CBSE(NCERT) GRADE 12 GEOGRAPHY 2024 SET4

Land Degradation The pressure on agricultural land increases not only due to the limited availability but also by deterioration of quality of agricultural land. Soil erosion, waterlogging, salinisation and alkalinisation of land lead to land degradation. What happens if land is consistently used without managing its fertility ? Land is degraded and productivity declines. Land degradation is generally understood either as a temporary or a permanent decline in productive capacity of the land. Though all degraded land may not be wasteland, but unchecked process of degradation may lead to the conversion to wasteland. There are two processes that induce land degradation. These are natural and created by human beings. National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) has classified wastelands by using remote sensing techniques and it is possible to categorise these wastelands according to the processes that have created them. There are a few types of wastelands such as gullied/ravinous land, desertic or coastal sands, barren rocky areas, steep sloping land, and glacial areas, which are primarily caused by natural agents. There are other types of degraded lands such as waterlogged and marshy areas, land affected by salinity and alkalinity and land with or without scrub, which have largely been caused by natural as well as human factors. There are some other types of wastelands such as degraded shifting cultivation area, degraded land under plantation crops, degraded forests, degraded pastures, and mining and industrial wastelands, that are caused by human action.