World Day To Combat Desertification And Drought: Theme, Significance, Impacts And Facts About Drought

Updated: Sunday, July 26, 2026, 15:00 [IST]

Every Year June 17 is observed as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. The day is celebrated to spread awareness about the degradation of land and how to find a solution to convert it into a healthy land.

As one of the most destructive Natural disasters, Drought causes a loss of numbers of lives. As per the Global records drought has affected around 2.7 billion people and caused 11.7 million deaths between 1900 to 2019.

Theme of 2022: The World Day to Combat Desertification & Drought

The Theme of Year 2022 is: Rising up from Drought together.
This year, the theme emphasizes the early actions to avoid disastrous consequences of drought on humanity and planetary ecosystems.

History & Significance of The World Drought Day

The United Nations General Assembly declared June 17 as the World Day to Combat Desertification & Draught in 1994. Since 1994 the day has been celebrated to raise public awareness on the issue and for the implementation of United Nations convention to combat desertification in countries like Africa which are facing serious problems of desertification.

As drought is one of the hazardous disasters for humanity as well as for Sustainable Development, its adverse effects could be seen in developing as well as developed countries. If we compare the occurrence of droughts in the last two decades before 2000, the number has increased by 29% since 2000. As per the studies by 2050, droughts may affect more than 3 quarters of World population

So the day is celebrated to remind people why it is important to achieve the target of Land Degradation Neutrality and yes it can be achieved by problem-solving, strong community involvement and coordinated work at all levels.

Host of World Day to Combat Desertification & Drought 2022

On June 17, 2022, the World Day Against Drought is hosted by a European Country, Spain. Spain is one of the most vulnerable countries to facing problems like drought, shortage of water which are all linked to climate change.
On this occasion various renowned scientists and experts, youth representatives and high-level policymakers from Spain and across the world are gathered and speak on the role of science based approaches to combat drought risks, various policies and share success stories.

What is Desertification And Drought?

If a particular land is degraded in arid, semi-arid or dry sub-humid areas it is known as Desertification. It is a process of converting a fertile land into a desert. It is primarily a result of Human activities and climatic variations. While land Degradation is caused by multiple reasons such as ;

Extreme weather conditions like lack of monsoon which causes drought-like situations.
Human activities that pollute the quality of soil and Land utility.

As the population is incredibly increasing day by day, the 20th and 21st centuries have witnessed its collective ill effects. The land is now over burdened with the pressure of
of agricultural and livestock production such as access cultivation, animal-grazing, forest conversion, urbanization, deforestation and extreme weather events such as droughts and coastal surges, which salinate land and affect the ecosystem.

Effects of Drought and Desertification

Some of the effects of Drought and Desertification are listed here for better understanding.

Desertification results in shortage of water and food supply which further causes malnutrition in newly born children and residents of that region.
Drought-like situations cause food-borne diseases that result from poor hygiene and a lack of clean water.
Desertification causes population migration which may spread the infection like diseases to other areas.
It also affects our respiratory system via dust in the atmosphere from wind erosion and air pollutants.

To combat the situation, a new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), "Drought in Numbers 2022" urges for a full Global commitment to drought preparedness and resilience in all global regions a top priority. The UNCCD, a global group of 196 countries, is calling on all global communities to preserve our precious natural treasure, and declared 2010 to 2020 as the UN decade on ecosystem restoration.

Facts About Drought You Must Know

Here we are presenting some facts and Information that you should be aware of in order to protect our nature and of course from your examination point of view.

The decade 2010-2020 has been declared the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification (UNDDD).
The worst affected continent by drought is Africa with two third of its either barrel or dryland. It is followed by the USA with one third of its land, one quarter of Latin America, Caribbean and one fifth of Spain.
Term Dirty Thirties refers to the drought in the U.S. around the 1930s.
In India, around 3.25 million people died due to drought in the 1990s.
18 meteorological and 16 hydrological droughts occurred in India in the time span of 1870 to 2018.