What parts of the world are affected
by desertification?
Drylands include all terrestrial regions where the production of crops, forage, wood and other ecosystem services are limited by water. Formally, the definition encompasses all lands where the climate is classified as dry subhumid, semiarid, arid or hyper-arid. This classification is based on Aridity Index values.
Overlap of Urban Areas with the Four Dryland Categorie
All areas of the globe (apart from the polar regions) in which the ratio of annual precipitation to potential evapotranspiration falls within the range from 0.5 to 0.65 are potentially affected. But for the purposes of the UNCCD these include parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Northern Mediterranean and Central and Eastern Europe.
But the biggest problem is undoubtedly in Africa where a high proportion of the land and a substantial number of countries have low rainfall and high evapotranspiration rates. These are compounded by widespread poverty, difficult socio-economic conditions and heavy reliance of the populations on natural resources which lead to serious land degradation.
