Portal:Environment/Selected article/7
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various climatic variations, but primarily from human activities. A major impact of desertification is biodiversity loss and loss of productive capacity, for example, by transition from grassland dominated by perennial grasses to one dominated by perennial shrubs.
A number of solutions have been tried in order to reduce the rate of desertification and regain lost land. Leguminous plants, which extract nitrogen from the air and fix it in the soil, can be planted to restore fertility. Stones stacked around the base of trees collect morning dew and help retain soil moisture. Artificial grooves can be dug in the ground to retain rainfall and trap wind-blown seeds. Windbreaks made from trees and bushes to reduce soil erosion and evapotranspiration was widely encouraged by development agencies from the middle of the 1980s.
