The Impact and Extent of Land Degradation - Essay Example

Land Degradation Name: Institution: STAGE 1 Land degradation is the process in whereby the value of biophysical environment gets affected by a combination of the processes processes which are induced by human beings acting upon the land. In addition, environmental degradation is usually the gradual reduction or destruction of the quantity and quality of land by human activities, natural means or animals activities. For example water and wind causes soil erosion. It is taken as any disturbance or change to the land. This disturbance or change can be perceived to be undesirable or deleterious . All the natural hazards are not viewed as a cause of the land degradation phenomenon. But, human activities can somehow, indirectly affect some phenomena such as the floods and even the bush fires. (Eswaran 2001). It is very hard to analyse the actual impact and extent of the land degradation. Most farmers oftenly mask the degradation effects by converting their farms to less demanding uses. They can also increase the levels of the input compensation. These could be through the application of more fertilizers so as to maintain a stable yield. There is an unlike one to one relationship which is between the effects of the yields and the amount of the land degradation. For instance, soil erosion can take place for a long time unnoticed on some type of soil that is relatively deep. There are several ways through which the land degradation processes occur. These could be through physical soil management(eg. The compaction, crusting, sealing, water erosion, wind erosion, overtilling and the devegetation), soil water management (eg. Waterlogging, imeded drainage, reduced water holding capacity, salinization and reduced infiltration), soil nutrients and the organic matter management (eg.acidification, removal of the organic matter, alkanisation, nutrient leaching, nutrientdepletion and burning of the vegetative residues), management of the soil biology (the industrial contamination and the over-application of the agrichemicals), vegetative management(eg. The declined biodiversity and the declined vegetative cover, declined availability of the valued species, and the declined composition of species). The lifestyles in John’s and Michelle’s habitats are facilitating the processes of land degradation. The land degradation can be viewed in four ways: A permanent or temporary declined production capacity of land. It can evidenced through a loss of some biomass, loss of the actual productivity or some in potential productivity, a loss or change in soil nutrients and vegetative cover. The action in lands capacity so as to provide resources for the human livelihoods. By using a baseline of past land, this could be measured. The Loss of biodiversity. Loss of some of the ecosystem or species complexity as an environmental quality decline. The Shifting of the ecological risk. The increased vulnerability of people or the environment to crisis or destruction. This could be measured through base line in a form of pre-existing risk destruction or of crisis. The major problem associated with measuring of the land degradation is this: what some set of people term as degradation, to others it might viewed as a an opportunity or benefit. For instance, heavy rainfalls could make a group of scientific to be very worried about the high soil erosion while farmers could be viewing it as a golden opportunity of planting crops. (Butterfield 2006). Soil erosion is the most common destructive phenomena impact of land degradation. Here there is asubstancial loss of water, plant nutrients and the soil. This consequently affects the overall crop production. The top soil is carried and finds its way into the river beds and streams. this reduces their capacity of containing water and it finally causes floods. (Toy 2002). The Floods and the Surface Runoff Most of the top soil is lost through the process of surface runoff. The rainfall or precipitation of their place, which is discharged from the place through the stream channels finally is lost without it entering into the. This is referred to as the surface runoff. The phenomenon of Surface runoff reduces and also prevents the percolation of any water into the soil surface. The surface runoff levels do vary greatly from place to place and from the soil type to soil type. In some regions which are humid, the losses could be about 50-60% of the total annual rainfall. Whilst,the annual surface runoff losses are lower in the semi-arid and the arid regions, the high rates of these losses are very usual during the heavy storms (Conacher1995). This is because they are very common in these regions. The surface runoff can also increase flooding and the sedimentation. Floods could basically be as a result of unusually heavy rainfalls which happen over short periods. On the other hand, some of the interventions caused by humans, that affect adversely the ability of the land surface and the soil profile to absorb then hold and eventually utilise the rain water and make a delayed release as a inter-flow or sub-surface runoff, are also some of the main factorswhic contribute to this. (Smith 2002). The Desertification problem Desertification is generally associated with the arid lands of any country. While drought and water stress are being experienced over many areas including the arid deserts, the semi-arid and even some areas which have moderate annual rainfalls, both for the productivity as well as the sound environments, the problem associated with these two categories have to be critically looked into. The problem resulting from desertification is the degradation or diminution of the biological potential of this land which might ultimately lead to some desert like conditions. This process causes some rampant deterioration of the ecosystems with the increased loss of animal and plant production. (Warren 2001). Loss of the Nutrients in the soil and the Land Productivity The most evident effect of soil erosion occurs mainly in the form of loss of soil as a wash off. A lot of nutrients are lost due to the surface runoff and leaching. Where we have water percolation being high, the leaching potential is also very high. Soil properties do have some definite effects on the losses associated with the nutrient-leaching process. There is a significant nutrient loss in the sandy soils than in the clay soils. This is because of the higher rates of percolation and the lower nutrients absorbtion power of these sandy soils. consequently, in the sandy soils, the nutrients on the surface of the top soil are lost as a result of more rapid leaching and also the wind erosion. Also it is also resulting from the Intensive land management which are under any primary production system, excluding the multi-tiered forests, invariably leads to the exhaustion of the lands. The land degradation and the Soil erosion further affect the soil profile and also the environment in terms of solid, air and water ratio as well as the biological and the chemical balances. In turn, these reduce the availability of water and the nutrients to the plants and consequently the productivity of that land. When the soil conservation processes are allowed to proceed exceeding the permissible soil loss over the years, these lands are plunged into lower levels of productivity and eventually to zero productivity. This land can be classified into eight classes of productivity, based on their need for conservation and capability of cultivation. These eight classes productivity are: I. Suiting for cultivation, II. Requiring good management practice, III. Those requiring some moderate conservation practices IV. Those requiring the intensive conservation practices, V, those unsuitable for the activities like cultivation, VI. Those without any restrictions in their use, VII. Those requiring some moderate restrictions in their use, VIII. Those with severe restrictions in their use.The Class I is a nearly flat or totally flat land which is suited for cultivation. Although, a few conservation practices need to be carried out. For II, III and IV lands, the artificial fertilizers are required. Although some special measures about conservational management need to be added. Class V, VI, VII are the forestry or the grazing, which have varying degrees of their restrictions on use. Finally, the eighth class suits for recreation and wildlife. (Geist 2006). The Cost of Soil Erosion Soil erosion is the most economically destructive phenomenon. The productivity of an eroded land is not only destroyed but this eroded soil leaves the productive land. This phenomenon makes this land to lose its productivity. There are some other things which are lost through the soil erosion and their economic values can’t be estimated. They are including: i) The loss of forage production and fodder. Also there is a decline in production of the timber. ii) Loss of the natural fauna and flora species. This eventually decreases in their bio­ diversity. iii) Loss of some water resource points. This is evidenced by the drying up of the springs and the lowering of the water levels in the wells. iv) When this land is lost through the water erosion or wind erosion, there is loss of employment opportunities, apart from the physical, biological and chemical degradation. This consequently leads to the migration towards towns and cities. this causes many social problems which are related to the unplanned urbanisation. (Hinman1992). . Declined potential yields There are some significant decrease in the farm yields. John and Michelle had to use a lot of input so as to maintain the yields. If the degradation worsened, it might lead make them to abandon the land for a while. If the land degradation is rampant, it significantly affects a portion of arable lands thus decreasing the wealth and even the economic development of different countries. As the land resource base gradually becomes lesser productive, the food security gets compromised. This increases the competition for the dwindling resources . This eventually brings about the famine and some other potential conflicts. Stage 2 The practices of Soil conservation are diverse in target and technique. These practices target some different types of problems affecting soil such as saltation, erosion, desertification and acidification. The first step of designing some proper conservation techniques is by thoroughly understanding the soil properties and all the problems that affect the land. There are many reasons as to why John and Michelle have to practice some conservation on their land. one of these reasons is so as to maintain amounts of biological life and organic matter in the soil that are adequate. These two account for about 95 percent of the total productivity of the soil. Secondly, Ensuring a secured food supply that is at prices which are reasonable. There is a prove that the soil conservation practices increase the crop yields over a long term since it keeps the topsoil in its place and also preserves the soil productivity. So as to grow some enough food for themselves and also for the people in some other countries, which especially have food shortages. This could also save the amount of money which they use in farming. (Smith 2002). The soil erosion has been costing them a lot of money every year due to the decreased nutrients in the soil. This has been resulting to lower yields of the crops. It also saves some money for them. The Soil erosion processes costs the taxpayers some millions of dollars every year, which is related to the off-site costs. This also improves the water quality and conservation of water. All the forms of life in their places require some clean water so as to survive. The process of soil erosion is causes a lot of contamination and sedimentation of the water supplies. So as to conserve and improve the wildlife habitats. Some soil conservation practices which include the provision of windbreaks and the buffer strips enhance greatly the quality of the environment for all the wildlife of all forms. This would also preserve the natural beauty of the sceneries around their farms. By doing so, they would be creating and maintaining their environment free of any pollution thus all the living things live safely. it could also ensure that their children would have some sufficiently healthy soils which would support life into their futures. It has also been said that land was not so much given to us, by our forebears, as borrowed from our kids. There are several methods through which John and Michelle should respond to the impacts associated with land degradation in their place. John an Michelle have been carrying out some mixed farming. They have also been farming for a long time. In their farming practices, they involve clear cutting and deforestation incidences. Clear cutting is a very controversial logging/forestry practices which involves most or all trees in their fields being cut down uniformly. This clearcutting trees in the fields of John and Michelle always imposes some other externalities in a form of some detrimental side effects which include loss of the topsoil. The costs of these is debated by economic, the environmental, and some other interests intensely. Clearcutting also leads to an increased rapid runoff, also loss of the economic sustainability because of no timber products being available in the market for a long time after the trees were clear-cut, loss of habitat for most of the wildlife species. The deforestation and clear cutting in their fields, also increased the surface runoff which eventually increased the rate of soil erosion in their fields. This also facilitates the occurrence of the phenomenon of the land slides which are very detrimental to the people living in that place. They should minimize the clearcutting and deforestation and embark on afforestation instead.They had some poor farming practices. They should employ the farming practices which always inrease the depletion rates of the nutrients in the soil. (Steffan 2007). They have been rearing beef cattle on the same land for a long time. This has also been increasing the incidences of the overgarazing and overdrafting in the fields. The term overgarazing to the grazing of the natural pastures above the livestock carrying capacity by the land. This overgrazing has been directly leading to the decreased quality and quantity of the vegetation cover in their fields. This has been causing wind erosion and water erosion on their dry fields. The degradation of the vegetation cover and the soil erosion erosion leads to a declined soil organic matter and most of the physical properties, thus resistance to the soil erosion. They should reduce the incidences of overgrazing. They should start carrying out some soil-conservation management practices. Under the arable use, these management practices could be used in checking the water erosion on all their sloping lands, which are near the Mooki river. John and Michelle, who have been farming in the area for a longtime, have been affected by the drought severely. They should have employed some mechanisms to check the wind erosion ,on their fields, during this periods of drought. These Soil conservation management practices might be grouped into: The Biological methods whereby they should maintain some “round” surface covers on the fields. These surface covers can be of the plant litter or living plants. They should also have vegetative barriers, which should be including both the contour grass strips and the hedgerows. They should also have some breaks and the shelterbelts. The Earth structures. They should have standard terraces. They should also have various types of bank-and ditch (storm drains, bunds etc.) structures. They also have to maintain their soil to be resistance to the erosion. They should primarily, have a maintenance of the soil organic matter thus aggregation and structure. Usually, what necessarily leads to soil degradation is not the type of the environment nor type of land being used, but the standards of the soil conservation management practices. Their lands should always be well-managed by maintaining complete vegetation cover. By having the vegetation cover on their lands, they should be checking the soil erosion even on the steep slopes in their farms. Since their lands were poorly-managed, rainfall struck bare soil between their plants. This eventually led to a severe degradation on their fields. They should also avoid poor crop rotations. Due to the population growth, the land shortage and the economic pressures, John and Michelle had adopted cereal-based, intense crop rotations, mostly based on wheat and rice. These cereal-based crops led to declined soil fertility. The crop rotation also prevents the building-up of harmful pests and also lowers the pesticides required for use. In addition, planting same crops for a long period of time depletes the reserves of some nutrients that are taken up constantly by that type of crop. By practicing crop rotation of their plants requiring different nutrients, helps in avoiding decreased fertility. They should start having balanced fertilizers use. The fertility in their lands had an alarming decline, as a result of their prolonged erosion or cultivation. John and Michelle had attempted to maintain high crop yields. The primary method which was available for doing so by application of the fertilizers. For a while, a yield response was most cheaply and readily obtained from the available nitrogenous fertilizers. There was a steady increase in the ratio of nitrogen to nitrogen and phosphorus to all the other nutrients found in their fields. As a result of concentrating much on rectifying the recognized phosphate deficiencies by using phosphatic fertilizers, deficiencies of other crucial nutrients, which include zinc and sulphur resulted. They were also over pumping the groundwater in some areas with 'sweet' (non-saline) groundwater. Possibly the technology of the tube wells could have led to some abstraction of some water in excess of the natural recharge by river and rainfall seepage. This progressively lowered the water table. A quarry is any type of a pit mine which is open.in these mines, rocks and minerals are extracted from. The quarry in the neighboring areas was generally used for coal mining. In these mines, there was a lot of soil being excavated as the mining proceeds. There was a lot of soil being dumped and piled up on the nearby lands. This piled up soil could not support any vegetation because it was very infertile. In case a whirl wind arose, the piled up soil could be carried all over the region and the nearby lands would have their surface filled up with litter. This eventually led to soil degradation. Though most of the quarry waters are usually very clear, some submerged quarry stones and the abandoned equipments make these quarries to be extremely dangerous to the divers. Several people usually drown in many quarries each year from all over the world. The dumping should be order and organized so that the dumped soil doesn’t affect the nearby living things adversely. (Mortimore 1989) They should start using the integrated pest management criteria . They should start using biological pest control methods instead of using the artificial pesticides. In fact they should employ the use of predators. By over using these pesticides, the pesticides would be carried through surface runoff into the Mooki river. This would eventually kill many aquatic animals in the river. There was also dumping of many non-biodegradable materials. These included plastic materials, metals etc. these led to land degradation in their areas. They should avoid the dumping of such materials. They can collect them and possibly take them to the recycling companies other than leaving them to remain spread all over the plains. (Toy 2002). They can also have their soils being acidified . This could help in the parts where the production and yields were adversely affected. This could be corrected by appplying lime and any other alkaline fertilizer. this method can greatly help them to reclaim acid soils. The land degradation usually leads to some significantly reduced productive capacity of the land. Some human activities contribute to the land degradation. Such activities if reduced, there would be a significant increase in yields from the farms. References Conacher. (1995). Rural Land Degradation in Australia. South Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford University Press Australia  Eswaran. (2001). "Land degradation: an overview". New Delhi, India: Oxford Press. Johnson. (2007). Land Degradation; Creation and Destruction. New York: CRC Press Geist.(2006). "The causes and progression of desertification". Burlington :Ashgate Publishing limited Briassoulis. (2005). Policy integration for complex environmental problems: the example of Mediterranean desertification.Burlington :Ashgate Publishing. Mortimore. (1989). Adapting to drought: farmers, famines, and desertification in west Africa. Cambridge University: Cambridge University Press. Whitford. (2002). Ecology of desert systems. Massachusetts: Academic Press Butterfield. (2006). Holistic Management Handbook: Healthy Land, Healthy Profits, Second Edition. Washington, D.C. : Island Press. Hinman. (1992). The plight and promise of arid land agriculture. New York: Columbia University Press. Steffan. (2007). Handbook of globalization and the environment. New York: CRC Press. Smith.(2002). Global Desertification – Do Humans Cause Deserts? Berlin: Dahlem University Press Warren .(2001). Desertification. in N. Smelser & P. Baltes (eds.) International Encyclopædia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Cambridge: Elsevier Press. Toy.(2002). Soil Erosion: Processes, Predicition, Measurement, and Control. New York: John Wiley & Sons Timothy. (2007). Watershed Management: Issues and Approaches.London: IWA Publishing. Andrew .(2000). "Accelerated coastal erosion". The Human Impact on the Natural Environment. London: MIT Press David. (2001). Glacial Lake Missoula & its Humongous Floods. Cambridge: Mountain Press. 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The major problem associated with measuring of the land degradation is this: what some set of people term as degradation, to others it might viewed as a an opportunity or benefit. For instance, heavy rainfalls could make a group of scientific to be very worried about the high soil erosion while farmers could be viewing it as a golden opportunity of planting crops. (Butterfield 2006). Soil erosion is the most common destructive phenomena impact of land degradation. Here there is asubstancial loss of water, plant nutrients and the soil.

This consequently affects the overall crop production. The top soil is carried and finds its way into the river beds and streams. this reduces their capacity of containing water and it finally causes floods. (Toy 2002). The Floods and the Surface Runoff Most of the top soil is lost through the process of surface runoff. The rainfall or precipitation of their place, which is discharged from the place through the stream channels finally is lost without it entering into the. This is referred to as the surface runoff.

The phenomenon of Surface runoff reduces and also prevents the percolation of any water into the soil surface. The surface runoff levels do vary greatly from place to place and from the soil type to soil type. In some regions which are humid, the losses could be about 50-60% of the total annual rainfall. Whilst,the annual surface runoff losses are lower in the semi-arid and the arid regions, the high rates of these losses are very usual during the heavy storms (Conacher1995). This is because they are very common in these regions.

The surface runoff can also increase flooding and the sedimentation. Floods could basically be as a result of unusually heavy rainfalls which happen over short periods. On the other hand, some of the interventions caused by humans, that affect adversely the ability of the land surface and the soil profile to absorb then hold and eventually utilise the rain water and make a delayed release as a inter-flow or sub-surface runoff, are also some of the main factorswhic contribute to this. (Smith 2002).

The Desertification problem Desertification is generally associated with the arid lands of any country. While drought and water stress are being experienced over many areas including the arid deserts, the semi-arid and even some areas which have moderate annual rainfalls, both for the productivity as well as the sound environments, the problem associated with these two categories have to be critically looked into. The problem resulting from desertification is the degradation or diminution of the biological potential of this land which might ultimately lead to some desert like conditions.

This process causes some rampant deterioration of the ecosystems with the increased loss of animal and plant production. (Warren 2001). Loss of the Nutrients in the soil and the Land Productivity The most evident effect of soil erosion occurs mainly in the form of loss of soil as a wash off. A lot of nutrients are lost due to the surface runoff and leaching. Where we have water percolation being high, the leaching potential is also very high. Soil properties do have some definite effects on the losses associated with the nutrient-leaching process.

There is a significant nutrient loss in the sandy soils than in the clay soils. This is because of the higher rates of percolation and the lower nutrients absorbtion power of these sandy soils. consequently, in the sandy soils, the nutrients on the surface of the top soil are lost as a result of more rapid leaching and also the wind erosion. Also it is also resulting from the Intensive land management which are under any primary production system, excluding the multi-tiered forests, invariably leads to the exhaustion of the lands.

The land degradation and the Soil erosion further affect the soil profile and also the environment in terms of solid, air and water ratio as well as the biological and the chemical balances. In turn, these reduce the availability of water and the nutrients to the plants and consequently the productivity of that land.

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