The idea that irrigation is a brake on the advance of the desert is often heard, based on the erroneous association between aridity and desertification and the attraction for green landscapes. However, in parallel with the decline of traditional orchards, new highly intensive agro-industrial irrigation has been expanding for decades, causing various environmental impacts, many of them associated with desertification processes. These effects include overexploitation of aquifers, which in turn has led to the loss or degradation of springs and associated ecosystems, wetlands and other water points. This increasing aridification of the landscape must be interpreted as a desertification syndrome linked to the unsustainable use of water. The expansion of agro-industrial irrigation has led to other effects associated to desertification, such as the salinization of water and soils and the increase in erosion processes, along with other negative impacts as the occupation of natural habitats, the increase in diffuse agricultural pollution, the generation of eutrophication processes as the one affecting the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (Murcia, Spain) and the increased flood damage due to increased runoff and sediment trawling from these agro-industrial irrigations. A just water transition is required to reduce desertification associated with poor water management.