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Article Draft
editLead
editHistorical desertification Historic desertification
Article body
editThe world's most noted deserts have been formed by natural processes interacting over long intervals of time (Brown et al, 1979). During most of these times, deserts have grown and shrunk independently of human activities. Paleodeserts are large sand seas now inactive because they are stabilized by vegetation, some extending beyond the present margins of core deserts, such as the Sahara, the largest hot desert.
Historical evidence shows that the serious and extensive land deterioration occurring several centuries ago in arid regions had three centers: the Mediterranean, the Mesopotamian Valley, and the Loess Plateau of China, where population was dense (Dregne, 1986).
The earliest known discussion of the topic arose soon after the French colonization of West Africa, when the Comité d'Etudes commissioned a study on desséchement progressif to explore the prehistoric expansion of the Sahara Desert. The modern study of desertification emerged from the study of the 1980s drought in the Sahel.
References
editBrown, J.H., Reichman, O.J. and Davidson, D.W., 1979. Granivory in desert ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 10(1), pp.201-227.https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.es.10.110179.001221?journalCode=ecolsys.1
Dregne, H.E., 1986. Desertification of arid lands. Physics of desertification, pp.4-34.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-4388-9_2