Land Degradation: Drivers, Impact & Restoration

1. DRIVERS OF LAND DEGRADATION IN INDIA

Cue Words	Notes
Anthropogenic Drivers	**Unsustainable Agriculture**: Over-irrigation leading to waterlogging and soil salinisation/alkalinity; excessive NPK chemical fertilisers causing soil acidification and microbial loss. **Deforestation**: Clearance for mining, highways, and infrastructure destabilises topsoil and accelerates runoff erosion. **Overgrazing**: Compacts soil, reduces moisture percolation, and exposes soil structures to water and wind.
Natural & Climatic Drivers	**Water Erosion**: Sheet and gully erosion stripping topsoil during intense monsoon events — the single largest degradation process nationally. **Wind Erosion**: Dominant in arid zones (e.g., Rajasthan, Gujarat), causing sand-dune movement. **Climate Change**: Prolonged dry spells and rising temperatures accelerate depletion of soil organic carbon, compounding both erosion types.
Scale of the Problem	**29.77% of India's Total Geographical Area (TGA)** (~97.85 Million Hectares) is classified as degraded (ISRO Desertification Atlas); Water Erosion alone affects **11.01%** of TGA, followed by vegetation degradation (**9.15%**). Land degradation costs India **~2.54% of GDP annually** through agricultural productivity loss and soil-reclamation costs; water and wind strip away over **5.3 Billion Tonnes** of fertile topsoil annually.

> **Summary**: Anthropogenic pressure (over-irrigation, deforestation, overgrazing) and natural erosion processes reinforce each other under a warming climate, together degrading nearly 30% of India's land area and imposing a GDP-scale annual cost that makes restoration a fiscal as much as an ecological imperative.

2. POLICY & RESTORATION FRAMEWORKS

Cue Words	Notes
NITI Aayog's GROW Initiative	**GROW = Greening and Restoration of Wasteland with Agroforestry**: Uses GIS and remote-sensing data on the **Bhuvan Portal** to compile the **Agroforestry Suitability Index (ASI)**, prioritising drylands and wastelands for agroforestry projects.
WDC-PMKSY & Soil Health Card	**WDC-PMKSY (Watershed Development Component)**: Focuses on ridge-to-valley soil-water conservation, farm-pond construction, and **springshed rejuvenation** in Himalayan mountain regions. **Soil Health Card Scheme**: Provides site-specific macronutrient diagnostic reports to check chemical-fertiliser overuse — a demand-side complement to WDC-PMKSY's supply-side watershed work.
Aravalli Green Wall & the Bonn Challenge	**Aravalli Green Wall Project**: Mandates a **1,400 km long, 5 km wide** green ecological corridor spanning Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Delhi to block Thar Desert expansion. **UNCCD Bonn Challenge**: India is committed to restoring **26 Million Hectares** of degraded land by 2030; as of the latest tracking, restoration has reached roughly **21.76 Million Hectares**, leaving the final stretch as the harder, more capital-intensive terrain.
Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 & the Godavarman Legacy	**T.N. Godavarman Case (1996)**: SC interim order held the FCA, 1980 applies to all land meeting the "dictionary meaning" of forest (de-facto forests), regardless of ownership or notification — the broadest possible protective standard. **FCA 2023 Narrowing**: Restricts statutory protection only to land officially notified as forest or recorded in government registers after 1980, leaving unrecorded/private "deemed forests," secondary forests, grasslands, and sacred groves vulnerable to non-forest diversion — a direct rollback of the Godavarman standard. **Strategic Exemptions**: Linear projects (highways, rail, pipelines, defence works) within **100 km of international borders**, and up to 10 hectares of forest land for security/public-utility infrastructure in LWE-affected districts, are exempted from prior central clearance — which also bypasses mandatory Gram Sabha consent, a major flashpoint with tribal communities. **CAF Act, 2016**: Allocates CAMPA collections **90% to State funds, 10% to the Central fund** for compensatory afforestation works; **PM-PRANAM** incentivises states to cut chemical-fertiliser use by passing on 50% of saved central subsidy as organic-farming grants.

> **Summary**: India's restoration architecture layers a spatial-targeting tool (GROW/ASI) atop ground-level watershed and soil interventions (WDC-PMKSY, Soil Health Cards) and a landscape-scale flagship (Aravalli Green Wall) — even as the FCA 2023 Amendment simultaneously narrows the very definition of "forest" that triggers statutory protection, pulling in the opposite direction of the Bonn Challenge restoration push.

3. MITIGATION STRATEGIES: REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Cue Words	Notes
Regenerative & Circular Practices	**Regenerative Practices**: Zero-tillage, multi-species cover cropping, and agroforestry build the **Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)** pool, reversing the same depletion process driven by climate change and chemical-input overuse. **Circular Organic Flow**: Pyrolysing crop residues into stable **biochar** locks carbon into agricultural soils and improves moisture-holding capacity — directly answering the stubble-burning/topsoil-loss cycle.
Invasive Species Reclamation	Clearing exotic weeds like Prosopis juliflora restores native ecosystems (e.g., Kutch's Banni Grasslands) — reclaiming grazing and grassland capacity lost to invasive monocultures.

> **Summary**: Regenerative agriculture and biochar close the loop between land degradation's causes and its cures — turning the same crop residues and soil-carbon deficits that drive degradation into the inputs for restoration, while invasive-species clearance reclaims grassland productivity lost to ecological neglect.

UPSC Mains PYQs

• Desertification & Land Degradation: Desertification is a major threat to agricultural sustainability and food security in India. Discuss the primary natural and anthropogenic causes of land degradation in India. Assess the effectiveness of NITI Aayog's GROW initiative and PMKSY-WDC in combating desertification. (15 Marks, 250 Words)
• Bonn Challenge & Land Restoration: Discuss India's commitments under the UNCCD Bonn Challenge to restore degraded land by 2030. Critically assess the pace of progress and the structural bottlenecks in India's land-restoration efforts. (15 Marks, 250 Words)
• Regenerative Agriculture: Examine how regenerative agricultural practices such as zero-tillage and biochar application can help reverse land degradation while supporting farmer incomes. (10 Marks, 150 Words)
• Soil Health & Fertiliser Overuse: Discuss the role of the Soil Health Card Scheme in addressing the problem of chemical fertiliser overuse and its contribution to soil degradation. (10 Marks, 150 Words)
• Forest Conservation Amendment Act, 2023: The conflict between infrastructure development and forest conservation is a recurring theme in environmental governance. Critically evaluate the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, with reference to the T.N. Godavarman case legacy and its impact on tribal/forest-dwelling communities' rights under the FRA, 2006. (15 Marks, 250 Words)