Landscape degradation is the diminishing ability of landscapes to provide essential services to people and biodiversity. Fortunately, there are ways to restore these degraded landscapes through appropriate restoration approaches.
Landscape Degradation
Landscape degradation results from human-induced activities such as unsustainable agricultural practices that degrade and pollute soils, overgrazing and over-cultivation, and deforestation, leading to exhaustion and over-exploitation of landscapes. Natural factors such as extreme weather conditions, like droughts and heavy rainfall, also contribute to degradation. Degradation has far-reaching ecological consequences, including the loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity, intensified droughts and flooding, and accelerated climate change, which in turn exacerbates degradation.
Landscape degradation also poses challenges to social and political stability, contributing to poverty, conflict, and forced migration in both urban and rural areas. In addition, land degradation reduces the availability of healthy croplands and rangelands, affecting global food security.
Landscape Restoration
Implementing bottom-up interventions to improve the quality of land, soil, water, and vegetation can mitigate the consequences of land degradation. By using the right landscape restoration techniques, suitable habitats can be restored for flora and fauna, crop growth and farming, and the communities that depend on them.
Why is Restoration Necessary?
Landscape restoration is necessary as 40% of the planet’s land is already degraded. If current trends continue, 90% of the world’s land could be degraded by 2050, according to the UNCCD.
By re-greening and restoring degraded land, the natural balance of ecosystems can be restored, benefiting both the environment and the people who depend on it. Through restoration, essential ecosystem services can be re-established for present and future generations. This can help combat biodiversity loss and climate change and even have co-benefits for all the other Sustainable Development Goals. Landscape restoration also offers opportunities for climate change mitigation, livelihood diversification, and enhanced food security.
Choosing the appropriate intervention technique is crucial to realising the benefits of restoration, as it is site-specific and should be aligned with the characteristics of the landscape and the needs of local communities. This is where Greener.LAND comes in. Greener.LAND is an interactive online tool designed to shed light on restoration and its importance in restoring ecosystem functions. The platform provides specific and technical insights into more than 25 restoration interventions. Each and every piece of restored land is a contribution to a more sustainable future!
Causes of Degradation
Landscape degradation is the decline in productive capacity of both natural ecosystems and agricultural land that is currently being faced worldwide (WHO, n.d.). Threatening biodiversity, socioeconomic growth, food security and climate resilience, land degradation tends to occur as a result of physical disturbance to soil and vegetation. It is caused by either natural events, such as extreme weather and water, or by human-induced forces, for example, agricultural tillage and pollution. Deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, loss of productivity potential, biodiversity loss, water shortage, and soil pollution are ongoing processes associated with landscape degradation (Stanturf, 2021; 125). As emphasized during the UN Decade on Restoration, there are three ways to counter degradation: prevent, halt or reverse (UNEP, n.d.).
Some main causes that affect the 4 main types of landscape are outlined below:
| Landscape Type | Natural Causes | Human-induced Causes |
| Agricultural
|
– Extreme weather events (causing drought & flood)
– Desertification (result from human deforestation) – Increased disease pressure |
– Unsustainable farming practices, e.g., pesticide & insecticide (over)use, slash and burn technique, diversion of water sources, over-grazing and -cultivation) |
| Pasture & rangeland
|
– Extreme weather events (storms & tornadoes),
– Invasive flora and fauna, – Lack of apex predators to restrict damage from herbivores |
– Over-grazing and -cultivation,
– Degraded soil quality & salinity from contaminated water sources – Urbanization |
| Forest
|
– Extreme weather events (drought, flooding)
– Forest fires |
– Deforestation (e.g., fishbone effect, illegal logging)
– Forest fires – Exploitation of desirable resources |
| Coastal
|
– Extreme weather events (cyclones and storm surges)
– Invasive species (from human introduction or climate-related causes) |
– Marine pollution, contaminated runoff, and salinity,
– Overfishing – Ship-related destruction to ecosystems |
