World day to combat desertification

It is world day to combat desertification. There are many reasons why the UN has chosen this particular problem to focus on:

"Desertification, land degradation, and drought are among the most pressing environmental challenges of our time, with up to 40% of all land area worldwide already considered degraded.

Healthy land not only provides us with almost 95% of our food but so much more: it clothes and shelters us, provides jobs and livelihoods, and protects us from the worsening droughts, floods and wildfires.

Every second, an equivalent of four football fields of healthy land becomes degraded, adding up to a total of 100 million hectares each year."

There are also several reasons why this is important even in the Netherlands. As we are facing a climate that will both be wetter and drier, in shorter intensities, we need to know what species can best survive the drier summers with little maintenance.

We heavily rely on agriculture, with our current water consumption already leading to the question of what to replace flower bulbs with in 20 to 40 years as there is not enough fresh water to sustainably farm these.

We would like green infrastructure to help reduce the urban heat island effect, but we know 40% of our current species already cannot survive the predicted new hotter and drier climate extremes. Other species dependent on vegetation are also negatively impacted by these changes. 

While this is not yet desertification, it is clear that our own country is heavily dependent on how we manage our vegetation. We are also impacted by the amount of global desertification, both directly and indirectly.