Drylands

Drylands are defined by a scarcity of water, and cover more than 40% of the earth surface. Drylands are present in more than 100 countries and home to over 2 billion people. Most drylands are found in Africa (66%) and Asia (40%).There are proportionally more drylands in developing countries (72%).

Climate change in drylands adds to challenges of scarcity of water - affecting rainfall volume and seasonality which can increase the frequency of drought and chronic water shortage. This can affect people's livelihoods, especially subsistence farmers. It can also have a large-scale impact for cities and societies, and even countries, when depletion of scarce resources is allowed to continue unmanaged. Also, higher temperatures increase evaporation from the ground and surfaces and evapotranspiration via vegetation. Increasing floods can also contribute to washing away degraded soils and clog dams and waterways downstream furthermore challenging people’s livelihoods and safety. Degradation of dryland soils - through desertification or degradation - affects climate change directly. Dryland soils play an extremely important role in mitigation of climate change as they store at least one third of the world's carbon. 

Drylands pose many challenges for human society. Climate change and following land degradation, can lead to migration. In addition, rainfall variability and drought can significantly challenge economic development, and contribute to poverty, and food insecurity.

Desertification is considered one of the most serious problems facing many regions including the Mediterranean. By working with proper soil and water management, and vegetation regeneration it is possible to mitigate trends of desertification. 

International concern over the rate and scale of desertification has led to the ratification and entry into force of the Framework Convention of the United Nations for Combating Desertification (CCD).

Articles

Filtering water for reuse
Case Study

Integrated water and drylands management in Jordan

Jordan is predominantly covered by drylands, with 80% of the country receiving an annual precipitation of about 100mm or less. Climate change, mismanagement and inherent water scarcity are the main drivers for IWRM projects in Jordan to promote water use efficiency, improve water governance, and minimize water losses.

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Farming in Burkina Faso
Case Study

Ecosystems Protecting Infrastructure and Communities

Burkina Faso’s Sahelian climate is extreme and highly variable and is characterized by a short rainy season from June to October and a long dry season from November to May. Prone to strong spatio-temporal variability and irregular rainfall patterns, deviations in rainfall and the duration of the rainy season of more than 30% have been observed.

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Tigray
Case Study

Soil and water conservation in Ethiopia

There has been a remarkable landscape transformation in Tigray. Soil and water conservation activities have covered half of the agricultural land building. The activities have caused crop production to increase by 50%-100% and a large range of innovations to take root. This soil and water conservation programme is very much a story of scale begets scale and success breeding success
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Zai pits
Case Study

Zai is an indigenous rainwater harvesting method from Chad

Farmers in Chad’s semi-arid Sahelian zone have been using an indigenous rainwater harvesting technique called Zaï to successfully grow crops. Zaï involves the digging of small pits and sowing crops in them. The pits retain water for a long period of time and are particularly efficient when there isn’t much rain.

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Nursery
Case Study

Forest gardens and community forests in Chad

In Chad, farmers and traditional herders have planted a million trees to make up forest gardens and community forests in a unique agro-foresty initiative. Agro-forestry helps mitigate the impact of climate change. 

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Urban agroforestry in the Ouagadougou green belt
Case Study

The green belt of urban agriculture in Ouagadougou

The green belt in Ouagadougou, is being regenerated as part of a regreening strategy with support provided in 2021. It is an interesting case on the role of urban agriculture in regreening strategies, which is not always adopted. 
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Stone contour lines in Somaliland
Case Study

Rainwater harvesting in the Maroodi Jeex landscape مَرودِ جيحْ in Somaliland

Barwaaqo Voluntary Organization (BVO) team in Somaliland constructed soil conservation stone line bunds to reduce water run-­off, mitigating flooding, and allowing rainwater to seep into the soil, decreasing soil erosion needed to reverse desertification.

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Flooding has left many maize fields waterlogged and weed infested (Mujahid Safodien/IRIN)
Article

Exchange: Horn of Africa and Slovak experts on watershed regeneration and flood mitigation

Floods can be mitigated by building simple dams from local material to avoid destruction of crops downstream. These and other measures were discussed at an exchange in April 2022 between the Horn of Africa Regional Environmental Network and Slovak experts.

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The Story of Al Baydha: A Regenerative Agriculture in the Saudi Desert. قصة مشروع البيضاء
Case Study

The Story of Al Baydha: A Regenerative Agriculture in the Saudi Desert. قصة مشروع البيضاء

The final update from Al Baydha Project Co-founder Neal Spackman, 9 years in. How desertification resulted from the loss of an indigenous land management system, and how the land has changed since all inputs to the project were ceased in 2016. 

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View of an area with a number of jessours in Tunisia. (M. Ben Zaied)
Article

Rainwater harvesting compendium: how to catch water where it falls

Rainwater harvesting, the process of capturing rain to store, or allow it to seep into the ground, is an age-old practice. Communities in arid and semi-arid lands have developed multiple processes of harvesting to suit local geographic conditions and purposes. This document provides examples from around the world and related resources.

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African plain with animals, trees and a hill

Landscapes

Cape Town was near day zero in 2018. The drought that threatened to turn off the taps in Cape Town was made three times more likely by global warming, according to a study. Credit picture perfect istock.
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Urban Resilience

Disasters, climate change, and rapid urbanization pose a serious risk to the provision of urban water services including safe drinking water, sanitation, and safe drainage.

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Cross Cutting

Eifel, Elz valley, flood disaster, July 15th 2021. Europe is highly urbanised and has too few natural buffers that can infiltrate extreme amounts of heavy rainfall. Markus Volk. istock.
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Nature based solutions

Nature based solutions work with and enhance nature to restore and protect ecosystems and to help society adapt to the impacts of climate change. Adaptation calls for the increased use of nature based solutions with multiple benefits which at the same time provides for livelihoods, ecosystem life support and community resilience.

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A river basin in a mountanous region.
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River Basins

Collaboration in a river basin is needed to share increasingly scarce resources, manage water related risks emerging from various land uses and prevent flooding by linking upstream and downstream activities. Upstream areas need to ensure spatial planning that is mitigating floods for downstream areas. 

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