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I understood that the stack-exchange has no site about ecology so I decided to post here. I am sure that in the childhood you all have read a lot of fairy tails and fiction about imaginable countries where absolutely weird things happen so perhaps you will be able to help me.

I live in Ukraine where officials decided to gradually remove all the grass from the soil in the urban areas. They do it by non-stop cutting the grass with gasoline trimmers and of course they do not water the lawns at all. This happens everywhere in this country for 3 years. In some areas there are no any precipitation at summer at all so the grass already started to disappear, say for about 50% ~ 70% of surface. Before artificial overgrazing we had high grass everywhere in the town, 100% surface was green.

So these actions are equivalent of the process usually called "overgrazing". I think there are a lot of scientific articles that describe how overgrazing leads to desertification.

What I need now is the scientific article that describes the consequences of such urban desertification. But if I use this phrase for search I get something related to social problems.

The question is what will happen to the environment in terms of dust, temperature and humidity and how these changes will affect humans and trees. Thus I simply ask for help, please recommend me some ecological article or some keywords for this situation.

Illustrations for the situation are here:

https://travagrass.wordpress.com/desertification_en/

Aleksey
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  • Is it possible the officials are trying to maintain the grass, but just mis-managing it? If their intention actually is to completely remove the grass, what's the next step in the plan? Will they leave it as bare dirt? Will they plant something else? Will they use machinery to compact the dirt so nothing can grow there? – csk Mar 06 '21 at 18:41
  • "Is it possible the officials are trying to maintain the grass, but just mis-managing it?" Their excuse and pretext is the fight against the Ambrósia artemisiifólia and the ticks – Aleksey Mar 07 '21 at 05:24
  • "If their intention actually is to completely remove the grass" Seemingly not. – Aleksey Mar 07 '21 at 05:24
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    "Will they leave it as bare dirt?" Yes. – Aleksey Mar 07 '21 at 05:26
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    "Will they plant something else?" No. – Aleksey Mar 07 '21 at 05:26
  • "Will they use machinery to compact the dirt so nothing can grow there?" No – Aleksey Mar 07 '21 at 05:27
  • Please use the [edit] link to add details to your question. – csk Mar 07 '21 at 19:15
  • Ecology seems to be on-topic on [Biology SE](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/ecology) – kjetil b halvorsen Mar 08 '21 at 00:04
  • kjetil, thank you for idea to place this in Biology with the tag "ecology", perhaps I will repost this question with more details there. – Aleksey Mar 08 '21 at 08:49
  • I hope I am not politically incorrect, but : That seems to be the communist way. I noticed the same "landscape" technique in Ekaterinburg, Chelbynisk, and Taganrog in the early 90's. – blacksmith37 Mar 09 '21 at 16:31
  • In the early 90's there started the new era, it is more like "anti-communist" when people begin to try to do everything another way then it was in USSR which ceased to exist. Frankly speaking this trend still persists in Ukraine now. – Aleksey Mar 10 '21 at 07:55

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Desertification is a specific term relating usually to hot, arid regions where land has been completely cleared. You don't say where you are, but unless you are talking about massive hectares or acres of land being totally cleared (which you likely are not, since you mention urban area) it's unlikely. Grass turf often dies away in hot dry summers, but then starts growing again when rain arrives. The other factor is the amount of water that may be required to keep everything green and growing - water is a scarce resource in many parts of the world, so that has to be considered too. It is wasteful to water lawns; in arid regions, it's better to plant with drought resistant plants instead for soil cover. Info on desertification here https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/desertification

Bamboo
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  • It is Ukraine, south-east has +30C without rain all the summer. I say about 50% ~ 70% of surface not covered with grass - that means that there is no grass at all even when it is rainy like in spring or autumn. – Aleksey Mar 06 '21 at 16:02
  • Before artificial overgrazing we had the high grass everywhere in the town, 100% surface was green. – Aleksey Mar 06 '21 at 16:05
  • The question is what will happen to the environment in terms of dust, temperature and humidity and how these changes will affect humans and trees. – Aleksey Mar 06 '21 at 16:06
  • I note you menton a problem with ticks - I doubt they are trying to kill the grass, its probably being over mown to prevent long growth to reduce the tick population. – Bamboo Mar 07 '21 at 17:27
  • Yes, they insist that it is because of Ambrósia artemisiifólia and the ticks. But in fact of course it is cheaper for them to kill the grass then care about it. – Aleksey Mar 10 '21 at 07:56