Anthropogenic climate change has driven over 5 million km<sup>2</sup> of drylands towards desertification.
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Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32737311.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-17710-7 and PMC identifier 7395722.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Drylands cover 41% of the earth's land surface and include 45% of the world's agricultural land. These regions are among the most vulnerable ecosystems to anthropogenic climate and land use change and are under threat of desertification. Understanding the roles of anthropogenic climate change, which includes the CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization effect, and land use in driving desertification is essential for effective policy responses but remains poorly quantified with methodological differences resulting in large variations in attribution. Here, we perform the first observation-based attribution study of desertification that accounts for climate change, climate variability, CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization as well as both the gradual and rapid ecosystem changes caused by land use. We found that, between 1982 and 2015, 6% of the world's drylands underwent desertification driven by unsustainable land use practices compounded by anthropogenic climate change. Despite an average global greening, anthropogenic climate change has degraded 12.6% (5.43 million km<sup>2</sup>) of drylands, contributing to desertification and affecting 213 million people, 93% of who live in developing economies.