Global tree-planting campaigns can harm natural drylands. Effective climate restoration must work within dryland ecosystems, not seek to replace them.
Articles on Drylands
Displaying all articles
Mesquite tells a story about unintended consequences; but it also shows how careful, collaborative responses can lead to solutions for people and the environment.
Benin’s smallholder dairy farmers need development finance to plant shady trees on the land where their cattle graze, to improve cattle health.
Africa’s drylands need support, but it shouldn’t overlook systems that people rely on.
Aridity is silently spreading through many of the world’s cocoa-producing regions. There are steps we can take to save them.
If the world overshoots its climate targets, drought could cause dryland areas to expand by a quarter and encompass half the Earth’s land area, threatening lives and livelihoods.
A changing climate threatens the balance that communities in drylands have created.
Wetlands in drylands seem impossible, but their benefits to people and wildlife are very real.
To lessen the impacts of flash flooding in dry regions like Jordan, we need to educate local authorities on how best to manage their water.
A Land Degradation Surveillance framework could solve this problem by systematically measuring and tracking indicators of land health in Africa.
Desertification is a problem of global proportions. If action isn’t taken now, it will accelerate and fuel further migration and conflict.
There are some big misconceptions about the charcoal sector and its role in environmental damage.
A new international report makes for bleak reading on the state of the world’s soils. It predicts that land degradation will displace up to 700 million people worldwide by mid-century.
China has successfully implemented afforestation to counter desertification. But, today, it faces another risk: its waters are declining.
The world’s ‘drylands’ – already home to 38% of the world’s people – are set to dry out even more. And that could harm the soil microbes that keep soils healthy and help crops to grow.
Top contributors
-
Academic Officer, Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES), United Nations University
-
Soil Systems Scientist, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
-
Soil Ecologist, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
-
Associate professor, Head of the Dryland Ecology and Global Change Lab, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
-
Visiting professor, University of Saskatchewan
-
Senior Researcher, SPARC Consortium, ODI Global
-
Executive Director, SPARC Consortium, ODI Global
-
Reader / Associate Professor in Environmental Geoscience, Sheffield Hallam University
-
Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of Sydney
-
Research Scientist, Bioenergy, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
-
Professor of Microbial Ecology, Western Sydney University
-
Senior Scientist and head of the GeoScience lab, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
-
Senior Fellow, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
-
Global Landscapes Forum science advisor and Senior Scientist, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
-
Professor of Physical Geography, Aberystwyth University