Nearly one half of the planet's land mass is on the brink of turning into nonarable desert, according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

These already-arid lands are marked by low rainfall yet support 45% of the world's agriculture. Now, extreme drought linked to human-made global heating is helping to transform this area into an infertile wasteland.

With one in three of the world's people living in these drylands, experts say that food insecurity, poverty, and mass displacement will accompany desertification.

The problem is so severe that a United Nations desertification conference (COP16) happening in Saudi Arabia in December is demanding that 1.5 billion hectares of the world's desertified land be restored by 2030. This is the area the UN says could be rehabilitated.

Desertification is a form of land degradation by which fertile land loses much of its biological — and economic — productivity, and becomes desert.

Today, up to 40% of the world's land is already degraded, according to the UNCCD.

While climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, unsustainable agricultural practices, and urban sprawl are key factors in desertification, a global drought crisis is exacerbating the problem.

Extreme drought........

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