‘Almost 30 per cent of our land undergoing degradation’

According to a study, nearly 30% of the country’s total geographical area is undergoing degradation. The ongoing study, initiated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, was led by the Indian Space Research Organisation and involved 19 institutes. The study analysed satellite imageries of the country over an eight-year period.

• The report was recently released by ISRO’s Space Applications Centre in the form of a ‘Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas’, combining GIS and remote sensing data.

Highlights of the report:

• The degrading area has increased over 0.5% to 29.3 million hectares during the period 2003-05 and 2011-13. Desertification increased by 1.16 million hectares (m ha) and stood at 82.64 m ha during 2011-13.
• There was high desertification and degradation in Delhi, Tripura, Nagaland, Himachal Pradesh and Mizoram, while Odisha, Telangana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh showed some improvement.
• Just nine States together account for nearly 24% of desertification; the other States have less than one per cent of this land. The culprit States in that order are Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana.
• Southern State Kerala figures among northern and northeastern States where less than 10% land is degraded. With it are relatively greener States of Assam, Mizoram, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Arunachal Pradesh.
• The main culprit for degradation is water erosion (26%) followed by degrading vegetation (rising slightly nearly 9%) and land or soil erosion due to wind.

India has committed itself to the U.N. Convention on Combating Desertification that it would fully stop land degradation by 2030. The atlas, adding 68 vulnerable districts, would form part of the country’s action plan to arrest the phenomenon and also be a status report to the U.N. body.