification Stories

"Despite improvements in the LCA, it has a methodological weakness, which is a lack of environmental impact categories to measure the effect of human activities such as cultivation or grazing on the soil", Montserrat Núñez, lead author and a researcher at the Institute of Agro Food Research and Technology (IRTA), tells SINC.The research, published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, is the first study in the world to include the impact of...

Weizmann Institute scientists show that in one kind of forest, its 'energy budget' includes significant reserves of heatThe simple formula we've learned in recent years "“ forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming "“ may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2....

A new scientific organisation is needed to monitor the commitments that will be made by developing countries at Copenhagen to cut their deforestation rates, according to research at the University of Leeds.Existing government agencies and research groups have failed to make full use of the thousands of satellite images of the Earth's surface collected each week to monitor tropical forests.Now, a paper published by Dr Alan Grainger in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

Deforestation and overgrazing are among the factors being blamed for turning almost a quarter of India into desert, according to a study published this week.The study's authors report that northern and western India are the hardest hit, as shown by satellite mapping.The study, published by the Space Applications Center and the Current Science journal states, "There has been a long-pending need for desertification/land degradation status mapping of the entire country based on scientific...

Mojave Desert research shows that nitrogen is second only to water in importanceIn the Mojave Desert winds howl across this hottest place in North America, blowing sands across Death Valley and through empty ghost towns, swirling across treeless land for hundreds of miles. But even in the otherworldly Mojave, life thrives. The Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia), an indicator species for this desert, defines the Mojave's boundaries. In spring when the rains come, brightly colored flowers bloom in...

With land degradation in dryland regions continuing to worsen, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification has agreed on scientist-recommended indicators for monitoring and assessing desertification that signatory countries must report on.The landmark agreement was reached after two weeks of negotiations involving hundreds of scientists and government ministers attending the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 9) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Buenos...

The forests of Argentina have suffered a loss of between 60 percent and 70 percent overall, the Environmental Secretariat reported on Friday."In 100 years, we have lost between 60 and 70 percent of our forest heritage," said Environmental Undersecretary Sergio La Rocca.Forests have fallen from 100 million hectares in 1900 to 33.19 million hectares currently, officials said during the ninth session of a conference for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).A...

Scientists gather in Buenos Aires to find a way forward for agriculture in vast dry areas, where the poor are most vulnerable to land degradation and climate changeAs climate change negotiators continue to skirt the role of agricultural land use in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, top scientists working on land management in the world's vast dry areas will gather this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina, determined to make the case that thwarting desertification in drylands is viable and also...

A team of scientists has analyzed 29 esparto fields from Guadalajara to Murcia and has concluded that perennial vegetation cover is an efficient early warning system against desertification in these ecosystems. The study has been published in the Ecology magazine.In order to foresee the appearance of desertification processes, defined by the United Nations as the "degradation of the land into arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas, resulting from various factors, including climatic...

Iraq is on the brink of an environmental catastrophe thanks to decades of war, mismanagement and drought, environmentalists say. Near daily dust storms, and shriveling riverbeds and marshes are turning arable land into desert, killing trees and plants, and transforming what was once the region's most fertile soil into an agricultural wasteland, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. We're talking about something that's making the breadbasket of Iraq look like the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma in...