Monday, August 22, 2011
Irrational Use Of Land In Last Few Years
29% of earth is made up of land while the rest 71% is composed of water. Land is made up of soil, forests, hills, mountains, plains, plateaus, islands and agricultural pastures. These factors interact with each other to support life. Land is inhabited by animals, birds and humans.
Since last few years, man has been exploiting land for its selfish purposes. Humans clear forests for constructing building, practicing agricultural, mining and establishing industries. Immense changes have occurred in the land use pattern thus, destroying the land cover.
Did You Know?
1) Since 17th Century to 19th Century, the croplands have increase from 39.2% to 49.9%
2) The global tree cover has reduced by 29%
3) There is a net increase of industrial lands by 19, 20,000 sq. km in India.
4) Due to loss of forest cover, our beautiful earth has lost approximately 27,000 species inhabiting the tropical rain forests.
Main Causes Of Land Degradation:
Natural Causes:
Natural disasters like earthquakes, multiple tsunamis and landslides, avalanches, droughts, floods and natural desertification.
Man Made Causes:
Large scale deforestation, over exploitation of resources, urbanization, dumping of wastes, land pollution, soil erosion and irrational use of land for developmental activities like construction, transport and industrialization etc.
How Can We Restore This Balance?
1) Adopting measures for preventing soil erosion. We can plant trees, work upon barren lands and develop them into parks. The government should make provisions to make use of as much barren lands as possible, by adding fertilizers to it.
2) Development of good methods of irrigation so as to maintain the existing agricultural land and, to ensure good crop production. Farmers can also practice contour farming and terrace forming to prevent soil leaching.
3) Judicious use of underground water, mineral deposits, natural resources and fuels to prevent over exploitation.
4) Recycling waste and preventing over-dumping. You should avoid the use of plastic and other synthetic items because they take several years for degrading.
5) Preventing repeated overgrazing of cattle in a particular region.
6) Treating liquid and solid wastes in industries to prevent toxic chemicals from blending with the soil.
If we judiciously control our increasing requirements and, exercises control on our irrational activities, we can easily restore the natural beauty of our land. Otherwise, just think where will you go if you have no place to live? Where will the poor animals live if the forests are cut down?
Being kids, you cannot interfere with state laws and start large-scale movements to prevent land degradation. But, you can always practice small steps to make this world a better place to live in. Try planting saplings on Sundays and, encourage your neighbors to convert a nearby barren land into a beautiful park.
“Little drops make a vast ocean, similarly petty steps will make a huge contribution to your society”…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
Posts
No comments :
Post a Comment