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Overgrazing by livestock can lead to land degradation. Land degradation is a process where land becomes less healthy and productive due to a combination of human activities or natural conditions. The causes for land degradation are numerous and complex. [1] Human activities are often the main cause, such as unsustainable land management practices.
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 ...
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 .
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]
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.
The terraces form a series of steps each at a higher level than the previous. Terraces are protected from erosion by other soil barriers. Terraced farming is more common on small farms. This involves creating a series of flat terraced levels on a sloping field.
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 ] A meta-analysis of 148 studies found that the value of most ecosystem functions declines with increasing grazing intensity and that increasing aridity ...
Land management is the process of managing the use and development of land resources. Those resources are used for a variety of purposes for example agriculture, forestry, water resource management, human settlements and tourism. One aim of land management is to prevent or reverse land degradation.