• Drylands occupy 41 per cent of Earth’s land area and are home to more than 2 billion people - one-sixth of the world's population, among them the poorest people on earth
• In developing countries, infant mortality in drylands averages about 54 children per 1,000 live births, twice as high as in non-dryland areas, and 10 times the infant mortality rate in developed countries
• More than 110 countries in all climatic regions on all continents seriously affected by desertification
• Total land degradation affects some 1.9 billion hectares of land worldwide
• Arable land is being lost is increasing and has been estimated at 30 to 35 times the historical rate
• Loss of potential productivity due to soil erosion is estimated as equivalent to some 20 million tons of grain per year
• Nearly one third of the world’s cropland has been abandoned in the past 40 years because erosion has made it unproductive
• Each year an additional 20 million hectares of agricultural land either becomes too degraded for crop production, or becomes lost to urban sprawl
• In Africa : more than half of arable land lost
• It is estimated that between 10 and 20 per cent of drylands are already degraded
• More than half the world’s productive land is dryland
• It is estimated that desertification and drought account for a US$42 billion annual loss in food productivity worldwide
• Desertification is found to some degree on 30 per cent of irrigated lands, 47 per cent of rain-fed agricultural lands, and 73 per cent of rangelands
• Annually, an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 million hectares of irrigated land, 3.5 to 4 million hectares of rain-fed agricultural land, and about 35 million hectares of rangeland lose all or part of their productivity due to land degradation
• Restoring soil lost by erosion is a slow process. It can take 500 years for 2.5 cm of soil to form

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Land degradation and desertification – Country information

Financial information engine on land degradation (FIELD)
Statistics

Land degradation assessment in dry areas (LADA)
Virtual centre

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)

Regional profiles: desertification in the world