06-10-2010, 12:40 PM
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Prepared by:
M. Dhakshinamoorthy, Professor, IMTI, Trichy
Introduction
India is blessed with a wide array of soil types that would have developed in the subcontinent as a direct consequence varying climatic conditions and vegetations. According to the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS & LUP), taxonomically eight out of twelve Soil Orders in the world exist in India. The Inceptisols (alluvial soils) cover nearly one-third of the geographical area of the country. The arable land available per head has been reduced by 50% in the past fifty years from 0.34 ha (1950) to 0.16 ha (1998-99). The land available for cultivation is shrinking at an alarming rate due to the exponential growth of urbanization that commensurate with increasing proportion of lands unsuitable for cultivation of crops (Yadav, ,2002). It is utmost essential to promote the soil productivity in order to maintain the achievement already made in realizing self-sufficiency in food grain production. India has been exposed to a very high degree of soil degradation within the club of developing countries. According to the latest estimate, 187.7 million hectares (57.1%) of the total geographical area (329 million hectares) is degraded. The degraded land encompasses water erosion (148.9 million ha), chemical hazard (13.8 m ha) wind erosion (13.5 m ha), water logging (11.6 m ha), salinization (10.1 m ha) and nutrient depletion (3.7 m ha). In this paper, various soil degradation hazards and their impacts on agro-ecosystems and suggested policies to be orchestrated in order to prevent further deterioration.
