July 18 is observed as the World Day for Combating Desertification and Drought. Drought is followed by desertification and the vice versa. land, which gets no rain or very little rain to support its vegetation, gradually turns barren and a desert.
A rain fed area, when is deprived of natural rain, welcomes drought. Climate change is the result of drought. Indiscriminate destruction of the vegetation, pollutions of various kinds due to growth of industries, vehicles and urbanisation have led to adverse climatic changes. All prominent deserts of globe like the Sahara and the great Indian deserts are situated within the ambit of the tropic of cancer. The States like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have escaped desertification due to the presence of the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Ghat, the Western Ghat and other hills. The Bay of Bengal has its impact on the composition of vegetations of all the mountain ranges.
Environmentalists all over the globe are celebrating the day to combat desertification. They are creating awareness among the people to save environment and greenery as none but man has become an agent of desertification. The desertification of a region degrades moisture efficiency of the soil and atmosphere of the locality. The people of the desert areas face various problems including water crisis. The water table in the desert areas drops to a low level. The global unions have called upon human beings to regenerate the vegetation by planting more trees.
When the ecology of an area is destroyed, the physical erosion of soil takes places through sheet erosion and gully erosions. A number of gullies also give rise to Nala and drain erosion. This in turn gives rise to landslides and denudation of hills and mountains. Similarly, the denudation and landslides lead to avalanches. The avalanches, the displacement of glaciers and snow, also cause enormous damage to human civilizations. Recently, in Malkanagiri areas, a number of holes in the cultivable lands of the owners had created panic. The economic condition of the peasants of the region has been affected by the trend. This is happening due to erosions in the hill tract. The catchment and watershed areas lose their carrying capacities which cause floods as occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. (The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist)