In the present, the top three environmental issues facing the Thar are water availability, land quality and dust emission. While dwindling water reserves call for urgent attention to water management, threats of global warming and population pressure are not only deteriorating the land condition, but also increasing the sand mobility and atmospheric dust load.

Despite sizeable knowledge of water conservation systems, compulsions of modern era developments have gradually turned the Thar poor so far as availability and workable traditional water harvesting systems are concerned. Sadly, it started with groundwater irrigation that turned much of the desert green.

Land Degradation and Climate Change The vulnerability of drylands is now markedly visible with acres of cropped land degraded. The 1977 Landsat MSS image, shows Ghaggar Diversion Channel bringing excess water of Ganga Canal to the interdune plains. The fertile valley of the Drishadvati palaeochannel, with crop lands depicted in blue, covering about half the image can be seen. The 2000 Landsat ETM image shows the same area where the Drishadvati palaeochannel is full of water that seeped out of the flooded interdunes. Milky white tone is indicative of the salinity developed due to waterlogging while red, indicates cropped lands, which show a steep decline from the previous image.

The arid western part of Indian subcontinent, including the western part of Rajasthan and the adjoining part of Pakistan, is likely to experience large magnitude climatic changes.