Land degradation is happening at an alarming pace and is affecting regions inhabited by over one-third of the global population. This phenomenon contributes to a dramatic decline in the productivity of croplands and rangelands worldwide, thereby, threatening food security and environmental quality. Land degradation is, therefore, considered as a major global environmental issue of this century. Its environmental and socioeconomic–political effects involve a complex interplay of biophysical and anthropogenic factors acting at different spatial and temporal scales. Considering the direct and indirect linkages of land degradation to poverty and environmental quality, the mitigation of desertification would considerably improve living standards in dry land areas, especially in the developing world (MEA, 2005). Land degradation has been advanced as ‘the single most pressing current global problem’. Yet, it is an old problem that has undergone a series of often-emotive revivals every decade since the Dust Bowl era in the mid-West USA. The historical stereotype of land degradation is that it is a process ruining the planet, and a destruction caused by ignorant peasants, who will in short time reap the folly of their degrading activities. The Land Husbandry Branch was formed in 1960 to undertake land use planning. This led to the more holistic concept of ‘land husbandry,’ including all farm-level production activities, argued as being a more effective tool for delivering conservation than technical, often structural, measures such as earth bunds (contour embankments to intercept runoff and sediment).In the US, worries about land degradation supported by pictures of (usually) wind erosion engulfing farmhouses and fields, triggered massive expenditure on research and new institutions. Globally, about 24% of the global land area has been affected by degradation and over 1.5 billion people live on degraded lands (IFPRI, 2012). Using a comprehensive analysis to determine the extent, degree, and drivers of soil degradation, Oldeman et al. (1991) estimated that, globally, human-induced soil degradation has affected 1965 million ha. In the case of the World’s drylands, estimates by Dregne and Chou (1992) indicated that the continents of Africa and Asia are particularly affected by land degradation. The resulting increase in human pressure and overexploitation of ecosystem services is commonly manifested by the expansion and intensification of agriculture and livestock grazing, which may strongly contribute to land degradation. Moreover, climate warming and recurrent droughts are further increasing the pressure on soil and water resources of dry land regions. Common indicators for the state of lands include vegetation cover and soil or “net primary productivity (NPP) as a fraction of its potential”. Land degradation can be observed when “the potential productivity associated with a land-use system becomes non-sustainable, or when the land within an ecosystem is no longer able to perform its environmental regulatory function of accepting, storing, and recycling water, energy, and nutrients”. While land degradation can occur as a result of natural processes, there is a widespread opinion that it mostly happens as a result of the impact of users’ activity on the land and is often a “social problem,” which can be prevented if the underlying causes are addressed properly. The increasing demand for food, feed, fuels (including biofuels), and fodder linked to an increase in human population and a conversion of land through deforestation, environmental services, irrigation, and pollution, among other issues, contributes significantly to land degradation. Land degradation is one of the main causes of loss of biodiversity, which results in degradation of natural ecosystem, causes changes in the bio-community structure, or even accelerates the loss of biodiversity in affected region, and occasionally leads to a serious problem by deteriorating the species in the leading regions of the world’s main crop species, including wheat, barley, sorghum, and maize, and the gene bank species in arid areas, which will play an important role in the development of crop varieties in future. Land degradation is caused by multiple forces, including extreme weather conditions, particularly drought. It is also caused by human activities that pollute or degrade the quality of soils and land utility. It negatively affects food production, livelihoods, and the production and provision of other ecosystem goods and services. Desertification is a form of land degradation by which fertile land becomes desert. Land degradation and climate change are threat multipliers due to their huge impact on human security and the increased conflict potential caused by their impacts on three conflict constellations: water scarcity, land availability, and food insecurity. The main background drivers for these three conflict constellations are population growth and the rising living standards that many are enjoying, with migration acting both as an option to avoid conflict and as a source of new conflict. The health and resilience of our land resources (e.g., soil, water, and biodiversity) are largely determined by our management practices, governance systems, and environmental changes. The conversion of natural ecosystems or the unsustainable use of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation for food production contributes not only to land degradation at the local level, but also to increased carbon emissions, reduced biodiversity, and diminished rainfall on regional and global scales. Land degradation here mainly refers to the loss of life-supporting land resource through soil erosion, desertification, salinization, acidification, etc. Deforestation accounts for the major land degradation problem as it results in severe soil erosion, flood, and loss of fertile soil. Desertification, on the other hand, generally occurs after a prolonged degradation of land. Desert areas cannot support life for long as the available water can hardly support life. In extreme cases of land degradation, desertification, and drought, entire communities are forced to migrate from their ancestral lands to areas where competition for scarce resources already exists and thus contributing to a higher risk of conflict. Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is defined as ‘the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfill, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems’. This SFM definition was developed by the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe and has since been adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Forest management that fails to meet these sustainability criteria can contribute to land degradation. Land degradation can be reversed through restoration and rehabilitation. These terms are defined in the Glossary, along with other terms that are used but not explicitly defined in this section of the report. While the definitions of SLM and SFM are very similar and could be merged, both are included to maintain the subtle differences in the existing definitions. SFM can be considered a subset of SLM – that is, SLM applied to forest land. The types and intensity of human land-use and climate change impacts on lands affect their carbon stocks and their ability to operate as carbon sinks. In managed agricultural lands, degradation can result in reductions of soil organic carbon stocks, which also adversely affects land productivity and carbon sinks.
About 75% of the state’s degraded land is in Jammu, 18% in Kashmir, and 7% in Ladakh. Degradation in Jammu is apparently due to its endowment of barren and culturable wasteland; in Kashmir, marshy or waterlogged land and fallows other than current fallows were the major constituents of degraded land; and in Ladakh, land degradation owed exclusively to barren and fallow land. ________________________________________________________________________
In the context of climate change, an additional complex aspect is brought by the reciprocal effects that both processes have on each other (i.e. climate change influencing land degradation and vice versa). In research on land degradation, climate and climate variability are often intrinsic factors. The role of climate change, however, is less articulated. Depending on what conceptual framework is used, climate change is understood either as a process or a driver of land degradation, and sometimes both. The climate-change-related drivers of land degradation are gradual changes of temperature, precipitation and wind, as well as changes of the distribution and intensity of extreme events. Importantly, these drivers can act in two directions: land improvement and land degradation. Increasing CO2 level in the atmosphere is a driver of land improvement, even if the net effect is modulated by other factors, such as the availability of nitrogen and water. Land degradation is inextricably linked to several climate variables, such as temperature, precipitation, wind, and seasonality. This means that there are many ways in which climate change and land degradation are linked. The linkages are better described as a web of causality rather than a set of cause–effect relationships. Kashmir valley holds a unique position in the Himalayas in so far possesses an extensive body of evidence on the evolution of its surface features as it nestled in a young folded mountain range that is still in the processes of upliftment resulting in faulting, thrusting, shearing, folding, fissuring and jointing. This seismotectonic situation, together with action produced by rivers and glaciers over geological time, has rendered this mountainous region vulnerable to landslides, rockslides, rockfalls, mudslides, debris fans and other forms of land degradation. Most parts of the Himalayas in the northern and eastern Indian states are comprised of sandstone, shale and conglomerates with the characteristics of fluvial deposits. These formations are geologically weak, unstable and hence highly prone to erosion. The state has a geographical area of 101,387 sq km and different land forms—plains in the Jammu region and uneven rugged mountainous terrain in the Kashmir valley. Sharma and Arora (2015) report wide-scale land degradation in the Jammu region in the Himalayan foothills.About 44.4% of the total area of the Kashmir valley is estimated to suffer from moderate erosion and 48.3% from high erosion. The increasing population pressure and the creation of infrastructure have led to changes in the land use pattern in the state and taken land away from ecologically desirable uses. About 75% of the state’s degraded land is in Jammu, 18% in Kashmir, and 7% in Ladakh. Degradation in Jammu is apparently due to its endowment of barren and culturable wasteland; in Kashmir, marshy or waterlogged land and fallows other than current fallows were the major constituents of degraded land; and in Ladakh, land degradation owed exclusively to barren and fallow land. Province-specific strategic measures are needed to reclaim culturable and fallow land. The main problems detected in the region are erosion, wetland loss and the vegetation change. Erosion assessment revealed that more than 48.27 % of the area in the valley is under very high erosion risk. It was found that the Pir Panjal watersheds are under high erosion risk as compared to the Greater Himalayan watersheds due to the weak lithological formation (Karewa) that is more widespread along the Pir Panjal ranges. The present scenario of land degradation in the area is very alarming and needs proper land use planning and management. Therefore, further research should be carried out by considering more indicators.
( While Dr Javeed Ahmad is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Zoology at Central University of Kashmir, Dr. Nighat Un Nisa works at the Department of Zoology, University of Kashmir, J&K-India. Views are author’s own)