Why isn't the Fertile Crescent fertile anymore?

It's fertile for the level of population present during the time periods usually thought of whence referring to that part of the earth as the fertile crescent.

>>2030920
Over-irrigation, rising sea levels and soil degradation

>>2030936

This.

Didn't climate change play a bit of a role as well? North Africa used to be a rather fertile region but it seems like most of the greenery is now gone. Is that due to the same reasons as in the Fertile Crescent?

>>2030942
The Sahara used to be greener as well, though the debate isn't settled whatever it were humans, climate or both to blame.
And it isn't just farmers, hunter-gatherers in Australia also turned much greenery into desert. And here again it isn't fully settled if it is climate or humans or both.

>>2030954
the current "consensus" (still debated, there is a lot of truth to it though) is a tilt in the earths axis.
>>2030936
actually slightly the opposite, its under-irrigated compared to what it was like before the mongols and turks came through.

deforestation and desertification.

>>2030920
Islam

>>2030954
It was almost certainly a combination of the Arab tribes like the bumfuck Banu Hilal being shit at agriculture and ruining the area and climate change that desertified the Sahara. Previously Africa (as in what is now Tunisia) had been one of the richest parts of the Roman Empire, fertile lands had stretched far inland and peoples like the Garamentes had managed to preserve prosperous, powerful communities deep in the Sahara desert.

>>2032681
They could only move into the area because it had been desertifying for centuries since those Roman times.

File: fucking deserts how do they work.jpg (94KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

94KB, 960x720px

>>2030954
>And it isn't just farmers, hunter-gatherers in Australia also turned much greenery into desert. And here again it isn't fully settled if it is climate or humans or both.

>>2032681
>It was almost certainly a combination of the Arab tribes like the bumfuck Banu Hilal being shit at agriculture and ruining the area and climate change that desertified the Sahara.

Do you people know what desert belts are?

>>2032312
>actually slightly the opposite, its under-irrigated compared to what it was like before the mongols and turks came through.
No, the Mongols aren't to blame. Millenniums of irrigation salinated the soil.

>>2032695
>They could only move into the area because it had been desertifying for centuries since those Roman times.

The Arabs tended to take the most prosperous and fertile areas, like the area around Tunis, Nile Valley and Euphrates delta.

>>2032702
>Do you people know what desert belts are?

I meant help it enroach further north towards the Mediterranean coast.