Events
& Issues
New Delhi, 18 September 2019
Rising Desertification
HALT LAND DEGRADATION
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
Desertification has
emerged as a critical problem across the world, specially due to climate change
and global warming. This has led to increase in droughts in most countries. As
regards India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the country’s commitment
to raise the target for restoring degraded land from 21 million to 26 million
hectares by 2030, while speaking at the recently-concluded 14th session of the
Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification held in Delhi.
In fact, experts fear
that land degradation would become impossible to reverse. Apart from having
adverse health implications, this is expected to render land unproductive and unfit
for agriculture. Modi rightly referred to the need for augmenting water supply,
enhancing water recharge, slowing down water run-off and retaining moisture in
the soil to tackle the menace of desertification. Experts believe that if
proper emphasis is accorded on ‘global water action plan’, this may serve the
twin objectives of water conservation and land restoration, leading to achieve
‘land degraded neutrality’, which India is expected to achieve by end-2019.
In the meantime, a
recent study conducted by the Indian Institute Meteorology (IITM), revealed
that during El Nino years, pollutants from South Asian countries can amplify
the effect of the climate cycle on the monsoon, worsening an ongoing drought
situation. The study stated that severity of droughts during El Nino years was
amplified by 17 per cent due to changes in aerosol pollution (a cloud or solid
or liquid particles). It further pointed out that pollutant loading in the
Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer -- a high altitude layer of pollutants --
reduced the amount of solar radiation in the monsoon region, thereby
aggravating the severity of drought by further weakening the monsoon circulation.
Increase in
industrial emissions from India and China added millions of metric tonnes of
aerosols into the atmosphere and this aerosol emission will have an adverse
impact on the severity of droughts over the monsoon region,” observed Dr.
Suvarna Fadnavis, of IITM. Meanwhile, the study found that El Nino led to a
decrease in rainfall over India, with a monsoon rainfall suppressed by 2 mm to
6 mm per day. Added to this is the effect of aerosols and the decrease in
rainfall of around 17 per cent over Central India.
Delving into the
causes of desertification, the rise in droughts is primarily due to
mismanagement of water resources where not enough rain is being recharged or
water used inefficiently and inequitably. Though there are frequent floods, the
sheer inability to plan for drainage as also lack of concern to protect the
forests on watersheds or the near criminal act of building and destroying the
flood plains.
The fact that
temperatures are increasing, intense heat events are being witnessed in many
parts of the world. There is more heat and dust everywhere as emissions
continue to increase, specially in big cities and industrial towns. In the
South Asian sub-continent, temperatures have spiked to unimaginable levels. As
is agreed by experts, high temperature means less moisture on the ground,
leading to desertification.
There are reports of
deaths every year from heat waves and in 2008, over 500 people died in northern
Indian States from dust storms. For the past decade or so, every year the
temperature increase is higher than the previous year, as per WMO records.
One may refer here to
a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2019 that
rightly indicted modern agricultural practices for using more and more
chemicals, pesticides etc. and adding to GHG emissions. The need to increase
productivity in countries like India and Pakistan to feed an ever-expanding
population as also to boost up earnings of the farming community has
necessitated this use, along with calling for a change in diets.
The desertification
convention signed way back in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio may not have seriously
been considered by member countries. Desertification was not a global issue at
that time but now the situation has changed. Today, it is undoubtedly a major problem
and needs cooperation between nations. Experts believe that the crisis is
becoming more and more deadly as temperatures continue to increase and
intervention is required to ensure that this spiral does not get out of hand
The answer to the
causes of desertification is the need for massive green cover as also checking
over withdrawal of groundwater and judicious irrigation practices. No doubt,
trees are being planted, reports of which we often read in the media. But this
is precious little compared to felling of trees and destruction of forests that
is occurring in most countries, including India.
As regards water
efficiency, there is need to point out that people in India, specially in the
eastern and north-eastern parts, misuse water as this natural asset is
available in abundance. But the problem is acute in the western and southern
parts of the country. Thus, there is need for a massive awareness campaign for
judicious use of water as also ensuring utmost water efficiency as has been
done in the case of tree plantation.
A point that needs to
be emphasised is that land degradation or droughts primarily affect the poor
and the economically weaker sections who mostly reside in rural areas. As has been
stated repeatedly at various international conferences, the poor of the world,
who are generally voiceless, are the victims of human induced disaster as they
lose livelihood and become shelterless, thereby going against established notions
of sustainable development.
Most governments with
a centralised governance system are not quite aware of the problems that people
face at the grass-root levels due to desertification, land and soil degradation
etc. Unfortunately, there are umpteen resolutions as well as big promises, both
at the global or national levels, with no real intervention in remote areas
where the actual problem persists.
Therefore, there is
an urgent and imperative need to get serious and delve deep into the crisis, specially
in the Asian countries, including India, and chalk out a framework that must be
adopted at their national level. Also cooperation and collaboration between nations
at the regional and global levels for technology sharing could go a long way in
tacking desertification. With India taking over the Presidentship of the
Convention, reviving degraded land is imperative to increase agricultural
production and productivity and this is specially relevant for South Asian
countries. Thus, it is recommended that the onus is now on New Delhi to revive
lands in a phased manner. Sooner the better!---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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