‘Only Desert in Europe’ Spreading Across Southwestern Russia, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 11 – In northern Dagestan, Kalmykia, and adjoining Russian, “the only desert in Europe” is rapidly spreading as a result of global warming, growing human consumption of water, and poor agricultural practices, experts at the Moscow Institute of Oceanology and the Institute of Land Sciences of the Southern Federal University say.

            Tragically, instead of launching a full-scale attack on the problem, the people in the region have done little because the government has not funded programs that do exist to the necessary level and private entrepreneurs have not acted on their own, Aleksey Baliyev, a Stoletiye commentator says (stoletie.ru/ekonomika/vmesto_zemli__pesok_106.htm).

            The desertification of this enormous territory, he says on the basis of the research at the two Russian academic centers, is not only reducing agricultural production across the once-rich region and even forcing the outmigration of residents who no longer have access to sufficient potable water to survive but contributing to the dying of the Caspian Sea.

            Water flowing in the rivers from the north evaporates or is absorbed by the newly desertified territories and so does not replenish the water of the Caspian now being lost by evaporation and filtration. Because of these broader consequences, any serious anti-desertification effort must be led by the government.

            For background on desertification in Russia in recent decades, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/conflicts-over-water-intensify-in.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/climate-change-and-official.html and  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/because-of-global-warming-550-square.html.