Man-made wastelands
Topic: Geographical Issues: Pollution, Urban Waste, Slums and Land Degradation · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 9 "Geographical Perspective on Selected Issues and Problems"
Meaning
Man-made wastelands are lands that human action has made unused or barely usable. NRSC groups them as:
- degraded shifting cultivation areas (land cleared for farming, then abandoned)
- degraded plantations
- degraded forests
- degraded pastures
- mining and industrial wastelands
NCERT stresses that these matter more than wastelands of natural origin, such as deserts or glaciers. This is because human activity is spreading them, and better management can prevent them.
Example
Open-cast mining at sites such as the Panchpatmali bauxite mine in Odisha strips the land and leaves heaps of waste rock. This creates mining wasteland.
Don't confuse with
- Natural-agent wastelands: gullied land, desert sands, barren rock, steep slopes and glacial areas. Nature mainly forms these, not people.
Related concepts
- Land degradation
- Wasteland
- Gullied and ravinous land
- Wastelands Atlas of India
- Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India
- Land Degradation Neutrality
- Bonn Challenge