<p>All the major deserts are naturally formed by climate change in ancient times. Much of the Sahara, as recently as six or seven thousand years ago, was savannah of a sort now found in East Africa, and with a similar flora and fauna (acacia, crocodiles, giraffes, gazelle, lions, ostriches etc). However, deserts can be man made, and a good example of that is the dust bowl of mid-west USA in the 1930s. The dust bowl was caused by bad farming methods which made the land unable to withstand a few years of drought. Wind created enormous dust storms of a kind which sometimes occur in the Sahara or Australia, and this blew the topsoil away, so farmers had to leaved their land and find work in the cities. </p>

<p>Special farming techniques managed to restore most of this man made desert in the forties and fifties, so I think I'm right in saying that most of it is now productive farmland again, but not so productive as it would have been if the dust bowl had never happened. Another example can be found in the Sahel, where overgrazing by livestock has transformed some areas into desert over the last 50 years.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-25T04:32:45.020Z
Is the expansion of the Sahara over the last couple of thousand years or so really due to "climate change", or is it in large part the result of human overgrazing & other agricultural practices?
jamesqf
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-25T10:15:22.897Z
The transformation of the Sahara from savannah to desert only took a few thousand years and was more or less completed by the time the Great Pyramid was built, but it is likely that in some parts overgrazing was partly to blame. As testimony to what the Sahara used to be, we have the occasional massive cypress sticking out of the sand (roots reach down to the water table) and in at least one location there is a year-round pool containing Nile crocodiles, with the sand sea all around it..
Michael Walsby
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-25T10:20:41.137Z
PS There are places in NE Sahara where ancient rock art depicts the animals that used to roam there in ancient times, and they are the sorts of animals now found in E. Africa. I've seen it on TV. I certainly don't claim to have discovered it, but any well informed person would be aware of it.
Michael Walsby
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T20:27:08.483Z
2019-09-23T20:27:08.483Z
Michael Walsby
<p><a href="https://space.stackexchange.com/a/38999/12102">This answer</a> pointed me to the Wikipedia page for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_El-Baz" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Farouk El-Baz</a> in which the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_El-Baz#Desert_research_and_theories" rel="nofollow noreferrer">desert research and theories</a> subsection says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the past 20 years in his research at Boston University, <strong>El-Baz has utilized satellite images to better understand the origin and evolution of desert landforms. He is credited with providing evidence that the desert is not man-made, but the result of major climatic variations.</strong> His research uncovered numerous sand-buried rivers and streams in the Sahara based on the interpretation of radar images.</p>
<p>These former water courses lead into depressions in the terrain, which he theorized must contain groundwater. His analysis of these data resulted in the location of groundwater in the arid terrains of Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), and perhaps Darfur in Sudan (unless it dried up).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was surprised to read that the &quot;origin and evolution of desert landforms&quot; was ever considered to have an anthropocenic component.</p>
<p><strong>Question:</strong> When was it ever considered that the desert might be &quot;man-made&quot;, or otherwise anthropocenically-induced? Is it possible to know which desert was thought to be man-made that El-Baz proved wasn't? Or does the passage refer to <em>all deserts?</em></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T06:23:57.483Z
I can recall a conversation I had in the late 1970s when an **unsubstantiated & dubious** claim was made that the ancient Roman were responsible for the desertification of the Sahara. However, I wonder how people who claim anthropocenic creation of  deserts explain other deserts like the Gobi, Kalahari, Negev, & the ones on the US, South America, India, central Asia & Australia.
Fred
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T07:18:13.587Z
@Fred it's possible that a specific desert was supposed to have been named in the quoted section of Wikipedia and was accidentally omitted during transcription, and perhaps Sahara is that desert.
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T10:17:12.347Z
@gansub thanks, got it! It's nearly 600 pages long, but it seems references to El-Baz appear mostly in chapters 2 and 7, I'll have a look soon...
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T10:59:52.317Z
@gansub okay chapter 18 *Desertification* is extensive and gives examples, but so far I haven't found the "smoking gun" - which desert it was that was thought to be man-made that El-Baz showed wasn't, and perhaps how.
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T11:15:54.197Z
@gansub in chapter 18 I see a lot of positive discussion of desertification effects due to human activity, Wikipedia says that El-Baz says it doesn't happen. Right now I don't see anything there that **supports** what Wikipedia says that El-Baz says. **update:** Oh, now [that link](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/isr.1988.13.4.331) is very clear, thanks!!
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T11:18:35.520Z
okay I'm getting the picture now, *thanks!*
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T11:21:19.793Z
they are of use
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-23T19:08:51.117Z
Re "When was it ever considered that the desert might be "man-made": Putting aside the question of which particular desert is being referred to here, it's been known for at least a couple of thousand years that human activity can create deserts.  Plato's 'Critias' describes desertification in Greece due to trees being cut down to build ships and smelt silver ore.
jamesqf
<geomorphology><desert><desertification>
When was it ever considered that the desert might be "man-made", or otherwise anthropocenically-induced?
uhoh
# When was it ever considered that the desert might be "man-made", or otherwise anthropocenically-induced?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-09-23)

[This answer](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/38999/12102) pointed me to the Wikipedia page for [Farouk El-Baz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_El-Baz) in which the [desert research and theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_El-Baz#Desert_research_and_theories) subsection says:

> During the past 20 years in his research at Boston University, **El-Baz has utilized satellite images to better understand the origin and evolution of desert landforms. He is credited with providing evidence that the desert is not man-made, but the result of major climatic variations.** His research uncovered numerous sand-buried rivers and streams in the Sahara based on the interpretation of radar images.
>
> These former water courses lead into depressions in the terrain, which he theorized must contain groundwater. His analysis of these data resulted in the location of groundwater in the arid terrains of Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), and perhaps Darfur in Sudan (unless it dried up).

I was surprised to read that the "origin and evolution of desert landforms" was ever considered to have an anthropocenic component.

**Question:** When was it ever considered that the desert might be "man-made", or otherwise anthropocenically-induced? Is it possible to know which desert was thought to be man-made that El-Baz proved wasn't? Or does the passage refer to *all deserts?*

**Tags:** geomorphology, desert, desertification

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I can recall a conversation I had in the late 1970s when an **unsubstantiated & dubious** claim was made that the ancient Roman were responsible for the desertification of the Sahara. However, I wonder how people who claim anthropocenic creation of  deserts explain other deserts like the Gobi, Kalahari, Negev, & the ones on the US, South America, India, central Asia & Australia.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 it's possible that a specific desert was supposed to have been named in the quoted section of Wikipedia and was accidentally omitted during transcription, and perhaps Sahara is that desert.  
> **username_0**: @gansub thanks, got it! It's nearly 600 pages long, but it seems references to El-Baz appear mostly in chapters 2 and 7, I'll have a look soon...  
> **username_0**: @gansub okay chapter 18 *Desertification* is extensive and gives examples, but so far I haven't found the "smoking gun" - which desert it was that was thought to be man-made that El-Baz showed wasn't, and perhaps how.  
> **username_0**: @gansub in chapter 18 I see a lot of positive discussion of desertification effects due to human activity, Wikipedia says that El-Baz says it doesn't happen. Right now I don't see anything there that **supports** what Wikipedia says that El-Baz says. **update:** Oh, now [that link](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/isr.1988.13.4.331) is very clear, thanks!!  
> **username_0**: okay I'm getting the picture now, *thanks!*  
> **username_0**: they are of use  
> **username_2**: Re "When was it ever considered that the desert might be "man-made": Putting aside the question of which particular desert is being referred to here, it's been known for at least a couple of thousand years that human activity can create deserts.  Plato's 'Critias' describes desertification in Greece due to trees being cut down to build ships and smelt silver ore.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2019-09-23. Score: -3

All the major deserts are naturally formed by climate change in ancient times. Much of the Sahara, as recently as six or seven thousand years ago, was savannah of a sort now found in East Africa, and with a similar flora and fauna (acacia, crocodiles, giraffes, gazelle, lions, ostriches etc). However, deserts can be man made, and a good example of that is the dust bowl of mid-west USA in the 1930s. The dust bowl was caused by bad farming methods which made the land unable to withstand a few years of drought. Wind created enormous dust storms of a kind which sometimes occur in the Sahara or Australia, and this blew the topsoil away, so farmers had to leaved their land and find work in the cities.

Special farming techniques managed to restore most of this man made desert in the forties and fifties, so I think I'm right in saying that most of it is now productive farmland again, but not so productive as it would have been if the dust bowl had never happened. Another example can be found in the Sahel, where overgrazing by livestock has transformed some areas into desert over the last 50 years.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Is the expansion of the Sahara over the last couple of thousand years or so really due to "climate change", or is it in large part the result of human overgrazing & other agricultural practices?  
> **username_3**: The transformation of the Sahara from savannah to desert only took a few thousand years and was more or less completed by the time the Great Pyramid was built, but it is likely that in some parts overgrazing was partly to blame. As testimony to what the Sahara used to be, we have the occasional massive cypress sticking out of the sand (roots reach down to the water table) and in at least one location there is a year-round pool containing Nile crocodiles, with the sand sea all around it..  
> **username_3**: PS There are places in NE Sahara where ancient rock art depicts the animals that used to roam there in ancient times, and they are the sorts of animals now found in E. Africa. I've seen it on TV. I certainly don't claim to have discovered it, but any well informed person would be aware of it.  

---

