Abstract
From its origins, the concept of desertification has been controversial. The prevailing confusion between two desertification visions, one that considers it as the expansion of deserts and another that emphasizes its anthropogenic component, has been transferred to society. Here we illustrate misunderstandings about desertification using a very illustrative case from the Tabernas-Sorbas Basin (Almeria, Spain), where striking badlands that are often used as an image of desertification coexist with an intensive olive agriculture that is irreversibly deteriorating the only oasis in continental Europe (Los Molinos spring). The olive tree is a traditional Mediterranean dryland crop and until the 1950s only about 200 ha were irrigated in this area. However, the profitability of the crop has caused irrigation to expand to 4400 ha in the last two decades. The process of intensification has been reinforced giving way to super-intensive irrigation, which involves going from 210 to 1550 trees/ha, which in a few years already occupies more than 1500 ha. The effects on the water balance of the aquifer feeding these crops have been severe, and the flow of the Los Molinos spring has gone from more than 40 L/s for the period 1970–2000 to the current 7.28 L/s. Unraveling the mechanisms of land degradation and its main drivers are the first step to propose management actions to achieve a more sustainable use of resources and to combat desertification.
Highlights
IntroductionDesertification (UNCCD), a degree of political and environmental importance only achieved by the Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate Change
The magnitude and importance of desertification, the first global environmental issue to be recognized as such [1], led to the establishment of the United Nations Convention to CombatDesertification (UNCCD), a degree of political and environmental importance only achieved by the Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate Change
Irrigated olive grove surface has grown from 400 ha in the 1970s to 4336 ha in 2019
Summary
Desertification (UNCCD), a degree of political and environmental importance only achieved by the Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate Change. The UNCCD, adopted in 1994 and currently ratified by 196 countries, defines desertification as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variation and human activity” [2]. One of the most frequent confusions, especially in the Mediterranean, is to equate erosion and desertification [11,12]. This leads to the confusion of erosive landscapes such as badlands, Land 2020, 9, 269; doi:10.3390/land9080269 www.mdpi.com/journal/land
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