Desertification threatens health of world populations

 

According to the United Nations, over 1.2 billion people in more than 100 countries are put at risk by desertification.

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As part of this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification held last Sunday, 17 June, the theme of the event was ‘Desertification and Climate Change – One Global Challenge’.

According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification is a process of land degradation that is partly due to human-induced activities.

With their view from space, satellites can track land-use changes that often drive desertification – such as over-cultivation, ill-managed irrigation and deforestation.

The Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon said: "The theme of this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought reminds us that climate change and desertification interact with each other at a variety of levels.

"On this World Day, let us strive to address desertification and climate change in a synergetic fashion, as part of an integrated approach to achieving sustainable development for all."

The term desertification does not refer to existing deserts but the creation of new ones.

This is thought to be caused by the reduction of productivity of vulnerable dryland areas by soil deterioration and erosion as well as the long-term loss of natural vegetation.

Early detection essential

Because dryland desertification can be remedied or even reversed by using appropriate land management techniques, monitoring and forecasting areas most at risk are essential.

As well as highlighting any relevant land use change, the view from space can support authorities in getting an overall picture of key pressures on land, such as burned land due to forest fires, erosion processes and their trends over time.

This information, together with climatic data and socio-economic information provides an overview of the main causes and effects of land degradation.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has been working closely with the UNCCD secretariat for more than five years to develop user-tailored and standardised information services based on satellite observations to assess and monitor desertification and its trends over time.

In 2004, ESA launched a satellite-based information service called DesertWatch to work with three of the European countries most affected by desertification – Italy, Portugal and Turkey.

In addition to helping national and regional authorities to assess and monitor land degradation and desertification, DesertWatch also aims to support these authorities in reporting to the UNCCD.

To this end, satellite observations have been combined with in situ information, processing tools, numerical models and geo-information systems to create standardised and comparable geo-information products that can be used to satisfy UNCCD reporting requirements.

The Eighth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 8) of UNCCD will be held in Madrid, Spain, from 3 to 14 September.

COP is the main decision-making group of the UNCCD, which meets regularly to further the Convention's objectives.

ESA will host a side event throughout the UNCCD COP entitled ‘Earth Observation Technology to support the UNCCD: the DesertWatch project’.

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