The productivity, beauty and heritage of the world's drylands are priceless, but their use is not without cost. Their limited and variable water supply leaves little margin for error. Nearly all drylands and their inhabitants are at constant risk from land degradation. The topics below describe four of these concerns: environmental degradation of the drylands, the cost of overuse of these fragile lands, the global consequences of dryland degradation, and the difficulties people face living in threatened drylands.
