Aridity is advancing. And it has already devoured 40% of the emerged lands

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Published by Editorial Team on 20 December 2024

Drying Lands, the threat of aridity

The painting comes from the report “The Global Threat of Drying Lands: Regional and global aridity trends and future projections”, presented at the COP16 of the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification) which took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

"This analysis finally dispels a long-standing uncertainty surrounding global drought trends. For the first time, the drought crisis has been documented with scientific clarity, revealing an existential threat affecting billions of people around the world.

Unlike droughts, temporary periods of low rainfall, aridity represents a permanent and inexorable transformation. Droughts end. When an area's climate becomes drier, however, it loses the ability to return to previous conditions. The drier climates now affecting vast lands around the world will not return to the way they were, and this change is redefining life on Earth.”, said Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD – (1)

Billions of people on barren lands

The trend The general trend of the planet is towards a general increase in aridity. Drylands are expanding and pushing ecosystems and societies that suffer potentially lethal impacts.

2,3 billions of people – well over 25 percent of the world’s population – live in drylands. And as the planet continues to warm, worst-case scenario projections suggest up to 5 billion people could be living in drylands by the end of the century, facing depleted soils, scarce water resources, and collapsing ecosystems.

One of the consequences most visible of this process are forced migrations.From the Middle East to Africa and South Asia, millions are already on the move, a trend set to intensify in the coming decades.".

The devastation of aridity

The aridity is related to persistent and long-term climatic conditions, while drought is an anomalous and short-term period of water shortage that affects ecosystems and people. While drought can occur in almost all climate regimes as part of natural climate variability, aridity is a stable condition with long-scale changes.

"The aridity – the long-term and relative lack of moisture available for life in terrestrial climates – significantly impacts land degradation, desertification and the overall resilience of ecosystems and human communities. Aridity-related land degradation and water scarcity have been linked to food and water insecurity, poor soil fertility, loss of crop and plant productivity, decline in biodiversity, ecosystem degradation, intense sand and dust storms, wildfires, ill health and large-scale human migration. Human-induced climate change is the primary driver of aridity change worldwide”. (two)

While dramatic water-related disasters, such as floods and storms, have intensified in some parts of the world, more than three-quarters of the Earth's land has become permanently drier in recent decades. As much as 77,6% of the Earth experienced drier conditions during the three decades to 2020 than in the previous 30-year period. During the same period, drylands expanded by about 4,3 million km2, an area almost a third larger than India, which is the world's seventh-largest country, and now covers 40,6% of all land on Earth (excluding Antarctica).

There is another 7,6% of land, an area larger than Canada, which has passed through several aridity thresholds from less arid to drier lands, from wet to arid landscapes, with devastating implications for agriculture, ecosystems and human communities.

According to the research, if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, another 3% of the world's wetlands will become arid by the end of the century.

Ecosystems and communities in aridification hotspots

Europe is right in the middle. The “Aridification Hotspots” are almost all of Europe (95,9% of its territory) and parts of the western United States, Brazil, Asia (especially East Asia) and Central Africa.

When we talk about devastating impact, it means that a fifth of the planet could undergo abrupt changes in ecosystems: forests that become grasslands, animal and plant species that become extinct. In these conditions, 20% of the Planet is at risk of undergoing abrupt transformations of the ecosystem by the end of the century, with a loss of habitat for 55% of species among mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians and birds.

It is expected that more than two-thirds of all the land on the planet (excluding Greenland and Antarctica) will store less water by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to follow even modest growth. And there will be soil degradation and erosion and a push for more intense and widespread fires.

The increase in impact poverty, water scarcity and land degradation are also linked to rising rates of disease and death globally, especially among children and women.

The increase in aridity and drought finally plays a role key role in increasing migration humans worldwide, particularly in hyperarid and arid areas of southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and southern Asia.

"The increase in aridity will reshape the global landscape, challenging traditional ways of life and forcing societies to reimagine their relationship with land and water. As with climate change and biodiversity loss, addressing aridity requires coordinated international action and an unwavering commitment to sustainable development” , said Andrea Toreti, co-author and senior scientist at the European Commission

Agreements postponed to 2026

In light of all this, the Cop16 on desertification It ended without reaching a binding agreement.

In the press release In the end, it is written that the almost 200 countries gathered at Cop16 “sare committed to prioritizing land restoration and drought resilience in national policies and international cooperation as an essential strategy for food security and climate adaptation. Nations have also made significant progress in laying the foundations for a future global drought regime, which they intend to complete at COP17 in Mongolia in 2026. Meanwhile, more than $12 billion has been allocated to address desertification, land degradation and drought worldwide, especially in the most vulnerable countries". (3)

Sabrina Bergamini