Land degradation is reduction in productivity of land resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification is land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. There is an urgent need to stop and reverse the process of land degradation. Sustainable management of soil, water and biodiversity are required for protecting the land from further degradation.
There are global efforts to combat desertification. India is signatory to the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD) and is committed to achieve the land degradation neutral status by 2030. The Convention addresses specifically the issue of Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought (DLDD). Desertification Cell at Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India, New Delhi represents India in UNCCD and has established a multi-institutional mechanism for India's reporting to UNCCD related to implementation of Indian programmes for combating desertification and land degradation. One of the key requirement is inventory and monitoring desertification and land degradation of the country using satellite data in Geographical Information System (GIS) environment for providing baseline data to be used for prioritizing areas, carrying out desertification vulnerability and risk assessment and preparing action plans for combating desertification and land degradation.
A project entitled, Desertification Status Mapping of India, funded by Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India has been completed by Space Applications Centre (SAC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Ahmedabad as a nodal Centre along with 20 concerned Central/State government departments and academic institutes of the country. Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS) data has been utilised to prepare Desertification /Land Degradation Status Maps in GIS environment depicting Land Use, Process of Desertification/Land Degradation and Severity Level for entire country based on interpretation of Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data with 56 m spatial resolution on 1:500K and for selected districts of the country by interpreting Linear Imaging Self Scanner (LISS)-III data with 23 m spatial resolution on 1:50K for 2011-13 and 2003-05 time frame and reports the changes. These maps are helpful in identifying early signals of land degradation in good agriculture/forest land as well improvement in existing degraded land due to various reclamation measures. The project has generated baseline geospatial database on status of desertification/land degradation which is helpful in prioritizing areas for regional planning and to the ongoing National Action Plans (NAP) and Sustainable Land and Ecosystem Management (SLEM) program for combating desertification/land degradation. It can be further used for monitoring changes in future. The status of India's desertification and land degradation along with the changes can be used for India's reporting to UNCCD.
The outcome of the above mentioned work has been published on this web portal in the form of GIS database/maps and also as following atlases:
1. Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India (Based on IRS AWiFS data of 2018-19, 2011-13 and 2003-05).
2. Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of Selected Districts of India (Based on IRS LISS-III data of 2011-13 and 2003-05) - Volume-1 and Volume-2.