Lecture 4: State of Global Environment (Land and Soil)

 welcome to the course environmental impact assessment today we will cover land and soil

environment in our effort to understand the environmental status before we place

eia you may note that for this module we are referring

ah report by united nations environment program titled global environment outlook 6

healthy planet healthy people which was published in 2019

for this session we will particularly look at we'll walk through chapter 8 to understand

land and soil environment the link to the report is also provided to you why are we looking at the land resource in

particular we see that land as a resource is very important you may see

that initiatives related with land resource necessarily help us to achieve many like

10 out of 17 sustainable development goals with the land many concerns are

connected so if you can think of such as food security we get food from there

resources for energy fuel and also ecosystem services

one of the key and largest resource we draw from land is food so you look at

this the important significance of land as a resource we use nearly 50 percent of the

habitable land for the purpose of food production further as we all know land has economic

value and rights to land has significa has lot of significance because of the

development opportunities which comes along with it and it is established there is unequal

tenure of land meaning there is uneven holding of land if you can think of how

women in your family who will land compared to men and so on so you can think about so

like how this there's variation of the ownership of the land in

the society you see so uh

there all also we see that there is a clear and critical role of property rights and

land resource management and also we can reflect on the role of rural inhabitants

people who live in the village how they have an important role to conserve the land

and because of this there we are facing like this problem still

exists so we are facing problem in attaining sustainable development

goals i think if we do not have those protections how we are going to protect

land or displacement by the powerful actors such as multinationals

governments so how if people are not protected by the land ownership then how

we are going to handle that also think of land resource degradation so there is also degradation happening we are

witnessing which is also leading to widespread

migration and even conflict in many places so further we see that as we all know

land has economic value and right to land has significance because of the development opportunities there is

massive deforestation with the varying rates across regions so we see cases of

deforestation as well there is also improvement in the forest covers on ah

there in many regions people are doing uh forestration we also see built up

areas like you have been seeing urban areas all the infrastructure what kind of constructions are coming up

ah they all are there which occupy land and

we see that these built up areas are relatively have lesser

they cover lesser area of land but their impact is extensive uh like it its

footprint is much larger than how much energy we draw how much resources we

draw for the same area there is also concern about food waste and loss at many levels so these are the

concerns which we see when we talk about land as a resources so therefore the coverage will include

we will look at linkages between land resource and the sustainable development goals we will be looking at drivers and

pressures on land resources you have might be seeing how we are going on looking at drivers and pressures for

every individual resource we are discussing then we'll look at key state and trends

in case of land like what is really the scenario across the globe and we'll also parallelly look at

the indian context and then we look at key impacts of these changes so what kind of changes are

happening and how do they really impact us and how we are using the land and

then the dynamics involved so we look at the food security human health land

management tenure system gender inequality

land health and food and so on so we'll be looking at all these aspects today

so the expected learning outcomes so once you finish once you go through this the expected learning outcomes include

that you should be able to review the land as a resource and then

compare it and look it at the from the perspective of sustainable

development goals further you should be able to identify different drivers and pressures which

are there on the land and you may see the complexity involved and how do we use land as a resource

further you should be able to ah list or state some of the problems

and the trends in ah when we talk in terms of land and furthermore you should

be able to review the impacts you should be able to identify the impacts you should be able to review the impacts

what what is all happening with the land as a resource and then also look at the various other things which are connected

with that so uh starting with looking at the linkages between land resource and the

sustainable development goals think of land what all things it

provides to us and also think of many things which are connected with land so

so uh think of you you have been in touch you have been seeing around so you think about

various things what all you get from the land and what opportunities you have so land provides us many resources and

services provides us shelter you make your houses there act as a property and

also gives us the cultural identity so or from a very basic needs to

even the social need which we see so land provides us food fodder fiber and

forest products so all these we get from the land we see land is closely connected with

sustainable development goals so we did talk about it so we see that it's connected very much

connected with sustainable development goal too where we intend to end hunger achieve

food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture so

that's the target we are looking at and the very specific target for this school includes ensuring access to

sufficient healthy and nutritious food especially for the most vulnerable groups so

in order to achieve this it will be very important to work on land resources to improve the

conditions improve the status of land as a resource

the main messages if you look at

from from the global environment outlook report we see

that one thing major identification which we have done is identifying that climate change has

become an independent driver which itself is bringing change to all the resources so that you may keep in mind

while we see many other resources as well so uh furthermore through sdg 2 we are

trying to increase food productivity which makes our process more sustainable

resilient because of the climate change and we are also looking at improving the

land quality for future generation we are also uh looking at uh

working on gender co equality and then also working with other form of

inequality and you which you see is linked with sdg 10.

you must be also thinking of the terrestrial biodiversity land hold so

you must have traveled a lot you must have seen all the most of the diversity or at

least around you so it contains it holds lot of terrestrial biodiversity and

so so it has a lot of value because that that's the richness we have also obvious

you must be noticing rapid urbanization that is taking place with much larger

footprint and a footprint of impact which you see or which you can ah conceptualize here or

visualize here you may also think of ah pollution on land so what kind of

pollution is happening the garbage and waste you see around the soil pollution you see around the waste

so pollution of all kind which is impacting ah impacting the physical

health of the land as well as our health and then it is also influencing the

functioning of the ecosystem so land pollution is becoming an important pressure so that's like really

increasing a lot and it's a it's like really creating pressure we see all

these are important concerns for sdg 3 and 15. so you see land is connected

with many of the sdgs which we are trying to attain also reflect about our activities and

how much pressure we exert on the land resources so our activities and the gain from it

mostly gives us short term go gain so when we do certain activities

for our economic gains or other gains we see that those are

short-term gains however the impact are often long-term on the ecosystem

services ah so accordingly according to the millennium ecosystem assessment we see

that we are living beyond our means meaning we are consuming

our resources in an unsustainable rate so we are consuming more

more water more energy more more of all kind of resources with the which the

environment offers to us so um we'll be learning about this millennium

ecosystem assessment later in the methods part of the course so ah this is about linking with the sdg

now think of various drivers and pressures of on land resources so you are familiar

with this but then we look at what these drivers are how they are

influencing the land resource so first

one you can think of and it's very evident and as seen in other cases too

is the population growth population growth is majorly causing land use change and is a threat land use

change has major environmental impact you think of the rate of urbanization um

in asia in african countries um

it's weird witnessing um like rapid urbanization and it's projected by

the u.n studies that by 2050 will ah will be

will be much more urbanized than any other place the rate of urbanization

ours will be the highest so think of the potential impacts we might have on the environment because of the urbanization

and think of the ah footprint of the impact

so it also depends on the nature of economy we choose

the impact depends on that so if for example economic drivers

can be resource intensive like if you go for manufacturing and agriculture

intensive activity then the what we extract from the environment

would be in massive in nature as suggested or it can be tertiary

nature which are less resource oriented

so you may refer to the case of utopia because of the population growth and the

aligned policy of the subsidy in northwestern ethiopia like 62 percent of

the woodland conversion was witnessed into cropland so see the range of

conversion that's taking place the landis conversion that's taking place with high environmental costs like all

like this dust storm droughts and severe soil erosion what's happening

there so uh that was about the population because the population is increasing and

then how we have to change the land to accommodate that and to meet their requirements

another key driver of land change is urbanization you see how much our cities

are consuming in terms of water foods and other resources urbanization can have both

positive and negative impact on the flow of resources how do we consume resources

so it's not necessarily be negative but it can be positive depending on what ways we adopt to consume those resources

we also see rural to urban migration migration has

like multi-faceted impacts so on land use so when people migrate

there's change um in their diets and that and then we

need more infrastructure to cater to those immigrant population

ah we need more housing we need more resources so that has impact on the how

we decide to use the our land we also see that much of the

increase in population and built up areas has taken place in disaster prone

areas so we see that people are more and more in terms of identifying places they have

moved into the disaster-prone area regions such as within like

moving very very close to 10 meters above this sea level of low elevation

coastal zones so people are moving and living there for their livelihood another sick

and they they're migrating to these places so that that's another multi-face impact which we see

um so now moving on to another driver we see uh

that economic development also has influenced how we

use the land and due to globalization we see increasing pressure on land systems

and their functions and because of this there is landscape change so the way we

are using or the way the landscape is it's all that is changing also because

of global trend and money flows we see change in the land uses so what is more encouraged what

really has been demanded by the global market we tend to change the land use accordingly to fit the demand

so that's about the economic drivers we see another driver that's technology and

innovation so technology has also brought lot of change

it's both positive and negative technology change the way

ah the and the rate in which production takes place the way we

consume things so and because of it the land use

changes so we are able to consume things faster we are able to access things

faster we are able to draw things faster we are changing the

use of lan and there is change in the terrestrial ecosystem at various scales

so technology um also in a positive way helps us to keep track

of the environmental changes and manage our resources better both in the urban

as well as in the rural areas such as you can think of the big data its big

data the drone the mobile technology that's all helping us to track and monitor what

kind of environmental change is happening it is also helping us to

allow larger public participation and engagement in the process of

dealing with our environment so moving on we see another like

the major one of the major finding which we said is the climate change so the

another driver is climate change and

we are witnessing increase in the global temperature we are also seeing change in the rainfall pattern changes may benefit

some regions because of these changing patterns some regions may get benefited but much of the change in precipitation

like or because of the change in the precipitation like you might have

frequent droughts or frequent flood where and this

because of such kind of variations you see much influence negative impact happens on the

areas which are much more dependent like agriculture areas are at much risk

because of such kind of variations in the precipitation

ah and because of this we are also already witnessing reduction in the harvest how much

yields we are gaining from the agriculture so in the image here you can see the impact on the harvest across the

world with higher impact shown in the blue color in the left quadrant you can

in the left top quadrants you can see the high impact of the production of maize you can see how the impact is high

in india australia and african countries among many other areas likewise in the right

top quadrants you can see impact on rice production and look out for the color blue

likewise you can see for wheat and soy in the bottom two quadrants so

have a look at that and see how the yield is changing further we see that because of the

rising sea level caused by the climate change there is major risk to the coastal areas and

people living in there also increase in temperature is causing growth of certain

wheats and pests which is further reducing our

yield however there have been development in climate smart agriculture practices

such as minimum tillage and energy efficient crops and practices such developments provides chances for

increasing the atmospheric carbon sink in the soil so there are certain positive moves as well

increase in carbon sink help to mitigate mitigate the impact of climate change

so that was about the drivers so now let us go through some of the key state and

trends in case of land so uh

we see uh there is change in the land use cover so we that's a very

significant one so due to climate and geological or ecological process so that's happening

most of the time land cover changes but most responsible activity is agriculture

so because of agriculture the land use most of the most part of the land

changes because of the agriculture for the so going to increase more to

facilitate the growing population's need for food so that's going to be it going

to increase further so that pressure is not going to reduce but go on increasing

so we have a limitation uh to to what extent we can expand though there are

land but that would cost us the ecosystem services further the economic

activities at the global level is also changing the land use patterns so just not the agriculture of it but also the

economic activities for example we can look at the mining we are doing to meet the global demand

and we also nee see reduction in the course so the resources are also

reducing and the scale in which we are really mining is also increasing

and mining has huge and cumulative environmental impact further we see that

agriculture like we already talked agriculture is another area for land use change we

use habitable land in range of 38 to 50 percent of the purpose for the purpose

of food production for us and the livestock as you can see in the image

here now we have also started growing crops for biofuel production so we have

started using land more and more so you can see here how uh what

percentage of the land surface habitable land surface we have been

using for agriculture there has been minor reduction in the land under agriculture so we are seeing a certain

decrease in the agricultural land but per capita daily food supply in the

world has increased considerably in past decades so we are consuming more because

of this many areas have been converted to cropland so we are using more and

more of the land for crop purpose for example you can look at the

grasslands in argentina bolivia brazil paraguay and uruguay and

huge land has been converted for the soybean fields and they are mostly used

for export purpose so likewise you see in many other places here

there is increase in the global life stock population also

while human population grew like as per the reports you see that it grew for 19 percent

ah however the number of cattle buffalo goat sheep and all in increased in much

higher percentage these increase is connected more

intensive livestock production systems so we consume more of energy

we use more of lands to feed these like livestock so in the graph you can see

increase in herbivorous and poultry and pigs

in the graph you can see here and in the last one you can see the decrease in the meadows and the pasture

land so look at the steep increase and the decrease in the land here while you see

this review this and contemplate on it so further moving on we see that

there is change in the forest area as well so the percentage of land under

forest is getting lesser and lesser as you can see in the graph here

so see how the forest area is declining and you can think of these services what the forest area really provides to us

the rate of forest area differ among regions to regions and there is some gain in the forest area due to increase

in plantation in the image you can see the changes from 1990 to 2000

look for the loss of forest area shown in red color and forest area gain in green

color you can see that how the forestration is helping

note the color in our country and other countries take note of usa as well and russia and australia so

all the colors are changing there so you can note here in the following image you can see the

changes from 2000 to 2010 ah then you keep looking at the changing

colors here in the following image you can see the changes from 2010 to 2015 as per the

study so no no take a note of the color changing

here and see how much forest area is changing the red color and the green color shown

here so loss of natural forest continues to

happen in most areas of the world if we lose these forests we will struggle for

basic essential supply for example in amazon rainforest deforestation is

massive and it is causing reduction in the rainfall and this will lead us to critical

tipping point like we cannot really get back to the

original position for the hydrological cycle in the region if the forest cover is drastically

reduced so if we further keep on reducing the forest cover then we will

reach to a point where we'll lose the hydrological cycles the current cycle

moving on we further have been noticing noticing the urban expansion even though built up areas

takes relatively less land however urban expansion and their impact is

massive we are also seeing landscape break up so we see a lot of fragmentation happening

and then the urban sprawl happening cities are also taking up the agricultural land so we are going on

consuming more of the agricultural land converting it further cities

because of the increased built up area affect the hydrological cycle and the soil functions so not only that we are

changing the land use but we are also changing the hydrological cycle and soil

function ah however we also see that cities are important because they provide us many

of these services like education housing clean water and elixir electricity just because we

live the way we live in cities moving on we further see land degradation and crop production

concerning with that we see that land is deteriorating and

land degradation is connected with decline and ecosystem services so when

the land quality declines then the ecosystem services also decline

that including the primary productions what kind of production we are getting that also declines

so land has been exposed to soil erosion salinization compaction and

contamination so you see that soil is getting eroded there is salinization of

the soil as well as there's compaction it's getting tighter and then there's contamination the pollution is entering

and then there's organic matter decline we also see forest fires and over grazing and so on so there's a lot of

degradation which is taking place which has other implications we also see reduction in my

microbiological activity and water retention capacity and we also see

lowering hydra like conductivity and decreasing soil resistance among other problems here

so ah degradation also leads to economic and social problems and then

it is said that by improving the land we can improve much of the services and we can

take care of ourselves by improving the land

and in the range of problems we also see desertification there's a defecation if

you look at the definition it's defined as land degradation in arid semi-arid

and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human

activities so both by the variations and our activities we see this kind of

degradation in the land and the range of desertification is

the is happening and the range is from 15 percent to 63 percent

globally and then there is also variations within the region where they are

experiencing it we have been also witnessing a positive

trend for example semi-arid areas of china are now getting better you may

also refer to the world atlas of desert desertification which provides numerous

global data sets on the subject so you can look at that as well if you see land degradation status in

india india faces a severe problem of land degradation or soil becoming unfit

for cultivation so we are also facing those problems land degradation is definitely among india's most pressing

environmental problems and you can think about that we are still a lot dependent on agriculture

so there's a lot of change many of our states have recorded an increase in the

degraded land in past 15 years with most rapid increase being noted in

biodiversity rich northeastern states and india has committed to restore

26 million hectares by 2030.

so you can see here the range of land which we are losing then looking into the soil salinization

in the arid antimerit regions because of the inadequate drainage uh whenever

there is any educacy in the drainage there is less irrigation or there is less irrigation salt accumulation

happens in the root zone so that's why the soil salinization happens

and this negatively affects the crop reduction and soil properties

in some of the countries this problem is in large extent large scale

and we see that it can like as per the report 33 percent of the global irrigated areas has declining

productivity because of insufficient irrigation which is causing water logging and selenization so look at this

scale we are talking about 33 percent of the globally irrigated areas

so action has to be taken in this regard else these losses can be very expensive to us

and um and there can be other impacts as well on the animal health property

values and so on another issue we see is the

perma frost thawing so because of the cumulative impact the arctic areas is getting warmer causing melting of sea

ice we have longer eyes free seasons now so and melting of ice releases green

greenhouse gases and alter the landscape melting also reduces soil and landform

stability increases erosion and affects the arctic habitat albedo and hydrology

so you see all these the image you can see the coastal erosion rate look at the erosion rate ground ice

cliff height at different stations here you can look at this here likewise in

the following image you can see erosion threat in red brown color here you can see what kind of

threat erosion threats are there we have seen state and trends now let us

look at some of the key impacts of changes in land use and the dynamics we can see that there's a issue about the

food security by now you have gathered that this is a direct problem connected with food

security and then um and let's try to understand what food

security means people are considered food secure when they always have a

availability of and adequate access to sufficient safe nutritious food to maintain a healthy

and active life so that is what we mean by food security and

there are main three critical concerns with food security like first food availability it should be available

second it should one should have access to food and third that the food should be utilized food utilization

so uh hunger and malnutrition is one of the major problem and there's a huge number like you look at seven billion

people are hungry and malnutritioned across the globe and we are seeing decline in such number

but still we are facing these issues of stunted growth in saharan african and

south south asian countries on the other hand we also have problem

of over nutrition overweight and obese population so this is about lifestyle choices we

make the consumption pattern and this pressure we exert on land resources

and the kind of land use changes we make because of that in the figure you can see vulnerability to food security using

meteorological data from 1981 to 2010

and so on you can see here look at the darker shades here

so look at the potential impact of climate change on the fly food security and pay attention to the

darker shades here there is also need to look into the curtailing food loss with larger loss in

storage and transportation and with the why we are talking about it because the food waste also generate greenhouse

gases most of the waste is generated from the developed countries therefore it is

required to have a sustainable intensification in in graph you can see the range of food waste here and you

look at the countries now looking at the food security and

food trade we see that international trade is gaining significance to meet the global demand there is population

growth urbanization and shifting dietary so our choices are changing so that also

causes changes in how we use the land

and because of the global demand how the demand is and many of the countries do not produce their own food

there is change in the patents so there can be geographic concentration of production

and this also has systemic systemic risk and this can lead to price hike with

client and such kind of price hike where can we become severe with climate change

further we see that there's health effects from mining uh we'll be studying about these impact more but there are a

lot of health impacts and mining has severe impact

there are concerns of mining waste as well and then you can also look at the global waste management outlook which

estimates uh mining waste to be the um like in the order of 20 billion ton per

year and these are of seizures concerns

so uh mining activities has impact on ecosystems and lead to soil

contamination as well so you also look at the toxic and radioactive dust emissions and also water pollution

results from mining so all kind of impact you can think of will be further seeing it when we do the

methods when will be looking into land how do we do the impact assessment

looking at the waste and its human health the waste generated like this huge waste

generated by cities people do not have access to adequate waste disposal system

which has health implications such as infections exposure to chemicals dust

and then also it the waste generates environmental

impacts soil and water pollution and grease and green house gas emissions

also millions of people are operating globally as informal recyclers so you

see the rack pickers and all so that and many of them live around in and around

the dumping sites so uh we further see soil contamination soil health

is important majorly for the food security other we see that it has soil

contamination has direct health implication and soil contamination happens because of the

industrial and the commercial activity and we see that governments in the

developed countries maintain an inventory of the contaminated and remediate sites

so you can see the united states of america maintains the superfund national priority list

so which includes these sites contaminated likewise you can see list is maintained identify sites are

identified by canada as well and then further we

the soil also has human health consequences about

like like the the health consequences are of wide range parasitic worms such

as you uh hook worms and so on ah can get transmitted from the contaminated

soil so ah that all needs to be taken care of further we

also see impact on food chemicals and human health like pesticides exposures have increased

however there are certain scientific clarity which needs to come there's a

certain level of uncertainty about which level of exposure really has impact

um in 1990 the who estimated an annual like

seven lakh cases of specific chronic effects linked with pesticides globally

so there has been regulations to control pesticides in countries

uh so we see other chronic pesticide exposures have

the health effects of chronic pesticides exposures where we consider believe on women and men so you might have to also

take care of those aspects and

there are chances of breast cancer because of these strong

connection concentration of pesticides further we see issue issue about land

tenures land deals we see that there's lack of ownership of land even though they are dependent on land there is lack

of ownership of commonly holded land so because of the lack of ownership of turn

communities lose access to land livelihood shelter institutions and food

in particular indigenous communities and the graph here you can see the ownership type and pay attention to small portion

and the indigenous people and communities so because of the industrialization there is increased pressure on land

this makes vulnerable communities more vulnerable without proper ownership in the map you can see number of land deals

per country the darker red shade indicates high land dealing so you can

see here what kind of land dealing there's scale of land dealing happening

in places most deals are taking place by private sectors and local involvement is less

loss of land leads to loss so it has multiple repercussions loss of investment

in human capital negative effects on the land improvement reduced agricultural productivity and

even that influences the resilience of the community so studies indicate the

local indigenous communities successfully manage and conserve land so that's been promoted

so you can also look at the world resource institute study which emphasizes that land

secure land in new york can improve improve our and strengthen the ecosystem

services it is important to look at the local context reinforce local governance

safeguard the rights of the indigenous people so you can see here so you may also find

fao voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure so how

that can be taken care of and apart from that land also provides

socio-cultural services land provides variety of socio-cultural and aesthetic benefits

you can think of and if that's lost because of the land degradation deforestation and

desertification the values goes down the out migration happens the networks ah the social

networks breaks up so all these one needs to consider and then we have talked about gender

inequality land health and food so existing gender inequality may contribute to increased poverty people

displacement resource scarcity and other conflicts so a lot has been done to strengthen

women's ownership and participate in the land management which will lead to household food security dietary

diversity and children's health so that concerns has been raised a lot of

activities have been done in that and it's the general idea is that women spend the money more judicially for the

household they engage more in the agriculture activity at the same time

we see that there is less ownership so in the image you can see that land ownership by women

the darker red color indicate low ownership you look at the color of our country along with others here so you

see how the women's land holding scenario is across the globe and also pay attention to the

country here so uh that's all for today so summarizing what we really covered today

so we looked at land resources and the sustainable development goals so why

it's important and how it helps us to attain sustainable development goals we looked at the drivers and pressures on

the land resources we looked at the key state trends in case of lan as well as we looked at the impacts

of changes in land use and any dynamics which changes here you can see the references our coverage has been limited

as the scope of the subject additional resources to read and watch are provided to you and the list given here

and please feel free to ask questions let us know about any concerns you have to share your opinion experiences and

suggestions thank you [Music]

you