India lost over 30m hectares of healthy land to degradation in 4 yrs

Data from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) reveals that 30.51 million hectares of India’s land degraded between 2015-2019. This represented 9.45% of the country’s total landmass as of 2019, a significant increase from 4.42% in 2015.

This amount of degraded land is equivalent to the size of 43 million football pitches. The data also revealed that 251.71 million Indians, or 18.39% of the population, were exposed to land degradation during this period.

Additionally, 854.4 million people in India were exposed to drought from 2015-2018. The total land area affected by drought includes all areas experiencing mild, moderate, severe, and extreme drought.

Globally, the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land each year from 2015-2019.

The UNCCD data dashboard also displays voluntary targets that contribute to land degradation neutrality for selected countries. A report submitted by the Government of India to UNCCD mentioned that voluntary targets are under consideration.

The data for this dashboard was compiled from the 2022 UNCCD national reports of 126 Parties. However, it only presents a partial estimate of progress at the global and regional level in regards to land degradation neutrality as not all Parties have reported the status and trends for every indicator.

Regional disparities

The UNCCD Data Dashboard shows an alarming reality across the globe and uncovers significant disparities in the proportion of degraded land per region.

The most severe degradation affects at least 20 per cent of the total land area in Eastern and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean regions.

Meanwhile, land degradation occurred at rates faster than the global average in sub-Saharan Africa, Western and Southern Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Notably, since 2015, land degradation has claimed 163 million hectares in sub-Saharan Africa and 108 million hectares in Latin America and the Caribbean, respectively.

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