Desertification at the Door, Raising National and Regional Security Risks

Climate change, desertification, erosion, drought and land degradation are among the global problems. The United Nations (UN) has declared June 17th of every year since 1994 as the "World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought". Countries are working to raise awareness about this problem that affects the whole world. 

While an annual average of 24 billion tons of agricultural land in the world disappears due to soil erosion, 110 countries face the danger of desertification due to erosion. Factors affecting desertification include lack of rainfall, drought, overgrazing, deforestation, improper/excessive irrigation, soil pollution, as well as drought. 

When the vegetation cover on the soil disappears due to the reasons affecting desertification, the sand and dust carried by wind erosion make the fertile soil unusable. The cycle of drought, erosion and desertification turns into a spiral cycle that triggers each other. Therefore, the fight against drought, desertification and erosion should be tackled together. 

In our country, 90% of the land is exposed to water erosion and 1% to wind erosion. Although it has been reduced with struggle, we still lose approximately 140 million tons of soil annually through erosion.

Turkey is a Regional Drought Country 

Turkey is actually a country of regional drought. In some of our regions, the variability in precipitation is very high. In recent years, we have experienced effective regional droughts and the agricultural sector has been affected the most. This shows that our water and food security will be at risk as a result of desertification and drought.

64% of our pastures do not have sufficient vegetation cover. As the vegetation cover of our pastures decreases due to drought, the threat of erosion increases. Agricultural areas, which are the most deprived areas in terms of vegetation cover, are our most vulnerable lands to erosion, and we are losing our fertile soils through erosion in 59% of agricultural areas.

Erosion of varying severity is observed in 59 percent of agricultural lands, 64 percent of pastures and 54 percent of forest lands.

Relationship between desertification, drought and water management 

As a result of meteorological drought, precipitation decreases and the amount of water we use starts to decrease. This primarily raises concerns about our drinking and utility water. In the agricultural drought phase, agricultural production is at risk as the soil cannot meet sufficient water. Especially in grain production, there is concern about food security. In order to manage and mitigate the increasing risk of drought and desertification, we must use our water resources very efficiently. For this, we must move to integrated water management at the river basin scale. We have almost completed our plans to manage water at the basin scale in the most efficient way, but for implementation we need to enact a water law and build an effective institutional capacity. 

In short, the increasing threat of drought and desertification shows us that we have to protect our water, use it very efficiently and manage it very well.

What to do against the threat of desertification and drought?

Climate scientists and meteorologists state that the threat of drought and desertification is increasing due to increasing climatic variability. Especially in the Mediterranean belt, where our country is located, the expected increase in temperatures and decrease in precipitation will increase the threat of regional drought. Cooperation efforts of countries on a global scale against climate change continue. On the other hand, countries under threat are taking their own measures against drought and desertification. 

In this context, we must protect water basins and water resources in terms of quality and quantity and manage them in a very rational, planned and efficient manner. Efficient management and utilization of our groundwater is especially important for us to survive dry periods with minimum problems. For this reason, we should make our groundwater allocations very carefully and increase the supervision to ensure the efficient use of existing allocations. Illegal groundwater use should be strictly prevented, unconscious excessive water consumption should be prevented and wastewater should be treated and reused. Drought early warning monitoring infrastructure and management system should be established at country level.

Countries should try to create a drought-resilient drinking water, agriculture and industrial sector while continuing their efforts to adapt to climate change. The most important thing here is to adapt our ideas on water management and water use to the new conditions and to increase our social awareness. 

Our country's rainfall regime is irregular. In addition, climatic variations affect the precipitation regime and seasonal distribution of precipitation in our country. Short-term and very heavy precipitation, especially in the summer months, quickly runoffs and creates flash floods and is not sufficient against desertification and drought. In addition, the water year and seasonal variability of precipitation also increase the effects of desertification and drought. We also need measures to prevent erosion of our soil by rainfall to prevent desertification.

Increased threat to national and regional security

Nature has been sending a message to the whole world for a long time. The developed West seems to have read this message of increasing threat of drought and desertification correctly to protect its own interests. Accordingly, they are implementing aid programs for food security in some underdeveloped countries. However, these aid programs are not enough for a sustainable solution to the problem. At the end of the day, the national security and stability risks of the underdeveloped countries that, for various reasons, cannot read this message correctly or cannot understand the message and take measures are increasing.

The consequences of increasing drought and desertification have the potential to threaten not only the security of these countries but also regional security and stability. This leads to an increase in social and economic problems, especially in underdeveloped countries. This means that in the future there may be more intense internal conflicts, climate migrations and poverty migrations than we are experiencing today. The developed West has been working for a long time to prevent the threat these migrations pose to it. Unfortunately, some examples of the inhumane implementation of these measures are increasing.