The geographical distribution of desertification phenomena and its impact on agricultural areas in Al-Qadisiyah Governorate.

Abstract

The phenomenon of desertification is one of the most important environmental problems that has worsened during the last decades of the last century and the beginning of the current century as a result of climate change and human activities, especially in countries that fall within an arid or semi-arid climate, which has had economic, environmental and social impacts. It should be noted that in Sometimes it comes to mind that the concept of desertification revolves around desert lands, and this is a wrong concept. Desertification is the deterioration of agricultural lands and their transformation from productive lands to non-productive lands. Therefore, the problem of desertification was one of the problems of the era because it primarily affected food security, as it affected the shrinkage of cultivated areas. Consequently, the production of agricultural crops decreased and the resulting deterioration of the system and the increase in poverty rates in the areas affected by it. Therefore, the phenomenon of desertification has become one of the most serious challenges facing the world at the present time, especially the areas that fall within the subtropical latitudes, including Iraq, which contributed to the shrinkage of the area of agricultural land, which The matter is made worse by the lack of policies, measures, or natural or human treatments that limit the aggravation of this phenomenon, which has become significantly expanding and thus has had a negative impact on the production of agricultural lands, whether as a result of lack of vegetation cover, waterlogging, land salinization, or the encroachment of sand dunes towards the lands. Therefore, the research came to shed light on the problem of desertification in the study area specifically, as it is one of the agricultural areas in which agricultural areas began to decline noticeably, and an attempt was made to make predictions to show whether this phenomenon will expand in the future and its impact on the agricultural reality in the region. Therefore, the research problem that revolves around Regarding the following question: Will the worsening phenomenon of desertification affect.