Land Degradation

Land degradation is one of the most important global issues because it affects all parts of the world and, more significantly, has severe impacts on agronomic productivity, the environment, food security, and the quality of life. The term land degradation is a relatively new scientific description of an ancient environmental problem that has been in existence probably since humans began to use fire to modify landscapes. Essentially, land degradation refers to natural and/or anthropogenic processes that substantially decrease the utility or potential utility of the biophysical environment, sometimes leading to loss or change of features of the environment that cannot be replaced. In the context of utility, land degradation results whenever there is a mismatch between land quality and land use.

This entry first discusses the definition of land degradation and explores the distinction between its proximate and ultimate causes. Though the causes of land degradation are many, the underlying fact is that it is an outcome of the mismanagement of land, which involves two interlocking, complex systems: the natural ecosystem and the human social system. Any efforts aimed at mitigating or managing land degradation or resource management must consider interactions between the two systems that will determine their success or failure. Thus, before describing particular causes, the entry examines the nature of this interaction. The entry then discusses in some detail the impact of poverty and increasing population on land degradation.