Desert cities are living on borrowed time

the report proposes the Sahara deserts become the powerhouses of the next century, capturing the world's solar energy and potentially exporting electricity across continents. Sahara could, with today's technology, generate enough electricity for the whole world.
there is a problem: The rising water tables beneath irrigated soils are leading to more salinisation, and for example the Tarm river basin in China, it says, has lost more than 5,000 square miles of farmland to salinisation in a period of 30 years.
Many country have used water from the desert very unwisely.
By the end of the century rainfall drop 10-20% and the heat and lower rainfall are being compounded by the melting of glaciers in mountainous regions.
Development in the next 100 years is largely contingent on what happens to the climate.Deserts are threatened as never before by climate change, overexploitation of water and salinisation and we risk losing not only astounding landscapes and ancient cultures but also wild species that may hold keys to our survival."