What is Land Degradation?

The land and soil face many difficulties like deforestation, erosion, flooding, water logging, urbanization and salination. Around 33 percent of the land is going to be wasted at the end of this century. Soil erosion occurs everywhere in the world. It is more common in the Australia, India, Spain, U.S.A and Africa. The air and water erosion affects around 40 thousand hectares of land in a year. The top soil lost is the maximum. It makes around 20 percent of the total loss. Our country has the largest livestock and it leads to more of grazing. It leads to the soil erosion. The erosion is prevented by the crop rotation, mulching which leads to decrease in the evaporation and increase in the absorption, presence of suitable outlet channels which can carry the water, sowing of certain crops which check the erosion and include the grasses, groundnut, pulses and berseem. The planting of tress also checks the erosion. The control on grazing and the terracing of lands which decrease the speed of water also keeps a check on the erosion. The contour bunding has an ability to hold the rain water and control erosion. The burn agriculture along with the slash is quite common in the tribal areas. It occurs in the tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and Asia. The tress is cut and is burnt and the crops are raised on the ash formed. This phenomenon is known as jhuming and it occurs in the jhum forests in the north east India. The process is not useful as the jhuming is done frequently. The water jhuming is done in less than a decade and it destroys the forest and lead to soil erosion. The desertification is the process of change of normal soil in a desert. It occurs due to the deforestation, soil erosion, grazing and shifting. The deserts in the world are made by man. The land is degraded by the development activities of humans which include the dams, canals, railways, buses and industries. The land degradation is prevented by the crop rotation, mulching which leads to decrease in the evaporation and increase in the absorption, presence of suitable outlet channels which can carry the water, sowing of certain crops which check the erosion and include the grasses, groundnut, pulses and berseem. The planting of tress also checks the land degradation. The control on grazing and the terracing of lands which decrease the speed of water also keeps a check on the land degradation. The contour bunding has an ability to hold the rain water and control the degradation of land. The salinity must also be checked at the regular intervals and should be treated with the leaching where the ground water is not sufficient.