Land which covers 30% of the Earth's surface is the ground beneath our feet, It is significant for our survival as it contains a very precious natural resource -soil. Land provides the principal basis of human well-being and livelihoods. Soil supports tremendous biodiversity and provides ecosystem services like food production, carbon sequestration, decomposition of organic matter and biogeochemical cycling. It helps in water infiltration into the groundwater aquifers and plays an important role in hydrological cycling. Soil is a huge carbon sink and thus, plays an important role in the climate system.
The pressure on global land resources is tremendous in the present times. Rapid population growth and rising levels of consumption are placing larger demands on the world’s land-based natural capital.
According to Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment Report(June 2018) by Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), “less than one-quarter of the Earth’s land surface remains free from substantial human impacts. This has harmed land quality and soil fertility, technically called land degradation.” The extreme form of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions of the world is called as Desertification.
Drought means the naturally occurring phenomenon that exists when precipitation has been significantly below normal recorded levels, causing serious hydrological imbalances that adversely affect land resource production systems.”
As per The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification and drought are global challenges. They cause and aggravate socio-economic and environmental stresses like poverty, food insecurity, poor health, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, reduced resilience to climate change and also forced migration,
Every year on June 17th, World Day to combat desertification and Drought is a United Nations initiative to raise awareness regarding this issue and highlight various methods to prevent desertification and recover from drought.
In this article, I have listed 35+ Quotes on Combat desertification and Drought. You can share them on your social networking sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram status.
Quotes on Combat Desertification and Drought
- “The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, and droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.” - John Holdren
- “God has cared for these trees and saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools”. - John Muir
- “Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought”. - Dwight Morrow
- “The world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades.” -Barack Obama
- “Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer”. - John Wesley Powell
- “Human civilization has been changing the Earth's environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts”. - Jamais Cascio
- “There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.” - Jan Schakowsky
- “Drought brings out the worst in us and it’s easy to hate your fellow human beings,” - Luke Davies
- “Climate change is the greatest threat to humanity, perhaps ever. Global temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate, causing drought and forest fires and impacting human health”. - Cary Kennedy
- “Global warming is a misnomer. It should be global extremes and global swings because you add - as you add more energy into the atmosphere, it sloshes around. Energy doesn't simply uniformly warm up the planet. And that means droughts in one area, enormous snowstorms in another area, 100-year floods here, and 100-year forest fires there.” - Michio Kaku
- “The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts and floods is in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades - and evidence is mounting that what's happening is more severe than predicted, and will get far worse still if we fail to act.” - David Suzuki
- “We need healthy forests if we want to protect our climate. As the climate changes, forests become more vulnerable to insect outbreaks, droughts and wildfires. Simultaneously, when our forests are destroyed, their carbon is released back into the atmosphere, further impacting climate change. It's a horrifying one-two punch”. - Chris Noth
- “California's drought affects everyone in the state, from farmers to fishermen, business owners to suburban residents, and everyone has a role to play in using precious water resources as wisely and efficiently as possible.” - Frances Beinecke
- “Technology has allowed us to have more drought-resistant crops. The spotty nature of drought and the spotty nature of rains can sometimes result in better yields than anticipated.” - Tom Vilsack
- “They always say to Californians that we don’t have seasons. Of Course, that is not true. We have fire, flood, mud, and drought.” - Phyllis Diller
- “The direct risks from climate change are obvious: changing weather patterns cause extremes of flood and drought, hurricanes and typhoons. These damages the physical infrastructure of buildings and bridges roads and railways. They are violent and disruptive.” - Barry Gardiner
- “There are flood and drought ever the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.” - T.S. Eliot
- “Unlike other essential goods, like clothing, shelter, or food, we take cheap or even free water for granted. It often takes a crisis, such as a major drought or flood, to spur investment and policy reforms in improving water security.” - Jose Angel Gurria
- “I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us.” - Alice Hoffman
- “East and Gulf Coast states are at risk of hurricanes; prairie and other central and southern states are constantly threatened by tornados; and western states commonly face damaging droughts. Extreme weather does not discriminate by American geography.” - Matt Cartwright
- “East and Gulf Coast states are at risk of hurricanes; prairie and other central and southern states are constantly threatened by tornados; and western states commonly face damaging droughts. Extreme weather does not discriminate by American geography.” - Matt Cartwright
- “Drought never brought dearth.” - George Herbert
- “Climate scientists have long pointed to the Southwest as one of the places in the U.S. that is most vulnerable to global warming impacts, especially drought. And if there's one thing that even climate denialists don't dispute, dry things burn.” - Jeff Goodell
- “Disasters happen. We still have no way to eliminate earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods or droughts. We cope as best we can by fortifying ourselves against danger with building codes and levees, and by setting aside money to clean up afterwards.” - Seth Shostak
- “Australia has suffered a decade of drought, epic floods, a Category 5 cyclone, and a plague of locusts. But just because Aussies have the biggest carbon footprint in the world, it doesn't mean they're stupid. - Jeff Goodell
- “We’re facing growing climate change, more floods, more droughts, more crisis on a planetary level, and the systems we put in place in the twentieth century are just not going to work. We’ve run out of stuff. Our big problems are going to be energy supplies and food supplies. This is not a right-left issue.” - Margaret Atwood
- Every day, it seems, a new extreme weather catastrophe happens somewhere in America, and the media's all over it, profiling the ordinary folks wiped out by forest fires, droughts, floods, massive sinkholes, and tornadoes.” - Jane Velez-Mitchell
- “Once we start deliberately messing with the climate systems, we could inadvertently shift rainfall patterns (climate models have shown that rainfall in the Amazon might be particularly vulnerable), causing the collapse of ecosystems, drought, famine, and more.” - Jeff Goodell
- “People are seeing the impact of climate change around them in extraordinary patterns of floods and droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and powerful storms.” - John Holdren
- “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” - Barack Obama
- “The U.N.'s current projection is that humanity will number 9.3 billion individuals in 2050 and then hit 10.1 billion by 2100. Meanwhile, our energy resources are dwindling, and droughts threaten our food supplies.” - Annalee Newitz
- “Opening up Atlantic and Arctic waters to drilling would lock the next generation into burning oil and gas in a way that only makes climate change that much worse, fueling ever-rising seas, widening deserts, withering drought, blistering heat, raging storms, wildfires, floods and other hallmarks of climate chaos.” - Frances Beinecke
- “Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages - and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods.” - Norman Borlaug
- “More and more Americans are experiencing the direct impacts of climate change, from the wildfires in California to devastating hurricanes in the Southeast, to drought in the Southwest. And they are choosing candidates who are ready to do something about it.” - Michele Lujan Grisham
- “Friends are “annuals” that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a “perennial” that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There’s a place in the garden for both of them.” - Erma Bombeck
- “Floods will become more serious and frequent in the Indo-Gangetic plains. Drought-induced food and water scarcity will become more acute. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the small islands will be the worst victims.”- M.S. Swaminathan
- “Ladakh has changed a lot. Flash floods are common, followed by drought.” - Sonam Wangchuk
- “Americans are worried about climate change because they can already witness its effects. They see its signature in the drought in California, where record heat has dried the state's fertile soil.” - Brian Schatz
- “We won't be able to stop disasters from happening. On the contrary, climate change may increase the frequency and severity of floods, droughts and storms. But we are better equipped today to prepare for them and reduce their impact.” - Sri Mulyani Indrawati
