Badlands
Also called: Bad land, Badland topography · Topic: Soils of India: Types, Degradation and Conservation · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 1 "Resources and Development"
Meaning
Badlands are land so cut up by deep gullies that it cannot be farmed. Running water flows down the same channels again and again and makes them deeper and wider, until the land becomes a maze of steep ridges and channels. Badlands form when soil is soft, plant cover is thin and runoff is fast. They are the last stage of the erosion sequence: sheet → rill → gully → badland.
Example
The badlands of the Chambal basin, across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, are called ravines. Similar ravines are also found along the Yamuna, Mahi and Sabarmati rivers.
Don't confuse with
- Gully erosion: gully erosion is the process that cuts the channels. Badland is the ruined landscape left when gullies cover a whole area.