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Hot Desert Systems and Landscapes

Desertification on the Yatenga plateau, Burkina Faso

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  • Component 1

Overview

Desertification on the Yatenga plateau of Burkina Faso, covering its physical and human causes, the impact on farming families, and how zaï pits, stone lines and farmer-managed regeneration have restored land and built resilience to drought.

What you need to know

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Process

What physical causes contributed to desertification in Yatenga?

Process

What were the impacts of desertification on people in Yatenga?

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What does the Yatenga case study show about sustainable development in dryland areas?

Questions from this subtopic

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  1. 1

    Where is Yatenga and why is it a desertification case study?

    Model answer

    Yatenga is a province on the Mossi plateau of northern Burkina Faso in the Sahel, where land became severely degraded during the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s.

  2. 2

    What physical causes contributed to desertification in Yatenga?

    Model answer

    Repeated droughts and lower, more variable rainfall reduced vegetation cover, leaving soils exposed to erosion and hard surface crusting.

  3. 3

    What human causes contributed to desertification in Yatenga?

    Model answer

    A growing population shortened fallow periods, cut trees for firewood and increased grazing pressure, so soils lost organic matter and vegetation could not recover.

  4. 4

    What were the impacts of desertification on people in Yatenga?

    Model answer

    Crop yields and food supplies fell, and many young people migrated to towns or to Côte d'Ivoire in search of work.

  5. 5

    What are zaï pits?

    Model answer

    Small planting pits dug into crusted soil before the rains and filled with manure or compost, which collect runoff and concentrate water and nutrients around crops or tree seedlings.

  6. 6

    How did Yacouba Sawadogo improve the zaï technique in Yatenga?

    Model answer

    From around 1980 he widened the pits and added manure, which attracted termites that broke up the soil, and grew a forest of about 40 hectares on land that had been barren.

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