Land degradation reduces land quality and has a major impact on biodiversity. Many inland water ecosystems and their fishery resources and biodiversity are seriously threatened by urban and industrial growth, deforestation and agro-chemicals. About 25 percent of the world's wetlands have already been lost, due largely to conversion to agriculture or diversion of water for agriculture and aquaculture. This may lead to flooding, groundwater depletion, salt-water intrusion into aquifers, water pollution and salinization, FAO warned. Land degradation is closely linked to poverty in developing countries.
Poverty is both a consequence of land degradation and one of the causes.
Poor people, with no resources to fall back on, are forced to put immediate needs before the long-term quality of the land. However, more efforts are needed to apply sustainable agriculture as part of a solution to environmental degradation, FAO said. Land-use systems that retain a permanent vegetative cover over the land surface should be introduced. This protects the soil from wind and water erosion, increases soil fertility and improves the organic content. The immediate priority is to break out of the downward spiral, in which resource-poor farmers are obliged, by shortage of land, to degrade land even further in order to satisfy immediate subsistence needs.