Land Degradation and Conservation

Introduction

We have already studied about land degradation and conservation in Biogeography. Here we will mostly focus on land degradation and conservation from environment point of view. However, before starting let’s revise a bit what we had studied:

Soil Degradation

• Soil degradation is the decline in soil quality due to unsustainable human activities like farming, overgrazing, and industrialization.
• It occurs in three forms: physical erosion, chemical damage (salinity, pollution), and biological loss (organic matter depletion).
• Consequences include reduced food security, polluted water, biodiversity loss, floods, and desertification.
• Restoration is possible through crop rotation, organic farming, afforestation, and sustainable irrigation practices.

Causes of Soil Degradation

• Land degradation in India is driven by deforestation, overgrazing, faulty farming methods, soil salinity, desertification, and waterlogging.
• Deforestation from shifting cultivation, mining, plantations, and urban expansion causes soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and climate disruption.
• Overgrazing, wrong ploughing, lack of crop rotation, and excessive irrigation weaken soil, leading to erosion, salinity, and reduced fertility.
• Consequences include declining agricultural productivity, food insecurity, droughts, floods, and ecosystem collapse, but solutions like afforestation, crop rotation, sustainable irrigation, and drainage systems can restore soil health.

Soil Erosion

• Soil erosion is the removal of fertile topsoil by natural forces like wind, water, glaciers, and landslides, often worsened by human activities.
• Types include raindrop/splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill and gully erosion, streambank erosion, coastal erosion, glacial erosion, and landslides.
• Causes range from intense rainfall, strong winds, soil type, and slope to deforestation, overgrazing, faulty farming, drainage diversion, and infrastructure development.
• Effects include loss of soil fertility, flooding, siltation of rivers, reduced groundwater recharge, ecosystem damage, and increased landslides.
• Preventive measures include afforestation, terracing, contour plowing, cover crops, windbreaks, controlled grazing, and coastal protection.

Soil Conservation

• Soil conservation is essential to prevent erosion, maintain fertility, and ensure sustainable agriculture.
• Techniques include sustainable farming practices (crop rotation, strip cropping, intercropping) and structural measures (contour ploughing, bunding, terracing, rock dams).
• Protective methods like mulching, shelterbelts, windbreaks, and sand fences safeguard soil from rain and wind.
• Harmful practices such as shifting cultivation, overgrazing, and poorly planned infrastructure must be checked, while afforestation and water management (dams, forest cover targets) provide long-term resilience.

Increasing Degraded Land in India

Land is not just soil beneath our feet; it is the foundation of food security, livelihoods, biodiversity, and ecological stability. When land degrades, its ability to support life and economic activity weakens.

According to the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas 2021, nearly 30% of India’s total geographical area falls under the category of degraded land. This means that almost one-third of the country’s land is affected by processes such as soil erosion, salinisation, waterlogging, vegetation loss, and desertification.

State-wise Variation

Land degradation in India is unevenly distributed:

• Severely affected states (more than 50%):
  Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, and Goa
  These regions face intense pressure due to arid climate, mining, urbanisation, deforestation, and unsustainable land-use practices.
• Relatively less affected states (below 10%):
  Kerala, Assam, Mizoram, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Arunachal Pradesh
  Here, better rainfall, vegetation cover, or alluvial soils help slow degradation—though risks still exist.

This contrast shows that land degradation is not inevitable, but strongly linked to human intervention and governance quality.

India’s Restoration Commitments and the Gap

In 2019, during UNCCD COP14, India enhanced its ambition:

• Restoration target increased from 21 million hectares to 26 million hectares by 2030.

However, progress has been slow and constrained:

• Still, India is far from the revised target.
• The COVID-19 pandemic severely limited financial and administrative capacity.
• As a result, the Ministry of Rural Development scaled down its achievable target to 4.95 million hectares by 2025–26.

This shortfall created a policy dilemma:
👉 How can India meet international commitments despite fiscal and institutional constraints?

Policy Solution: Convergence with MGNREGS

To address this challenge, the government proposed convergence with MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme).

Why MGNREGS?

MGNREGS is not just an employment programme—it is also a natural resource regeneration tool.

Already permitted activities under land development include:

• Ridge area treatment
• Drainage line treatment
• Soil and moisture conservation
• Rainwater harvesting
• Nursery raising and afforestation
• Horticulture and pasture development

Earlier, these were primarily funded through the Department of Land Resources.

What is Changing?

• States are now encouraged to undertake these activities using MGNREGS funds, which cover:
  • Wage component (employment generation)
  • Material component (physical assets)
• Current allocation: ₹8,134 crore for 4.95 million hectares
• MGNREGS budget (2022–23): ₹73,000 crore

Expected Outcome

According to the Ministry’s estimates:

• Convergence with MGNREGS can help treat about 30% more land
• This approach ensures:
  • Employment generation
  • Ecological restoration
  • Cost-effectiveness
  • Decentralised implementation

In essence, it converts a welfare scheme into an environmental solution.

Global Efforts to Combat Land Degradation

United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD)

• Established: 1994
• Nature: The only legally binding international framework to address desertification and drought
• Parties: 197 (196 countries + European Union)
• Core principles:
  • Participation of local communities
  • Partnership among stakeholders
  • Decentralisation of decision-making

The UNCCD promotes Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)—a balance where land degradation is offset by restoration.

Bonn Challenge

• Launched: 2011 by Germany and IUCN
• Goal:
  • 150 million hectares restored by 2020
  • 350 million hectares by 2030
• The 150-million-hectare milestone was already surpassed in pledges by 2017.

This initiative focuses on landscape-level restoration, integrating forests, agriculture, and livelihoods.

Great Green Wall Initiative

• Launched: 2007 by the African Union
• Coverage: 22 African countries across the Sahel
• Targets by 2030:
  • Restore 100 million hectares of degraded land
  • Sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon
  • Create 10 million green jobs

It highlights how ecological restoration can simultaneously address climate change, poverty, and migration.

Indian Initiatives Against Land Degradation

National-Level Land Degradation Mapping

• Conducted by ISRO under the Natural Resources Census (NRC) mission
• Uses:
  • 1:50,000 scale mapping
  • 23 m resolution multi-temporal and multi-spectral IRS data
• Purpose: Scientific assessment and policy planning

Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India

• Published by Space Applications Centre (SAC), ISRO
• Key features:
  • State-wise degraded land data for 2018–19
  • Change analysis over 15 years (2003–05 to 2018–19)

This atlas provides the evidence base for national action.

India and UNCCD

• India is a signatory to UNCCD
• Hosted COP14 in September 2019
• National commitments:
  • Achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)
  • Restore 26 million hectares by 2030
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC)

India and the Bonn Challenge

• Pledge made at UNFCCC COP 2015 (Paris):
  • Restore 13 million hectares by 2020
  • Additional 8 million hectares by 2030

Flagship Schemes Supporting Land Restoration

India follows a convergent and integrated approach through schemes such as:

• Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana – risk mitigation for farmers
• Soil Health Card Scheme – promotes sustainable soil management
• Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana – water-use efficiency

These schemes indirectly but effectively address land degradation by improving soil quality, water management, and agricultural sustainability.

Global Land Outlook Report, 2022

According to the 2nd edition of the Global Land Outlook (GLO) report, humans have breached four out of nine planetary boundaries.

GLO:

• It is a United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s (UNCCD) flagship publication, whose 1st edition was launched in 2017 at the UNCCD COP13 (China).
• It underscores land system challenges, showcases transformative policies and practices, and points to cost-effective pathways to scale up sustainable land and water management.

Highlights of the report:

 Importance of Land: It is the operative link between biodiversity loss and climate change, which means restoring land is crucial to solving interconnected crises.

What are planetary boundaries?

• The environmental thresholds that establish a “safe operating space for humanity” are known as planetary boundaries.
• The nine planetary boundaries are:
  • Biodiversity loss
  • Land-use change
  • Climate change
  • Nitrogen and phosphorus (geochemical) cycles
  • Freshwater use
  • Ocean acidification
  • Chemical pollution
  • Atmospheric loading
  • Ozone depletion

Threats:

• Humans have already altered more than 70% of the earth’s land area from its natural state.
• Of the 9 planetary boundaries, climate change, biodiversity loss, land-use change, and geochemical cycles have already been exceeded.

Causes:

• Worldwide, food systems (including agriculture) are responsible for 80% of deforestation and 70% of freshwater use and are the single greatest cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss.
• Land degradation, desertificationand drought pose a great risk to global food security as well.
  • Land degradation is the reduction or loss of biological and economic productivity of land and its constituents: soil, water, and biodiversity.

Impact: This has contributed significantly to global warming and environmental degradation → leading to a rise in poverty, hunger, inequality, zoonotic disease transmission, etc.

Recommendations:  

Effective land restoration:

• The report defines land restoration as a continuum of activities that
  • Avoid (By eliminating practices that degrade the environment, ranging from land and ecosystem conversion to socio-economic inequalities)
  • Reduce (By adopting sustainable land and water management practices) and
  • Reverse (By revitalising soil, watersheds, and other elements of natural ecosystems) land degradation with the explicit objective of meeting human needs and improving ecology.
• The global annual cost of land restoration is expected at ~$300 billion by 2030.
• Each dollar invested is estimated to return between $7 and $30 in economic benefits, moving towards an equitable and sustainable future.

Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN): LDN is a state whereby the quantity and quality of land resources required to maintain ecosystem functions and services and improve food security are steady or growing.

Integrated land use planning:

• Identifying the best combination of land uses → sustainably meeting the needs of the stakeholders as well as preserving the land resources.
• A cost-effective approach is to identify landscapes while maximising benefits, such as in global restoration hotspots.

Regenerative agricultural practices: Like terrace farming and rainwater harvesting → help restore land, increase crop yields, reduce GHG emissions, sequester atmospheric carbon, and create meaningful livelihoods.

Inclusive and responsible governance: It is crucial to facilitate the shift to sustainable land use and management practices.