Land degradation and wastelands

Detail

1. What is land degradation?

• Land degradation means land loses its power to produce. The loss can be temporary or permanent.
• Five main causes (NCERT):
• Soil erosion: water or wind removes the fertile top layer of soil.
• Waterlogging: water stays in the soil for long periods, so roots cannot breathe.
• Salinisation: salts build up in the soil.
• Alkalinisation: sodium salts build up and the soil becomes alkaline. These soils are called usar, reh or kallar in north India.

• Continuous use without managing fertility: crops are grown again and again, but nutrients are not put back through manure, fallowing (resting the land) or crop rotation.

• How canal irrigation can lead to salt build-up:

• Too much canal water is used, and seepage raises the water table (the top level of underground water).
• In a hot climate this water rises to the surface through the soil and evaporates.
• The salts in it stay behind as a white crust. Fields become saline/alkaline and also waterlogged.
• This is seen in canal command areas (the farmland served by a canal) of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, and in the Indira Gandhi Canal command area of Rajasthan.

2. Wasteland, and how it differs from degraded land

• Wasteland is degraded land that is left unused or under-used.
• Not all degraded land is wasteland. A field that loses some fertility may still be farmed. If degradation goes unchecked, the land slowly turns into wasteland.
• Land degradation can be caused by natural processes, by human action, or by both together.

3. NRSC's three-way classification of wastelands

• NRSC (National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO, Hyderabad) maps wastelands using remote sensing, which means studying satellite images instead of surveying on foot.

Group	Wasteland types	Where in India (examples)
(i) Natural agents	Gullied and ravinous land; desert and coastal sands; barren rocky areas; steep slopes; glacial areas	Chambal, Yamuna and Mahi valleys (ravines); Thar Desert, western Rajasthan (sand); Himalaya (glacial areas, steep slopes)
(ii) Natural + human factors	Waterlogged and marshy land; land affected by salinity and alkalinity; land with or without scrub	Canal command areas of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan; coastal marshes
(iii) Human action	Degraded shifting cultivation areas; degraded land under plantation crops; degraded forests; degraded pastures; mining and industrial wastelands	North-east hills (shifting cultivation, called jhum); mining belts of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh

4. Gullied and ravinous land (badlands)

• Gully: a deep, narrow channel cut into soft soil by running water. Ravine: a bigger and deeper gully. A large area cut up by many ravines is called badland topography.
• How it forms:
• Soft alluvium (river-laid silt and clay) lies on the banks of rivers.
• Heavy monsoon rain runs off over bare slopes and cuts small channels called rills.
• The rills grow deeper and wider and turn into gullies, then ravines.

• Deforestation (cutting of trees) and overgrazing remove the plant cover that holds the soil. This speeds up the process.

• Spatial anchors:

• Chambal: rises in the Vindhya Range near Mhow (Madhya Pradesh). It flows north-east through Rajasthan (Kota), forms part of the MP–Rajasthan border, and joins the Yamuna in Etawah district (Uttar Pradesh). Its ravines are worst in Morena and Bhind (MP), Dholpur (Rajasthan) and Agra–Etawah (UP).
• Yamuna: has ravines along its banks in the Agra–Etawah stretch.

• Mahi: rises in the Vindhyas in MP. It flows through southern Rajasthan and Gujarat and enters the Gulf of Khambhat (Arabian Sea). It is one of the few rivers that cross the Tropic of Cancer twice.

• Ravines destroy farmland, cut off villages and have long given hiding places to outlaws (the dacoits of the Chambal).

5. Man-made wastelands matter more

• NCERT stresses that man-made wastelands are more important than natural ones.
• Why:
• Natural wastelands, such as glaciers or barren rock, are hard to change.
• Human-made wastelands come from human actions such as overgrazing, mining, bad irrigation and shorter jhum cycles (the gap before a forest plot is cleared again).

• Because people caused them, better land management can prevent and reverse them.

• Mining and industrial wastelands: overburden dumps (waste rock and soil removed to reach the ore), open pits and fly-ash ponds leave land bare and polluted.

6. Measuring the problem: the two atlases

• Wastelands Atlas of India – 2019 (Department of Land Resources, DoLR, and NRSC):
• It is the fifth edition. It was made from Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite data [2].
• Wastelands in 2015-16 = 55.76 million ha, which is 16.96% of India's geographical area [2]. This is often rounded to 55.8 Mha, about 17%.
• In 2008-09 wastelands were about 56.6 million ha. The net conversion (wasteland turned back to productive use) was 0.84 Mha (0.26%) between 2008-09 and 2015-16 [2].

• Wasteland area fell in these classes: land with dense scrub, waterlogged and marshy land, sandy areas, degraded pastures/grazing land, and gullied and/or ravinous land [2].

• Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India (Space Applications Centre, SAC–ISRO, Ahmedabad, released 2021):

• Desertification (land degradation in dry areas — arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid zones) and land degradation together covered 97.84 million ha in 2018-19 [3][4]. This is often quoted as 97.85 Mha, nearly 30% of India.
• It gives state-wise data for 2018-19 and a change analysis over 15 years, from 2003-05 to 2018-19 [3].
• Water erosion is the main process. Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat have the largest degraded areas.

Feature	Wastelands Atlas 2019	Desertification & Land Degradation Atlas 2021
Agency	DoLR + NRSC (Hyderabad)	SAC–ISRO (Ahmedabad)
What it measures	Land that is unused or under-used	All degraded land, including land still being farmed
Reference year	2015-16	2018-19
Area	55.76 Mha (~17%)	97.84 Mha (~30%)
Trend	Wasteland falling	Degradation rising since 2003-05

• Exam trap: the two figures do not contradict each other. Degraded land is the bigger set, and wasteland sits inside it. So wasteland can fall while total degradation rises.

7. Global frame

• UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification) is the UN treaty that deals with desertification, land degradation and drought.
• Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN):
• Land that gets degraded is balanced by restoring an equal area, so the total stock of healthy land stays stable or grows.

• It is target SDG 15.3 (Sustainable Development Goal 15, "Life on Land").

• Bonn Challenge:

• Launched in 2011. It is hosted by IUCN and Germany's Federal Environment Ministry [6].

• Global goal: restore 150 million ha by 2020 and 350 million ha by 2030 [6].

• India's pledges:

• 2015: 13 million ha by 2020, plus 8 million ha more by 2030 [6].
• 2019, UNCCD COP14 in New Delhi (COP: Conference of the Parties, the treaty's main meeting): India raised its target to 26 million ha between 2019 and 2030 [5]. This is the largest pledge ever made under the Bonn Challenge [6].
• The focus is on degraded agricultural, forest and other wastelands, using a landscape restoration approach. This means treating a whole area (farms, forests and water) together, not one plot at a time [5].
• Progress (June 2026): 21.76 million ha is now under restoration. Data came from 36 States/UTs and DoLR, and India is "on track" to meet the pledge [6].

8. Measures to reduce land degradation (NCERT exercise)

Problem	Measure	How it works
Gully/ravine erosion	Afforestation (planting trees), gully plugging, check dams	Roots bind the soil and dams slow the runoff
Sheet and rill erosion on slopes	Contour bunding (earth ridges along the contour lines), terracing	Each ridge holds back water and soil
Whole catchment degraded	Watershed management	Treats the full drainage area, from ridge to valley
Degraded pastures	Controlled grazing	Lets grass grow back
Saline/alkaline soils	Reclamation: gypsum, drainage, less canal water	Gypsum replaces sodium in the soil, and drainage flushes the salts out
Desert sands	Shelterbelts, sand-dune fixing	Rows of trees break the wind

Prelims Hooks

• NRSC (Hyderabad) classifies wastelands into three groups: natural; natural + human; human-made.
• Gullied and ravinous land is classed as caused by natural agents. Classic locations: Chambal, Yamuna and Mahi valleys.
• Waterlogged and saline/alkaline land is caused by natural + human factors, not by humans alone. This is a common trap.
• Degraded shifting cultivation areas, degraded pastures, plantations, forests, and mining/industrial wastelands are all human-made.
• Wastelands Atlas 2019: DoLR + NRSC, 5th edition, 55.76 Mha (16.96%) in 2015-16 [2].
• Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas: SAC–ISRO, Ahmedabad, 97.84 Mha in 2018-19 (~30%). Main process: water erosion. Top states: Rajasthan > Maharashtra > Gujarat [3][4].
• LDN = SDG 15.3, under the UNCCD.
• Bonn Challenge (2011): 150 Mha by 2020, 350 Mha by 2030. India's target is 26 Mha by 2030, announced at COP14 in New Delhi, 2019 [5][6].
• India's original 2015 pledge: 13 Mha by 2020 plus 8 Mha by 2030 [6].

Mains Points

• Causes, natural vs human-made: NCERT says man-made wastelands matter more because they can be prevented. Examples include canal-led waterlogging and salinity in Punjab–Haryana and the Indira Gandhi Canal area, overgrazing in dry Rajasthan and Gujarat, shorter jhum cycles in the North-east, and mining dumps in Jharkhand and Odisha. (GS-I / GS-III)
• Reading the data: wasteland fell by 0.84 Mha between 2008-09 and 2015-16 [2], yet degraded land is about 30% of India in 2018-19 and has risen since 2003-05 [3]. This shows that degradation inside farmed land, mainly water erosion, is the hidden problem. Policy should look beyond "wastelands". (GS-III)
• Policy response: LDN (SDG 15.3) and the 26 Mha Bonn target (21.76 Mha under restoration by 2026 [6]) need watershed development, afforestation, controlled grazing and saline-soil reclamation, using a landscape approach [5]. (GS-III environment)
• Link to livelihoods and disasters: degradation lowers farm incomes and pushes people to migrate. Ravines and bare slopes increase runoff and silt in rivers, and dry degraded land spreads desertification and drought risk. (GS-I / GS-III)