Land Degradation

There are many environmental issues that are leading to the need for an Island Civilization. One of those is the ever increasing problem of land degradation.

Land degradation is the deteriation of the quality of land, topsoil, vegetation and water resources. This is usually caused by the exploitation of the land by people and big corporations. The majority of land degradation spawns from various unsustainable agricultural practices. Slash and burn farming techniques causes severe land degradation. Deforestation and clear-cutting are also major issues that cause land degradation. Overgrazing depletes the soil of nutrients. Other causes include urbanization, waste or garbage, and the quarrying of rock for precious ores and minerals.

The principle consequence of land degradation is reduction of land productivity. With this vulnerable land also facing increased soil erosion from weather, acidification and alkalization of the soil, flooding, and surface runoff. Also human population increases causes increased pressure on the use of arable lands and as we continue growing we send more and more land to a degraded state.

Land degradation would be easily fixed by the Island Civilization plan as the degraded land would be able to return to its pre-human state.

Here is a link to a paper by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. It goes into further detail on the amounts of degraded land throughout the world.

http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/papers/land-degradation-overview.html