Context: World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is marked every year on 17 June to turn degraded land into healthy or fertile soil to combat desertification.b

• Aim: To promote public awareness of international efforts to combat desertification.
• Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. It is caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations.
• Desertification does not refer to the expansion of existing deserts.
• The theme for 2022 is ‘Rising up from drought together’.
• In December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) decided on a resolution to observe 17 June as World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.

Desertification

• It is “the degradation of dry, semi-arid and sub-humid lands resulting from various factors, such as climatic variations and human activities”, as defined by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
• In other words, land is desertified when it can no longer support the same plant growth it had in the past, and the change is permanent on a human time scale. 

Drought

• Drought is the deficit of rainfall over a long period, such as a season, a year or several years, related to the statistical average of a region. 
• The lack of rainfall produces a water deficit for humans, animals, and plants.

Causes of Desertification

• ‘Climatic variations’ and ‘Human activities’ can be regarded as the two main causes of desertification.
• Climatic variations: Climate change, drought, moisture loss on a global level
• Human activities: These include overgrazing, deforestation and removal of the natural vegetation cover, agricultural activities in the vulnerable ecosystems of arid and semi-arid areas, which are thus strained beyond their capacity. 
• These activities are triggered by population growth, the impact of the market economy, and poverty.

Status of Desertification and Droughts 

As per the UN: Since 2000, the number of drought-like events has increased by 29 per cent while the duration of such events has also increased.

• 2.3 billion individuals face a situation of water stress where potable water resources are not present for use.

Water shortage is expected to hit 25 per cent of all children by 2040.

• By 2050 droughts may affect over 75 per cent of the world's population.

In India: 97.85 million hectares (MHA) of India’s total geographical area (TGA) of 328.72 MHA underwent land degradation during 2018-19 (29.7 per cent of land).

• As per the Niti Aayog, due to drought and desertification each year, 12 million hectares are lost (23 hectares per minute), where 20 million tons of grain could have been grown.
• While Rajasthan accounted for 21.23 million hectare of desertified land, Maharashtra had 14.3 million hectares and Gujarat had 1.02 million hectares of degraded land.

Challenges posed by Desertification

• Farming becomes next to impossible: If an area becomes a desert, then it’s almost impossible to grow substantial crops there without special technologies. 
• Hunger: Without farms in these areas, the food that those farms produce will become much scarcer, and the people and animals that live in those local areas will be a lot more likely to try and deal with hunger problems. 
• Flooding: Without plant life in an area, flooding is a lot more imminent because there is nothing to stop the water from gathering and going all over the place. 
• Poor Water Quality: If an area becomes a desert, the water quality is going to become a lot worse because plant life plays a significant role in keeping the water clean and clear.
• Biodiversity Loss: In general, the destruction of habitats and desertification may also contribute to a loss of biodiversity. 
• Migration: The desertification implies the destruction of the livelihood of farmers which results in serious migration movements.

Key solutions to combat Desertification

• Land and water management: Sustainable land use can fix issues such as overgrazing, overexploitation of plants, trampling of soils and irrigation practices that cause and worsen desertification.
• Protection of vegetative cover: Protecting soil from wind and water erosion helps to prevent the loss of ecosystem services during droughts.
• Alternative Farming and Industrial Techniques: Alternative livelihoods that are less demanding on local land and natural resource use, such as dryland aquaculture for production of fish, crustaceans and industrial compounds, limit desertification.
• Establish economic opportunities outside drylands: Unpacking new possibilities for people to earn a living, such as urban growth and infrastructure, could relieve and shift pressures underlying the desertification processes.
• Great Green Wall: Eleven countries in Sahel-Sahara Africa — Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal — have focused efforts to fight against land degradation and revive native plant life to the landscape. The initiative, managed in part by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), plants a line of trees as a sustainable way of regenerating the parkland and serves as an example for other problematic locations.

India’s efforts

• India intends to achieve land degradation neutral status by 2030. The country  is working towards restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. 
• Fifty two percent of the land used for agriculture is moderately or severely affected by soil degradation. The Soil Health Card Scheme, Soil Health Management Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna (PKSY), Per Drop More Crop combats the effect of land degradation and also helps to reduce land degradation to some extent. 
• Currently, the government has distributed over 23 crore soil health cards to farmers.  Resultantly, balanced use of fertilisers has come about among farmers. 
• In the spirit of South-South cooperation, India is assisting fellow developing countries to develop land restoration strategies.
• National level land degradation mapping
• India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD).

Global Efforts

• United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD): It was established in 1994 to protect and restore our land and ensure a safer, just, and more sustainable future.  
• The UNCCD is the only legally binding framework set up to address desertification and the effects of drought. 
• There are 197 Parties to the Convention, including 196 country Parties and the European Union. 
• The Convention is based on the principles of participation, partnership and decentralization.
• Bonn Challenge: The Bonn Challenge is a global goal to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030.

COP 14: 14th Conference of Parties (COP14) to United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was held in India.

• India announced that it would restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.
• Countries will make efforts towards achieving Land Degradation Neutrality or LDN, within their territories.