Indian land mass turning to desert at alarming pace: SAC
26 Nov 2009
New Delhi: A Space Applications Centre (SAC) study published in the Current Science journal suggests that nearly a quarter of India's land mass is desert, or is turning into desert, with unchecked deforestation and overgrazing. It says that northern and western parts of India are the worst affected by the phenomenon.
The study, which is the first national-level, government-commissioned research published on the issue, was aided by satellite mapping.
"There has been a long-pending need for desertification/land degradation status mapping of the entire country based on scientific methods," says the study.
The SAC is one of the major centres of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), dealing with a wide variety of themes, from payload developments to societal applications. It is responsible for realizing the applications-oriented programmes of ISRO in the areas of satellite communications and remote sensing.
The study now points out that the total area under desertification – that is, areas already considered desert and those under threat -- was over 80 million hectares (200 million acres).This constitutes almost a quarter of India's 328-million hectare land area.
The study points out that though India accounted for only 2.4 per cent of the global land mass it supported about 16.7 per cent of the world's population and 18 per cent of its cattle.
