desertificationn.

1968 H. N. le Hourerou in Annales Algériennes de Géographie III. vi. 6 (heading) Désertisation ou désertification?]

1974 Collier's Year Bk. 1974 555/2 The governing council..established as priorities the concerns of the developing countries..health, land, water, and ‘desertification’.

1977 Observer 28 Aug. 4/1 The small circles of desert around waterholes and settlements join up and spread outwards, until a new desert has been created... Desertification is overwhelmingly a man-made process.

1979 Nature 4 Jan. 2/2 As increasingly marginal land is brought under cultivation, deforestation and desertification will increase.

1980 J. Mercer Canary Islanders 8 The approach of the Pleistocene ice to the north and of desertification to the south brought an end to the Tethys flora.

1984 Times 17 Feb. 6/1 A reassessment of the areas threatened by desertification now indicates that 135 million people live in areas severely affected.

1980 Times 5 June 25/4 Excessively low productivity of the desertified centre.

1982 Christian Sci. Monitor 28 June 6/3 Altogether, 1,490,000 square kilometers, or 15.5 percent of all China's land, is arid, and of this 328,000 square kilometers, 3.4 percent, is desertified.