by Michael Glantz

About the author: Michael Glantz is a senior scientist for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and directs the center’s Environmental and Societal Impacts Group.

Desertification can be defined as the creation of desert-like conditions where none had existed in the recent past. Although the concept has become most
closely associated with arid areas along desert fringes, it is now applied to high rainfall areas like the Amazon rainforest. Desertification is a mega-concept. It
encompasses many processes such as wind and water erosion, soil salinization, overgrazing, waterlogging and deforestation. It also has competing definitions,
of which there are more than a hundred. This perspective sees desertification as a process of change, rather than just the end result of that change.

The Human Factor

Desertification has a natural as well as a human component...