
school energy&environment
published in ecosystems
Desertification

The word itself evokes the desert, but deserts are natural ecosystems that expand or retreat over the years or even centuries. Desertification therefore is not about the natural expansion of deserts (“desertisation”) but it is about those social and economic processes through which the natural resources and the potential viability of the soil are degraded by unsustainable practices (farming and others), population increase and a bad management of the area by man.