Pollution also a big problem

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report on land and climate has revealed that beside climate change, an increase in pollution is also putting pressure on the agriculture sector.

This has resulted in high levels of land degradation and an exacerbation of the national water crisis.

The IPCC presented their special report on land and climate at the Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain yesterday.

They found that a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area was subjected to human-induced degradation. High levels of agricultural activities, consuming about 70% of global fresh water, has left the land dry and vulnerable for degradation.

Soil erosion from untouched agricultural fields was estimated to be 10 to 20 times higher than new soil formation, with ploughed-on land erosion levels 100 times more than soil formation important for fertilisation purposes.

Currently, the world population was at 7.7 billion and increased at a rapid rate of seven million a year. Increase in demand for food security led to high levels of degradation which affected food security mostly in Africa and Asia.

Vegetation browning due to lack of nutrients in the land and drought was found in some regions, including northern Eurasia, parts of North America, Central Asia and the Congo Basin affected the most by land degradation.

Meanwhile, climate change worsened land degradation processes through rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, dry spells, wind, sea-level rise and wave action, and permafrost thaw with outcomes being modulated by land management. Ongoing high levels of coastal erosion threatened living land for people living in coastal regions.