EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Each year, the earth is losing 12 million hectares of land and global forest cover is shrinking by 13 million hectares.

Detailed explanation-2: -Deserts make up about 33% of earth’s land area. Polar deserts make up around 14.2 million square kilometer of earth’s area. Sahara desert covers around 3.3 square miles. Deserts hence make around one third of the world’s total land area.

Detailed explanation-3: -’Climatic variations’ and ‘Human activities’ can be regarded as the two main causes of desertification. removal of the natural vegetation coverby taking too much fuel wood, agricultural activities in the vulnerable ecosystems of arid and semi-arid areas, which are thus strained beyond their capacity.

Detailed explanation-4: -More specifically, desertification plays its largest role in the grasslands of East Africa, the Kalahari Desert and the Sahara Desert.