Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-3 (section)

=== 3.1.3 Dryland populations: Vulnerability and resilience ===

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Drylands are home to approximately 38.2% (±0.6%) of the global population (Koutroulis 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r51|51]]</sup> ; van der Esch et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r52|52]]</sup> ), that is about 3 billion people. The highest number of people live in the drylands of South Asia (Figure 3.4), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (van der Esch et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r53|53]]</sup> ). In terms of the number of people affected by desertification, Reynolds et al. (2007) indicated that desertification was directly affecting 250 million people. More recent estimates show that 500 (±120) million people lived in 2015 in those dryland areas which experienced significant loss in biomass productivity between the 1980s and 2000s (Bai et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r54|54]]</sup> ; Le et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r55|55]]</sup> ). The highest numbers of affected people were in South and East Asia, North Africa and the Middle East (l ''ow confidence'' ). The population in drylands is projected to increase about twice as rapidly as non-drylands, reaching 4 billion people by 2050 (van der Esch et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r56|56]]</sup> ). This is due to higher population growth rates in drylands. About 90% of the population in drylands live in developing countries (UN-EMG 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r57|57]]</sup> ).

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'''Figure 3.4'''

<span id="current-and-projected-population-under-ssp2-in-drylands-in-billions.-source-van-der-esch-et-al.-2017."></span>
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'''Current and projected population (under SSP2) in drylands, in billions. Source: van der Esch et al. (2017).'''
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[[File:65c76dd134c3d3fdf2e8b85709dca4d6 Figure-3.4-1024x398.jpg]]

Current and projected population (under SSP2) in drylands, in billions. Source: van der Esch et al. (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r1790|1790]]</sup> .

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Dryland populations are highly vulnerable to desertification and climate change because their livelihoods are predominantly dependent on agriculture, one of the sectors most susceptible to climate change (Rosenzweig et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r58|58]]</sup> ; Schlenker and Lobell 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r59|59]]</sup> ). Climate change is projected to have substantial impacts on all types of agricultural livelihood systems in drylands (CGIAR-RPDS 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r60|60]]</sup> ) (Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2).

One key vulnerable group in drylands are pastoral and agropastoral households <sup>[[#fn:1|1]]</sup> . There are no precise figures about the number of people practicing pastoralism globally. Most estimates range between 100 million and 200 million (Rass 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r61|61]]</sup> ; Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r62|62]]</sup> ), of whom 30–63 million are nomadic pastoralists (Dong 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r63|63]]</sup> ; Carr-Hill 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r64|64]]</sup> ) <sup>[[#fn:2|2]]</sup>

Pastoral production systems represent an adaptation to high seasonal climate variability and low biomass productivity in dryland ecosystems (Varghese and Singh 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r65|65]]</sup> ; Krätli and Schareika 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r66|66]]</sup> ), which require large areas for livestock grazing through migratory pastoralism (Snorek et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r67|67]]</sup> ). Grazing lands across dryland environments are being degraded, and/or being converted to crop production, limiting the opportunities for migratory livestock systems, and leading to conflicts with sedentary crop producers (Abbass 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r68|68]]</sup> ; Dimelu et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r69|69]]</sup> ). These processes, coupled with ethnic differences, perceived security threats, and misunderstanding of pastoral rationality, have led to increasing marginalisation of pastoral communities and disruption of their economic and cultural structures (Elhadary 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r70|70]]</sup> ; Morton 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r71|71]]</sup> ). As a result, pastoral communities are not well prepared to deal with increasing weather/climate variability and weather/climate extremes due to changing climate (Dong 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r72|72]]</sup> ; López-i-Gelats et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r73|73]]</sup> ), and remain amongst the most food insecure groups in the world (FAO 2018).

There is an increasing concentration of poverty in the dryland areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (von Braun and Gatzweiler 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r74|74]]</sup> ; Barbier and Hochard 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r75|75]]</sup> , where 41% and 12% of the total populations live in extreme poverty, respectively (World Bank 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r76|76]]</sup> ). For comparison, the average share of global population living in extreme poverty is about 10% (World Bank 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r77|77]]</sup> ). Multidimensional poverty, prevalent in many dryland areas, is a key source of vulnerability (Safriel et al. 2005 <sup>[[#fn:r78|78]]</sup> ; Thornton et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r79|79]]</sup> ; Fraser et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r80|80]]</sup> ; Thomas 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r81|81]]</sup> ). Multidimensional poverty incorporates both income-based poverty, and also other dimensions such as poor healthcare services, lack of education, lack of access to water, sanitation and energy, disempowerment, and threat from violence (Bourguignon and Chakravarty 2003 <sup>[[#fn:r82|82]]</sup> ; Alkire and Santos 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r83|83]]</sup> , 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r84|84]]</sup> ). Contributing elements to this multidimensional poverty in drylands are rapid population growth, fragile institutional environment, lack of infrastructure, geographic isolation and low market access, insecure land tenure systems, and low agricultural productivity (Sietz et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r85|85]]</sup> ; Reynolds et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r86|86]]</sup> ; Safriel and Adeel 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r87|87]]</sup> ; Stafford Smith 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r88|88]]</sup> ). Even in high-income countries, those dryland areas that depend on agricultural livelihoods represent relatively poorer locations nationally, with fewer livelihood opportunities, for example in Italy (Salvati 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r89|89]]</sup> ). Moreover, in many drylands areas, female-headed households, women and subsistence farmers (both male and female) are more vulnerable to the impacts of desertification and climate change (Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner-Kerr 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r90|90]]</sup> ; Sultana 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r91|91]]</sup> ; Rahman 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r92|92]]</sup> ). Some local cultural traditions and patriarchal relationships were found to contribute to higher vulnerability of women and female-headed households through restrictions on their access to productive resources (Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner-Kerr 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r94|94]]</sup> ; Sultana 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r95|95]]</sup> ; Rahman 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1791|1791]]</sup> ) (Sections 3.4.2 and 3.6.3, and Cross-Chapter Box 11 in Chapter 7).

Despite these environmental, socio-economic and institutional constraints, dryland populations have historically demonstrated remarkable resilience, ingenuity and innovations, distilled into ILK to cope with high climatic variability and sustain livelihoods (Safriel and Adeel 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r96|96]]</sup> ; Davis 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r97|97]]</sup> ; Davies 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r98|98]]</sup> ) (Sections 3.6.1 and 3.6.2, and Cross-Chapter Box 13 in Chapter 7). For example, across the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, informal community by-laws were successfully used for regulating grazing, collection and cutting of herbs and wood, and which limited rangeland degradation (Gari 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r99|99]]</sup> ; Hussein 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r100|100]]</sup> ). Pastoralists in Mongolia developed indigenous classifications of pasture resources which facilitated ecologically optimal grazing practices (Fernandez-Gimenez 2000 <sup>[[#fn:r101|101]]</sup> ) (Section 3.6.2). Currently, however, indigenous and local knowledge and practices are increasingly lost or can no longer cope with growing demands for land-based resources (Dominguez 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r102|102]]</sup> ; Fernández-Giménez and Fillat Estaque 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r103|103]]</sup> ; Hussein 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r104|104]]</sup> ; Kodirekkala 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r105|105]]</sup> ; Moreno-Calles et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r106|106]]</sup> ) (Section 3.4.2). Unsustainable land management is increasing the risks from droughts, floods and dust storms (Sections 3.4.2 and 3.5). Policy actions promoting the adoption of SLM practices in dryland areas, based on both indigenous and local knowledge and modern science, and expanding alternative livelihood opportunities outside agriculture can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation, addressing desertification, with co-benefits for poverty eradication and food security ( ''high confidence'' ) (Cowie et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r107|107]]</sup> ; Liniger et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r108|108]]</sup> ; Safriel and Adeel 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r109|109]]</sup> ; Stafford-Smith et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r110|110]]</sup> ).

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