Country

Extent of Desertification

Afghanistan

In the Sistan basin, windblown dust and sand have buried more than 100 villages. In the northwest, along the Amu Darya River, a sand dune belt that is some 186 miles (298 kilometers) long and 19 miles wide is expanding by up to 3 feet (1 meter) a day.

Brazil

Approximately 224,000 square miles of land have been affected. Economic losses associated with desertification are estimated at $300 million a year.

China

Nationwide, deserts are expanding by 1,400 square miles a year. Some 400 million Chinese are affected by the dust storms of late winter and early spring.

India

Various forms of desertification affect 413,000 square miles, one third of India’s land area.

Iran

In the eastern provinces of Baluchistan and Sistan, some 124 villages have been buried by drifting sand.

Kenya

More than 80 percent of its land is vulnerable to desertification, affecting up to a third of the country’s 35 million people and half its livestock.

Mexico

Some 70 percent of all land in Mexico is vulnerable to desertification. Land degradation prompts some 700,000 Mexicans to leave the land each year in search of jobs in Mexican cities or the United States.

Nigeria

Each year some 1,400 square miles of land are lost to desertification, which affects each of the 10 northern states.

Yemen

Some 97 percent of the land in this country of 21 million people shows some degree of desertification.