36.8% of India's land hit by drought from 2016 to 2019: UN

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, October 24

More than 36% of India’s land area was affected by drought between 2016 and 2019 signalling pressure on farm lands, a new UN analysis on land degradation by countries has found.

In 2019, the latest year of data sharing, India reported 30.51 million hectares of degraded land which was 9.45% of the total land area in that year.

Overall between 2015 and 2019, the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land each year, adding up to twice the size of Greenland, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) said on Tuesday announcing the launch of its first-ever Data Dashboard compiling national reporting figures from 126 countries, which shows that land degradation is advancing at an astonishing rate across all regions.

The data stress the need for urgent action, as escalating land degradation continues to destabilize markets, communities, and ecosystems around the globe. The analysis reveal a significant proportion of the world’s population live on land affected by drought. Out of 1.84 billion people, 4.7% are exposed to severe or extreme drought.

The UNCCD Data Dashboard also reveals significant disparities on the proportion of degraded land per region. Eastern and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean regions experience the most severe degradation, affecting at least 20 per cent of their total land area, the UN said.

Meanwhile, sub-Saharan Africa, Western and Southern Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean experienced land degradation at rates faster than the global average.

Notably, in sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean, 163 million hectares and 108 million hectares, respectively, have succumbed to land degradation since 2015, a UN statement said.

Although land degradation trends vary by region, UNCCD data warns that, if current trends persist, the world will need to restore a staggering 1.5 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030 to reach LDN targets enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

There’s still time

It is still possible to not only meet but also exceed land degradation neutrality goals. This can be done by accelerating efforts to restore one billion hectares by 2030 with action. — Barron Orr, UNCCD chief scientist