The area is known for having been used for many film shoots, especially westerns, but there is a lesser known and much more important side to Tabernas: its soil is a huge natural laboratory for scientists, one where they can study soil erosion - the process by which soil is lost in a given place, primarily produced by wind and water - and observe how it is affected by climate change. This is vital in order to find ways to reverse the processes of soil degradation suffered by the planet due not only to climate change, but also, and in a very significant way, to human activities.

We are heading towards an expansion of the existing deserts and the creation of new deserts as a result of human activities in places that should not be deserts. Desertization and desertification: these are two words that may seem to mean the same thing, but do not. The big difference lies in the cause of the loss of soil fertility.

Desertization is the natural and gradual process of expansion of deserts caused mainly by geomorphological and climatic factors; there is no human intervention here. On the other hand, desertification, is a process of land degradation induced by human activity. It is on the latter that we must focus our attention if we want to find strategies to fight it.

Desertification is one of the key environmental problems affecting Spain. Seventy-four percent of the territory - almost three quarters - could be affected to a greater or lesser extent, and 20% of these soils are already considered degraded.

This process of desertification has accelerated in recent years. The main drivers are the intensification of agriculture and livestock farming, overexploitation of water resources, depopulation in rural areas, forest fires, and climate change.

In 2022, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition approved the "National Strategy to Combat Desertification in Spain" with the aim of "contributing to the conservation and improvement of the natural capital associated with land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas of Spain and moving towards land degradation neutrality through the prevention and mitigation of desertification and the restoration of degraded areas."

And this is where Almeria and Tabernas, its desert and laboratory, might provide solutions to tackle the problem. With 35% of the province at risk of desertification, it is one of the few places where in recent decades concrete actions have been developed to curb its expansion. The use of ancestral techniques such as "batales" to reduce soil loss in mountain areas due to rain, the use of plants adapted to water scarcity or impoverished soils on cultivated land, water accumulation systems such as ponds and cisterns together with the use of localized irrigation systems have proved to be effective in the battle against desertification.

An arid climate has been the norm in a significant part of the Iberian Peninsula, but that does not mean that conditions are unchanging. Longer and longer summers with record temperatures and widespread droughts will become ever more frequent, and the areas of the peninsula experiencing severe water stress will increase. We will not be able to stop deserts; there are impacts of climate change that are already difficult to avoid, but we can stop desertification.

We are still in time to restore nature and soils.