Land degradation

The decrease in the quality of the land as a result of various human activities is called land degradation

Illustration of land degradation

Land is natural wealth. Living organism walks over the land and live their life successfully under the support of the land.

Rocks, sand, minerals, humus,  and all dust particles together make the land.

Land is prone to various natural disturbing forces like rainfall, wind, slope. Many activities human like practice of agriculture, construction for various developmental processes, urbanization and mining are huge factors that contribute of the loss of land.

Sohra must the wettest place on earth
during summer but its too
the driest during dry season

In areas where there is too much rainfall land will not be fertile. It is degraded as it loss its capacity to support plants and animal lives.

Extreme degradation of land

In dry areas like in the Middle east where the sun is so strong and the temperature is so high the land there too is unsupportive for life. In these type of areas the wind and great temperature are major factors that turn the land surface inside out.

But those are natural phenomenon which we can do very little to abate effects.

When we talk of Land degradation we talk about the various activities of man that directly or indirectly led to the poor performance of the land.

Wind and heat too cause degradation
of land

Lot of land become unavailable for general use due to construction of factories, town, railways, roads, sport facility, recreation and dams. As towns and cities are sprawling more land will be used for their expansion. As the economic activities of the people expand the land become scarce and costly.

Farmers need more land to plant crops to produce to support the ever increasing urban population.

All these process contribute directly or indirectly to the decrease in quality of the land.