Box 3. Putting sparse land to use
As pressure on land resources grows, areas of sparsely vegetated and barren land are increasingly being used or converted for human activities. With careful management and selection, supported by technological advancements, some of this land might be used sustainably. But the fact remains that development can damage sparse land’s often fragile ecosystems – which can be slow to recover once disturbed, due to their climate, delicate soils and slow pace of ecological succession.
Efforts to tackle desertification have led to initiatives focused on the regreening of drylands in arid zones. One of the more ambitious projects is the Great Green Wall (GGW) of the Sahara and the Sahel, a pan-African programme with a strong reforestation focus, which aims to restore 100 million ha of degraded land across more than 20 dryland countries by 2030.
Since the project’s launch in 2007, progress has generally been slow, with only 15 per cent of the targets reached after a decade; efforts in some countries have been restricted by the poor survival rates of trees, as well as by political and fiscal constraints.
In recognition of the limitations of the initial approach, there has been a recent shift in focus from large tree-planting projects towards working more with local communities to promote low-cost natural regeneration. Early adopters of this technique, such as Niger and Ethiopia, have already seen the transformation of some previously barren landscapes; and such initiatives have in turn enabled the strengthening of social capital through improvements in crop yields and income generation that are helping to alleviate poverty.
Recent innovations in agricultural technology have also allowed previously uncultivable land to be reclaimed for food production. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the government-backed development of greenhouse technologies and hydroponic farming has enabled crop cultivation to take place in the harsh desert environment. In a country where up to 90 per cent of food produce is imported, the increasing use of modern agricultural methods offers the potential to improve local food self-sufficiency, although maintaining large-scale production in the desert has proved challenging given the significant input costs. Heavy public subsidies are in place for these projects. There are also rising concerns about the impact of agricultural expansion on the country’s non-renewable groundwater sources, which have already suffered a deterioration in water quality and, on current trends, could be depleted within the next few decades.
With the global transition towards low-carbon energy, marginal land is increasingly being used for renewable energy infrastructure, especially in arid regions with recognized high solar insolation and wind resource values. In California, most renewable energy production is generated through large-scale projects in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Among such projects is the Ivanpah solar thermal system, which has the capacity to generate electricity for over 140,000 homes. While the state has become a leader in clean energy, this has come at the cost of disrupting the desert’s ecosystem and endangering rare endemic species. As the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant on its completion in 2014, the Ivanpah facility has nearly doubled the amount of solar thermal energy produced in the US. Although criticized for its environmental footprint, the Ivanpah plant has served as a trailblazer in providing information to improve the technical capacity of similar solar projects.
Some areas of barren land in strategic locations may also have the potential to be converted for human habitation. One example is the planned development of the controversial ‘mega-city’ of Neom in the Saudi Arabian desert. The city is projected to cover over 2.65 million ha of arid terrain, an area nearly equivalent in size to Belgium, and will use advanced low-carbon technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI)-driven systems, with the aim of becoming a global technological hub. While the ambitious project presents opportunities for job creation and economic diversification away from fossil fuels, such a large-scale development in the limited environment of the desert could create extensive resource problems. One estimate suggests that its construction alone could emit more than 1.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. There is significant scepticism that the project’s ambitions will be fully realized, although construction of the foundations for one particularly audacious element – ‘The Line’, a 200-metre-wide, 170-km-long strip bounded on either side by 500-metre-high mirrored walls – started in 2022.
