Define land degradation

• The world’s soils store more carbon than the planet’s biomass and atmosphere combined. • An increase of just 1% of the carbon stocks in the top metre of soils would be higher than the amount corresponding to the annual anthropogenic CO 2 emissions from fossil fuel burning. • Many innovations in sustainable land management are now known and recognised for their multiple environmental, social and economic benefits. • Sustainable land management can be mainstreamed in national development and conservation planning based on existing commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). • Urgent improvements are needed to monitor soil organic carbon and increase awareness of, and capacity to pursue, the many opportunities of sustainable land management. Soil is the biggest terrestrial carbon sink. The world’s soils store more carbon than the planet’s biomass and atmosphere combined. This includes soil organic carbon, which is essentially biodiversity: microbes, fungi and invertebrates, as well as root matter and decomposing vegetation. Soil carbon stocks can be increased through appropriate land management to provide many benefits besides offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. Loss of soil organic carbon is one of the principal signs of land degradation, and land degradation is one of the leading challenges for sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, and mitigating and adapting to climate change. It ...

Contributing Authors: • Timothy Crews (United States) • Martin Dallimer (United Kingdom) • Joris Eekhout (Netherlands) • Karlheinz Erb (Italy) • Eamon Haughey (Ireland) • Richard Houghton (United States) • Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal (Pakistan) • Francis X. Johnson (Sweden) • Woo-Kyun Lee (South Korea) • John Morton (United Kingdom) • Felipe Garcia Oliva (Mexico) • Jan Petzold (Germany) • Mohammad Rahimi (Iran) • Florence Renou-Wilson (Ireland) • Anna Tengberg (Sweden) • Louis Verchot (Colombia, United States) • Katharine Vincent (South Africa) Climate change, land degradation and land use are linked in a complex web of causality. One important impact of climate change on land degradation is that increasing global temperatures intensify the hydrological cycle, resulting in more intense rainfall, which is an important driver of soil erosion. This means that sustainable land management (SLM) becomes even more important with climate change. Land-use change in the form of clearing of forest for rangeland and cropland (e.g., for provision of bio-fuels), and cultivation of peat soils, is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission from both biomass and soils. Many SLM practices (e.g., agroforestry, perennial crops, organic amendments, etc.) increase carbon content of soil and vegetation cover and hence provide both local and immediate adaptation benefits, combined with global mitigation benefits in the long term, while providing many social and economic co-benefits. Avoiding, redu...

Forests cover 31% of the land area on our planet. They help people thrive and survive by, for example, purifying water and air and providing people with jobs; some 13.2 million people across the world have a job in the forest sector and another 41 million have a job that is related to the sector. Many animals also rely on forests. Forests are home to more than three-quarters of the world’s life on land. Forests also play a critical role in mitigating climate change because they act as a carbon sink—soaking up carbon dioxide that would otherwise be free in the atmosphere and contribute to ongoing changes in climate patterns. But forests around the world are under threat, jeopardizing these benefits. The threats manifest themselves in the form of deforestation and forest degradation. The main cause of deforestation is agriculture (poorly planned infrastructure is emerging as a big threat too) and the main cause of forest degradation is illegal logging. In 2019, the tropics lost close to 30 soccer fields' worth of trees every single minute. Deforestation is a particular concern in tropical rain forests because these forests are home to much of the world’s biodiversity. For example, in the Amazon around 17% of the forest has been lost in the last 50 years, mostly due to forest conversion for cattle ranching. Deforestation in this region is particularly rampant near more populated areas, roads and rivers, but even remote areas have been encroached upon when valuable mahogany, g...

Soil is the earth’s fragile skin that anchors all life on Earth. It is comprised of countless species that create a dynamic and complex ecosystem and is among the most precious resources to humans. Increased demand for agriculture commodities generates incentives to convert forests and grasslands to farm fields and pastures. The transition to agriculture from natural vegetation often cannot hold onto the soil and many of these plants, such as coffee, cotton, palm oil, soybean and wheat, can actually increase soil erosion beyond the soil’s ability to maintain itself. Half of the topsoil on the planet has been lost in the last 150 years. In addition to erosion, soil quality is affected by other aspects of agriculture. These impacts include compaction, loss of soil structure, nutrient degradation, and soil salinity. These are very real and at times severe issues. The effects of soil erosion go beyond the loss of fertile land. It has led to increased pollution and sedimentation in streams and rivers, clogging these waterways and causing declines in fish and other species. And degraded lands are also often less able to hold onto water, which can worsen flooding. Sustainable land use can help to reduce the impacts of agriculture and livestock, preventing soil degradation and erosion and the loss of valuable land to desertification. The health of soil is a primary concern to farmers and the global community whose livelihoods depend on well managed agriculture that starts with the...

• v • t • e Land degradation is a process in which the value of the Expert projections suggest that land degradation will be an important theme of the 21st century, impacting According to the The United Nations estimate that about 30% of land is degraded worldwide, and about 3.2 billion people reside in these degrading areas. Consequences [ ] There are four main ways of looking at land degradation and its impact on the environment around it: • A temporary or permanent decline in the • Action in the land's capacity to provide resources for human livelihoods. This can be measured from a base line of past land use. • Loss of • Shifting ecological risk: increased vulnerability of the environment or people to destruction or crisis. This is measured through a base line in the form of pre-existing risk of crisis or destruction. A problem with defining land degradation is that what one group of people might view as degradation, others might view as a benefit or opportunity. For example, planting crops at a location with heavy rainfall and steep slopes would create scientific and environmental concern regarding the risk of Different types [ ] In addition to the usual types of land degradation that have been known for centuries (water, wind and mechanical • pollution, often chemical, due to • • • land-use constraints associated with Overall, more than 36 types of land degradation can be assessed. All are induced or aggravated by human activities, e.g. Causes [ ] Land degradation is ...

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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. From: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001 Related terms: • Agricultural Science • Soil Erosion • Arable Land • Farm Animal • Desertification M.A. Stocking, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001 1Land Degradation: An Old Problem with New Urgency Land degradation has been advanced as ‘the single most pressing current global problem’ (O'Riordan 2000). Yet, it is an old problem (e.g., Jacks and Whyte 1939), that has undergone a series of often-emotive revivals every decade since the Dust Bowl era in the mid-West USA (e.g., Osborn 1948, Carson 1962, Commoner 1972; Blaikie and Brookfield 1986). The historical stereotype of land degradation is that it is a process ruining the planet, and a destruction caused by ignorant peasants, who will in short time reap the folly of their degrading activities. Hailey's ( 1938) African Survey called it the ‘scourge of Africa,’ providing the reader with images of sediment-choked rivers and barren hillsides. Concern about degradation, particularly the processes of soil erosion, has fuelled many campaigns to combat it, and spawned numerous institut...