Report: Three quarter of earth’s land permanently drier in recent decades

A new report by the United Nations (UN) says more than three-quarters of the earth’s land has become permanently drier in recent decades.

The report, ‘The global threat of drying lands: Regional and global aridity trends and future projections,’ was released on Monday at the 16th edition of the UN convention to combat desertification (UNCCD COP16), held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The report said about 77.6 percent of the earth’s land experienced drier conditions in the three decades before 2020 compared to the previous 30-year period.

It revealed that drylands expanded by about 4.3 million km²—three times larger than India, the world’s seventh-largest country—and now cover 40.6 percent of all land on earth, excluding Antarctica.

According to the report, “about 7.6 percent of global lands were pushed across aridity thresholds—from non-drylands to drylands, or from less arid dryland classes to more arid classes in recent decades, which poses great implications for agriculture, ecosystems, and the people living there”.

The report added that three percent of the world’s humid areas will become drylands by the end of this century if the world fails to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

It suggested that strengthening aridity monitoring for early detection of changes and improved land use practices can enhance global cooperation and inform local adaptation strategies.

“Even as dramatic water-related disasters such as floods and storms intensified in some parts of the world, more than three-quarters of the earth’s land became permanently drier in recent decades,” the report said.

“Land degradation, in turn, is recognised as one of the most significant environmental challenges facing societies today and affecting almost a quarter of the earth’s land and as many as 3.2 billion people, with severe implications for ecosystems.”

Ibrahim Thiaw, the UNCCD executive secretary, said the report is significant, noting that it is the first time an aridity crisis is being documented by scientists.

Thiaw added that the dryness experienced by many countries, which affects their lands, will redefine the lives of the people living in those areas.

“This analysis finally dispels an uncertainty that has long surrounded global drying trends; for the first time, the aridity crisis has been documented with scientific clarity, revealing an existential threat affecting billions around the globe,” Thiaw said.

“Unlike droughts—temporary periods of low rainfall—aridity represents a permanent, unrelenting transformation.

“Droughts end. When an area’s climate becomes drier, however, the ability to return to previous conditions is lost.

“The drier climates now affecting vast lands across the globe will not return to how they were, and this change is redefining life on earth.”