Wastelands Atlas of India
Topic: Geographical Issues: Pollution, Urban Waste, Slums and Land Degradation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Wastelands Atlas of India is a set of maps of India's wastelands made from satellite images. Wastelands are degraded lands lying unused or underused. The Department of Land Resources (DoLR) and NRSC prepare it. The 2019 edition found that wastelands fell from 56.6 million hectares in 2008-09 to 55.8 million hectares in 2015-16. That is about 17% of India's area. Planners use it to choose land for restoration.
Example
The atlas maps wasteland types district by district, such as the gullied ravines of the Chambal valley and the desert sands of western Rajasthan.
Don't confuse with
- Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas (ISRO-SAC, 2021): it measures all degraded land, about 30% of India in 2018-19. The Wastelands Atlas counts only wasteland, about 17%. So the statement "30% of India is wasteland" is false.
Related concepts
- Land degradation
- Wasteland
- Gullied and ravinous land
- Man-made wastelands
- Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India
- Land Degradation Neutrality
- Bonn Challenge