Land degradation

Abstract

Land degradation is a natural or human-induced process that negatively affects the land. In general, it refers to the processes that negatively affect the land’s natural functions of water, energy, and nutrient acceptance, storage, and recycling, leading to a decline in land productivity. Humans are the major drivers of land degradation through socioeconomic and political pressures. Mechanisms that initiate land degradation include physical (decline in soil structure leading to crusting, compaction, hard-setting, erosion, natural disasters, desertification, anaerobism, environmental pollution, unsustainable use of natural resources, etc.), chemical (acidification, leaching, salinization, decrease in cation retention capacity, fertility depletion, etc.), and biological (reduction in total and biomass carbon, decline in land biodiversity, etc.) processes.