Abstract
Objectives
Desertification affected more than 24% of Colombia’s land mass in 2012. The study aims to establish the singular impact of desertification on under-five mortality in Colombia.
Methods
Descriptive statistics and multivariate logit regressions are applied to the population of live births and under-five deaths in Colombia 2008–2011.
Results
Children have a higher probability to die in rural communities and among mothers with low education who also have inferior health insurance. Controlling for those, desertification below about 50% of the land, lowers child mortality and increases it after that percentage. The impact of extraction of hydrocarbons is 12.45, metals 5.73 and others 4.91 times higher in municipalities with more than 50% of desertification territory. Rural areas with high desertification have 2.25 times higher risk of mortality due to malnutrition.
Conclusions
In the short term, when mines have less or no effect on desertification, living conditions may improve and reduce child mortality. In the long term, however, as desertification intensifies affecting the ecosystem, child mortality increases. More research is needed, and policy formulated accordingly.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
CORPOGUAJIRA (2012) Plan de Acción CORPOGUAJIRA 2012-2015. CORPOGUAJIRA, La Guajira, p 237
Delbiso TD, Rodriguez-Llanes JM, Donneau AF, Speybroeck N, Guha-Sapir D (2017) Drought, conflict and children’s undernutrition in Ethiopia 2000–2013: a meta-analysis. Bull World Health Organ 95(2):94–102. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.16.172700
Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE), Gobierno de Colombia (2017) División política administrativa de Colombia—DIVIPOLA. Retrieved 15 December 2017. http://geoportal.dane.gov.co:8084/Divipola/
Etter A, McAlpine C, Possingham H (2008) Historical patterns and drivers of landscape change in Colombia since 1500: a regionalized spatial approach. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 98:2–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045600701733911
FAO (2011) Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ROMA, p 64. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6361e.pdf
Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) (2006) Resource mobilization and the status of funding of activities related to land degradation, Washington DC. https://rmportal.net/library/content/frame/resource-mobilization-and-the-status-of-funding-of-activities-related-to-land-degradation/view
Hassan R, Scholes R, Ash N (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: current state and trends: findings of the condition and trends working group, vol 1. Island Press, Washington
IDEAM (2010) Segunda Comunicación Nacional ante la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático. IDEAM, Bogotá, D.C
IDEAM, IGAC, Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH), Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras José Benito Vives De Andréis (Invemar), Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas Sinchi (I. Sinchi), Intituto de Investigaciones Ambientales del Pacifico (IIAP) (2007) Ecosistemas continentales, costeros y marinos de Colombia. Bogotá D.C.: Instituo de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales, Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi, Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Instituo de Investigaciones Ambientales del Pacífico Jhon von Neumann, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras Andréis e Instituto Amazonico de Investigaciones Científicas Sinchi, p 152
IGAC (2008) Biomas por Departamento. Escala 1:500000. República de Colombia. (informe de gestión), Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi, Bogotá, D.C., p 160. http://www2.igac.gov.co/igac_web/UserFiles/File/GESTION_INSTITUCIONAL_2009/Informe_Gestion_2008_IGAC.pdf
Jaramillo-Mejia MC (2016) Situación de la Mortalidad Infantil en Colombia. Universidad de Granada, Granada
Jaramillo-Mejía M, Chernichovsky D, Jiménez-Moleón JJ (2013) Brechas Regionales de la Mortalidad Infantil en Colombia. Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y salud Pública, 30(4):551–559. http://www.ins.gob.pe/insvirtual/images/artrevista/pdf/rpmesp2013.v30.n4.a3.pdf
Koohafkan P, Stewart BA (2008) Water and cereals in drylands. Routledge, Abingdon
Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial (2005) Plan de Acción Nacional, Lucha contra la Desertificación y la Sequia en Colombia (PAN). Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial, Bogoá, D.C., p 138
National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) (2012) Types of Drought. Retrieved 31 May 2018. http://www.drought.unl.edu
Profamilia (2011) Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud. ENDS 2010. Retrieved 4 February 2013. http://www.profamilia.org.co/encuestas/Profamilia/Profamilia/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=9
Reynolds JF (2001) Desertification. In: Levin SA (ed) Encyclopedia of biodiversity. Elsevier, New York, pp 61–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-226865-2/00068-7
Sánchez R, Gómez Sánchez C, Palacios Fernández A, Otero García J, Cocomá Arciniega N, Bejarano Soto MC (2012) Programa Nacional de Monitorio y Seguimiento de la Degradación de Suelos y Tierras en Colombia. Bogotá D.C
Sena A, Barcellos C, Freitas C, Corvalan C (2014) Managing the health impacts of drought in Brazil. Int J Environ Res Public Health 11(10):10737–10751. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph111010737
Stanke C, Kerac M, Prudhomme C, Medlock J, Murray V (2013) Health effects of drought: a systematic review of the evidence. PLoS Curr. https://doi.org/10.1371/currents.dis.7a2cee9e980f91ad7697b570bcc4b004
Sternberg T, Edwards M (2017) Desert dust and health: a Central Asian review and steppe case study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14111342
UNDP (2009) Overcoming barriers: human mobility and development. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they do not have conflict of interest.
Ethical statement
The data used in this paper were not collected from human subjects, so it did not require ethical approval. The availability of data was based on an agreement between Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE) and Universidad Icesi, and it did not include any identification of people; thus, it remains anonymous.
Additional information
This article is part of the special issue “Environmental and health equity.”
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jaramillo-Mejía, M.C., Chernichovsky, D. Impact of desertification and land degradation on Colombian children. Int J Public Health 64, 67–73 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-018-1144-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-018-1144-0