This perception sets desertification within a broader frame of the world-wide degradation of land resources. Land includes soil and water resources, land surface and vegetation or crops.
Degradation implies reduction of resource potential.
It is important, however, to recognize that desertification is a discrete process of land degradation throughout the drylands and quite separate from the phenomenon of observed cyclic oscillations of vegetation productivity at desert fringes. But this is a completely different phenomenon from that of desertification. All over the world extensive areas of productive land are subject to ecological degradation. Damage is primarily due to excessive use. Exploitation beyond the carrying capacity of the rangelands, cutting forest trees at rates faster than rates of regeneration, and over-dosing farmlands with irrigation water or agrochemicals are examples of unsustainable use.