干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The recent generalization of the management of the Sahara desert margins and the high pression of the population causes a large degradation of the environment that appears through a phenomenon of salinity of soils, destruction of natural vegetation, wind blown accumulation areas which affects oasis, roads.

The research of the causes and the understanding of the process of desertification allows us to build a better evaluation of the real impact of this management on the environment. This research is based on field-work, the effects of aeolian dynamic, cartography and localization of wind blown accumulation, assessment and control of some managements. At this phase we can establish the impact of those actions on the environment through the progress of desertification and we try to find the best way to fighting desertification in Algeria. The great project of the green dam confirms the absence of a real knowledge of the mechanism of desertification. The support of this policy of management based on great works as roads, confirms the acceleration of the degradation of the environment that will be irreversible.

In Algeria, desertification risk is coming from the High Plains in the North where more than 20 millions of hectares of soils are highly exposed and vulnerable to desertification because the present massive destruction of vegetation and soils.