Desertification and Land Degradation GS: 3 "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• The Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has provided useful information about land degradation in India citing the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas.

 

Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India

• Space Applications Centre (SAC), ISRO has released out an inventory and monitoring of desertification of the entire country in 2016.
• This Atlas presents state-wise desertification and land degradation status maps depicting land use, process of degradation and severity level.
• This was prepared using IRS Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data of 2011-13 and 2003-05 time frames in GIS environment.
• Area under desertification / land degradation for the both time frames and changes are reported state-wise as well as for the entire country.

 

Status of land degradation in India:

• According to State of India’s Environment 2017 report, nearly 30 per cent of India is degraded or facing desertification. Of India’s total geographical area of 328.72 million hectares (MHA), 96.4 MHA is under desertification.
• In eight states—Rajasthan, Delhi, Goa, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura and Himachal Pradesh—around 40 to 70 per cent of land has undergone desertification. More to it, 26 of 29 Indian states have reported an increase in the area undergoing desertification in the past 10 years.
• Loss of soil cover, mainly due to rainfall and surface runoff, is one of the biggest reasons for desertification. It is responsible for 10.98 per cent of desertification in the country. Water erosion is observed in both hot and cold desert areas, across various land covers and with varying levels of severity.

 

 

What is land degradation?

• Land degradation is defined as the temporary or permanent decline in the productive capacity of the land, and the diminution of the productive potential, including its major land uses (e.g., rain-fed arable, irrigation, forests), its farming systems (e.g., smallholder subsistence), and its value as an economic resource.

• Desertification and land degradation are major threats to agricultural productivity in India. According to the State of India’s Environment 2017, desertification has increased to 90 per cent of states in India.
• Out of the total 328.72 million hectares (MHA) of India’s total geographical area, 96.4 MHA are under desertification.
• In the past 10 years, 26 of 29 Indian states have reported an increase in the area undergoing desertification. 
• The highest increase in land degradation is observed in Lunglei district of Mizoram (5.81 percent increase from 2003-05 to 2011-13). Rajasthan accounts for the most desertified land (23 Mha), followed by Gujarat, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir (13 Mha each) and Odisha and Andhra Pradesh (5 Mha each). Around, 68 per cent of the country is prone to drought, and this will be further heightened because of the impact of climate change, particularly in dry lands.
• According to the fifth National Report on Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought, which has been submitted to the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification by India, the government has conceded that land degradation continues to be a major environmental concern for the country with consequent implications for sustainable development. 

 

Desertification: Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is a significant global ecological and environmental problem.”   Difference between Land Degradation and Desertification Land degradation refers to any diminishment of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning that negatively impacts the provisioning of ecosystem services and ultimately impedes poverty eradication and sustainable development. Land degradation is caused by human activities and natural processes and is being exacerbated by the adverse impacts of climate change. Those lands that have undergone irreversible degradation are called wasteland. When degradation occurs in arid, semiarid and dry sub-humid areas where productivity is constrained by water availability, it is called desertification.

 

UNCCD definition

• UNCCD defines land degradation as a “reduction or loss, in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas, of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of rain-fed cropland, irrigated cropland, or range, pasture, forest, and woodlands resulting from land uses or from a process or combination of processes, including processes arising from human activities and habitation patterns, such as

• soil erosion caused by wind and/or water
• deterioration of the physical, chemical, and biological or economic properties of soil; and
• Long-term loss of natural vegetation”.

 

Classification:

• Land degradation (LD) can be broadly divided into physical, chemical & biological degradation  
• Physical degradation is erosion, soil organic carbon loss, change in soil’s physical structure-e.g. compaction, waterlogging. Globally soil erosion is the most important LD process resulting in removal of topsoil. Soil productivity is depleted through reduced rooting depth, loss of plant nutrients and physical loss of topsoil
•  Chemical degradation refers to leaching, salinisation, fertility depletion, acidification, nutrient imbalances 
• Biological degradation implies the loss of vegetation, rangeland degradation and loss in biodiversity including soil organic matter

 

Various move for land conservation

• National Afforestation & Eco Development Board (NAEB) Division of the MoEFCC is implementing the “National Afforestation Programme (NAP)” for ecological restoration of degraded forest areas.
• Various other schemes like Green India Mission, fund accumulated under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), Nagar Van Yojana etc. also help in checking degradation and restoration of forest landscape.
• MoEF&CC also promote tree outside forests realizing that the country has a huge potential for increasing its Trees Outside Forest (TOF) area primarily through expansion of agroforestry, optimum use of wastelands and vacant lands.

 

Government initiatives for land degration:

• To fight this menace, India will convert degraded land of nearly 50 lakh (5 million) hectares to fertile land in the next 10 years (between 2021 and 2030).
• 5 million hectares are part of the Bonn Challenge commitment.
  1. “Bonn Challenge” is a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030.
  2. At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)Conference of the Parties (COP) 2015 in Paris, India joined the voluntary Bonn Challenge and pledged to bring into restoration 13 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020, and an additional 8 million hectares by 2030. India’s pledge is one of the largest in Asia.
• The government sees schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Soil Health Card Scheme, and Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana as tools to tackle the problem of land degradation.

• Also, India, for the first time, will be hosting the 14^th session of the Conference of Parties (COP-14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) from 2^nd-13^th September 2019 in Greater Noida.
• The UNCCD was entered into force in December 1996. It is one of the three Rio Conventions along with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
  • India became a signatory to the UNCCD on 14^th October 1994 and ratified it on 17^th December 1996.
  • The main objective of the convention is to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought in countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification.

 

 

Various institutions for land conservation

• Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (IISWC): Bio-engineering measures to check soil erosion due to run-off of rain water
• Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur: Sand dune stabilization and shelter belt technology to check wind erosion
• Council through Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal: Reclamation technology, sub-surface drainage, bio-drainage, agroforestry interventions and salt tolerant crop varieties to improve the productivity of saline, sodic and waterlogged soils in the country