The United Nations' World Day
to Combat Desertification and Drought is annually observed on June 17 to
highlight the urgent need to curb the desertification process. It also aims to
strengthen the visibility of the dry lands issue on the international
environmental agenda.
This year’s slogan, “Don’t let our future dry up” calls for everyone to take
action to promote preparedness and resilience to water scarcity, desertification
and drought.
In December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly declared June 17 the World
Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. The assembly acknowledged that
desertification and drought were global problems because they affected all
regions of the world. The assembly also realized that joint action by the
international community was needed to combat desertification and drought,
particularly in Africa.
When land degradation occurs in the dry lands, it is called desertification ,
Desertification is not always inevitable. Human factors, such as overgrazing and
clear-cutting land are main causative agents of desertification and can be
controlled by improving agricultural and grazing practices. Other factors, such
as rising temperatures, can be predicted and dealt with pro actively.
According to an estimation each person needs at least 2,000 cubic meters of
water for human well‐
being and sustainable development every year, on average, unfortunately, people
in the dry lands have access to only 1,300 cubic meters.
Sub-Saharan Africa, where 66 per cent of the land is either desert or dry land,
is particularly at risk. And around 1.2 billion people in more than 110
countries are threatened by this problem. United Nations officials say that if
they continue with business as usual, two-thirds of the world's population will
be living in moderate to severe water stress by 2025. and due to this people
living in the dry lands who are already poor became
the poorest in the world, because they have no water for growth of plantation
and food ultimately drought would be their fate due to desertification.
No doubt Pakistan’s water crisis is predominantly an anthropogenic phenomena.
Pakistan’s climate is not particularly dry, in fact it is semi arid to arid, nor
is it lacking in rivers and groundwater. Extremely poor management, unclear
laws, government corruption, and industrial and human waste have caused this
water supply crunch and rendered what water is available practically useless due
to the huge quantity of pollution. Today millions of Pakistanis lack access to
clean drinking water, and the situation is simply getting worse with the every
day passing. The country has approximately 35 million acres (140,000 km2) of
arable lands irrigated by canals and tube wells, mostly using water from Indus
water.
According to a World Bank report of 2006, Pakistan was fast moving from being a
water-stressed country to a water-scarce country, primarily because of its high
population growth, over-exploitation of ground water, pollution, poor repair in
water infrastructures and financially no sustainability of water management
system. Interestingly, the country’s has good soil, and sunshine.
Water for existing and irrigation in Pakistan is curbing because by non serious
use of ground water. Ground water is being over-pumped extensively in order to
meet current demands for food production but if our demands exceed that
renewable supply, then we must be in the situation that we might be over-pumping
groundwater to satisfy the demand, or taking too much water from river basin
systems, result in formation of salinity and barren land that in long run cause
food scarcity. Over-pumping of groundwater for agriculture, industry or domestic
use comes at a sharp ecological price. It disrupts the natural hydrologic cycle,
Causes Rivers and wetlands to dry up, the ground to collapse and fish and
wildlife and trees to die.
Fortunately both desertification and drought ( slow and silent killers) are
predictable and reversible just need is proper plantations and crop rotations by
reserving water sources. prevention of non degraded land must be enforced,
Planting grasses can help stabilise the soil and cut down on erosion by wind and
rain. Terracing the land to slow down the water running off will make better use
of the rain that does fall. Combating other social, economic and environmental
issues that are related to land degradation that further cause desertification
and drought. In nutshell awareness is the key of problem solution.