ABSTRACT
Desertification is a strongly emotive term with significant negative environmental overtones. Much of this emotion can be defused by considering desertification as the net result of a set of processes that can result in land degradation. Each of these processes occurs naturally, but short-term climatic fluctuations, long-term climatic desiccation, human activities or a combination of these factors can accelerate the rates of these processes. None of these factors is new— climates have always fluctuated (although maybe not always as rapidly as at present) and there is a long history of the impacts of human occupation in drylands (although, again, not at current levels). We may then reason that, because of the high contemporary population levels in drylands and the rapidity of climate change, the processes that constitute desertification are currently operating at higher than normal rates.
