Desertification worsens due to global warming, putting 80 million people at risk

Arid and semiarid areas make up one quarter of China’s territory. Xunming Wang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Lanzhou conducted a study where results showed that desertification will worsen from 2040 due to global warming, putting almost 80 million people at risk.

This extensive desertification in the western and eastern regions would lower livestock and grain yields, and possibly threaten China’s food security.

Source: Climate change is likely to worsen China’s desertification problem in the twenty-first century, threatening the lives of 80 million people – Nature China

Date: 3 June 2009

Original article citation
Wang, X., Yang, Y., Dong, Z. & Zhang, C. Responses of dune activity and desertification in China to global warming in the twenty-first century. Global & Planetary Change 67, 167–185 (2009).