Geoinformatics for nourishing drylands

Abstract

At a global perspective drylands : - Cover 41 percent of the Earth’s surface - Support 30 percent of the world’s population - Support 50 percent of the world’s livestock - Grow 44 percent of the world’s food - Are home to 93 percent of the world’s undernourished people Prevalent chronic poverty – with 400m living on < US$1 per day - lose 23 ha per minute to drought and desertification – a loss of 20 million tons of potential grain production every year.

Adoption and out scaling of innovative technologies such as Geoinformatics can tackle dry lands and climate change related issues and thus, improve biodiversity, increase crop and livestock production, change socio-economics markets and policy etc .