Project Summary:
Desertification is one of the most important environmental challenges facing the world today, however it is arguably the most under-reported. Desertification is the gradual transformation of arable and habitable land into desert, usually caused by climate change and/or the improper use of land. Each year, desertification and drought account for US$42 billion loss in [...]
Project Summary:
Desertification is one of the most important environmental challenges facing the world today, however it is arguably the most under-reported. Desertification is the gradual transformation of arable and habitable land into desert, usually caused by climate change and/or the improper use of land. Each year, desertification and drought account for US$42 billion loss in food productivity worldwide.
In China, nearly 20% of land area is desert. As a result of a combination of poor farming practices, drought and increased demand for groundwater, desertification has become arguably China’s most important environmental challenge. As the effects of increasing desertification appear, farmers are forced to abandon their land, levels of rural poverty rise and the intensity of sandstorms, which batter northern and western China each year, continue to intensify.
By traveling on China’s ‘desertification train’ on the K117-T69-K886 route that dissects China’s major northern deserts (The Gobi, Taklamakan and Badain Jaran) from Beijing, on the east coast of China, to Kashgar, on the western borders, photojournalist Sean Gallagher reports on the various implications of desertification on people’s lives across the breadth of China.
See select related reporting from Sean below.
See all dispatches, slideshows, and reports by Sean on this topic on the Pulitzer Center site.
What can be done in the immediate future to prevent all of China from becoming a desert?
What other effects from global warming, besides desertification, are being seen in China?
Hello Layla,
Thank you for your questions. At the moment a very large proportion of China is under threat from desertification however it does not look like ‘all’ of it will become desert, certainly not in the immediate future (we cannot say for certain though of course, as even the great Sahara desert was once lush, vegetated land). Chinese scientists have however determined that it is expanding and has done so over a number decades to now and will continue to do so unless something is done to stop the man-made increasing factors. Many are now actively involved in researching new ways to combat the expansion through methods such as tree-planting and the breeding of species of plants that stabilise soils and need small amounts of water in arid environments.
Other issues linked to global warming in China have been disappearing water, extreme weather i.e. increased number of droughts and floods and the retreat of many of the country’s glaciers
Sean
Can we really do anything about china becoming a desert? Even if we give them money how would we know its going to the right place or even helping the people?
Why was the “field contract policy” implemented in the first place? It seems like all it has accomplished it making the lives of the nomads much more difficult.
I can’t believe that so much food production is lost yearly to desertification. In some parts of the world, food is already hard to come by, so this is just making the problem worse. Something must be done about this or world hunger will only get worse.
Since China is responsible for producing food in so many other parts of the world it is very important that something is done about this problem or there will not only be suffering in China but in other countries that rely on their food production.
I understand that the confluence of the effects of temperature change and farming habits have considerable consequences for arable land. However, my question is how much of the desertification is actually caused by recent temperature change versus a history of detrimental farming practices?