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This reduces the food security, which many countries facing soil degradation already do not have. [8] Slight degradation refers to land where yield potential has been reduced by 10%, moderate degradation refers to a yield decrease of 10–50%. Severely degraded soils have lost more than 50% of their potential.
Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity, leads to biodiversity loss, and can reduce food security as well as water security. [ 3 ] [ 1 ] It was estimated in 2007 that up to 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded, [ 4 ] with the United Nations estimating that the global economy could lose $23 trillion by 2050 ...
In total, one-third of the world's population lives in drylands where land degradation is reducing food supplies, biodiversity, water quality and soil fertility. [ 2 ] The bioreclamation of degraded lands (BDL) system was developed by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ( ICRISAT ), with the aim of helping ...
Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. It is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural chemicals or improper disposal of waste .
One major component of environmental degradation is the depletion of the resource of fresh water on Earth. [23] Approximately only 2.5% of all of the water on Earth is fresh water , with the rest being salt water . 69% of fresh water is frozen in ice caps located on Antarctica and Greenland , so only 30% of the 2.5% of fresh water is available ...
Overgrazing typically increases soil erosion. [7]With continued overutilization of land for grazing, there is an increase in degradation. This leads to poor soil conditions that only xeric and early successional species can tolerate. [8]
It is estimated that agricultural land degradation is leading to an irreversible decline in fertility on about 6 million ha of fertile land each year. [33] The accumulation of sediments (i.e. sedimentation) in runoff water affects water quality in various ways.
Wind erosion is a major geomorphological force, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. It is also a major source of land degradation, evaporation, desertification, harmful airborne dust, and crop damage—especially after being increased far above natural rates by human activities such as deforestation, urbanization, and agriculture. [22] [23]