Land Distribution Challenges in India: Erosion, Salinity, and More

India’s agricultural productivity depends heavily on the health of its land. But a significant portion of the country’s land area faces serious problems – from soil being washed away by rain to salt crusts forming on once-fertile fields. Understanding how land is distributed according to these problems is essential for planning effective reclamation and ensuring long-term food security.

The scale of land degradation in India 🔗

India has a total geographical area of about 328.7 million hectares (Mha). Of this, a staggering 147 Mha is estimated to be undergoing some form of soil degradation. This includes damage from water erosion, wind erosion, flooding, acidification, salinity, and other combined factors. To put that in perspective, India supports about 18% of the world’s population and 15% of its livestock, but holds only 2.4% of the world’s land area. Every hectare lost to degradation directly threatens the country’s ability to feed itself.

The economic cost of this degradation is equally alarming. A study by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) estimated the cost of land degradation at approximately 48.8 billion USD, which accounted for about 2.5% of India’s GDP in 2014-15 and nearly 16% of the gross value added from agriculture, forestry, and fishing sectors.

Water erosion: the biggest culprit 🔗

Water erosion is by far the most widespread form of land degradation in India. According to the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India published by ISRO, water erosion alone accounted for about 11% of the country’s desertified area in the 2011-13 assessment period. In absolute terms, approximately 94 Mha of land is affected by water erosion.

How water erosion works 🔗

Water erosion occurs when rainfall or surface runoff dislodges and carries away topsoil. It can take several forms – sheet erosion (a thin, relatively uniform layer of soil is removed), rill erosion (small channels form on sloped land), and gully erosion (deep channels are carved into the land over time). The impact depends on rainfall intensity, slope, soil type, and vegetation cover.

The consequences are severe. Research indicates that water erosion causes an annual crop production loss of about 13.4 million tonnes in cereals, oilseeds, and pulses across India. The Chambal region, spread across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, is a well-known example of severe gully erosion that has created vast stretches of unusable badlands.

Regions most affected 🔗

Water erosion is widespread across the country but particularly severe in the hilly regions of the northeast, the Western Ghats, the Shivalik hills, and the ravine areas of central India. States like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and the northeastern states face heavy topsoil loss because of high rainfall combined with steep terrain and deforestation. In the plains, areas with poor soil conservation practices and intensive tillage also see significant damage.

Wind erosion: the desert’s advance 🔗

Wind erosion is the second major physical process causing land degradation in India. Estimates suggest that about 18.2 Mha of land is affected by wind erosion, predominantly in the arid and semi-arid western parts of the country. The ISRO atlas recorded wind erosion as responsible for approximately 5.5% of the total desertified area nationally.

The Thar Desert and Rajasthan 🔗

Rajasthan bears the brunt of wind erosion. About 70% of Rajasthan’s area is affected by desertification, and wind erosion alone accounts for roughly 44% of the degraded land in the state. The western districts – home to the Thar Desert – experience sand movement, dust storms, and dune formation, especially during the hot summer months when wind speeds can reach 40-60 km per hour and vegetation cover is at its thinnest.

Wind erosion affects crop yields both directly and indirectly. Directly, it damages standing crops through sandblasting and burial under sand. Indirectly, it strips away the fertile topsoil, depleting nutrients and organic matter. Studies from the ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute found that pearl millet, a staple crop in western Rajasthan, can suffer yield losses of up to 195 kg per hectare annually in areas of very severe wind erosion.

Beyond Rajasthan 🔗

While Rajasthan is the most affected, wind erosion also impacts parts of Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab – particularly the drier western stretches. In these areas, improper land management, overgrazing, and deforestation have removed protective vegetation cover, leaving soil exposed to wind damage.

Salinity and alkalinity: the invisible poison 🔗

Salt-affected soils are a growing concern across India. About 6.73 million hectares of land in India is salt-affected, split between approximately 2.96 Mha of saline soils and 3.77 Mha of sodic (alkali) soils. Of these, around 2.35 Mha are concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plains alone.

What causes salinity? 🔗

Soil salinity develops when soluble salts accumulate in the root zone, raising the osmotic pressure and making it difficult for plants to absorb water. There are two primary pathways. In coastal areas, seawater intrusion brings salts into the soil. In inland areas, the more common cause is secondary salinisation – a human-induced process linked to poor irrigation and drainage management.

When canal water is applied excessively without proper drainage, groundwater levels rise. As this shallow groundwater evaporates, salts dissolved in it are deposited on the soil surface. Over time, these salt deposits make the land unfit for most crops.

The Punjab-Haryana belt: a case study 🔗

The states of Punjab and Haryana illustrate this problem clearly. The expansion of canal irrigation – including large projects like the Western Yamuna Canal and the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana (IGNP) – transformed these states into India’s grain bowl during the Green Revolution. But the same intensive irrigation, without adequate sub-surface drainage, has caused groundwater tables to rise dramatically.

In Haryana, around 440,000 hectares are affected by salinity, with the most severely impacted districts being Karnal, Kurukshetra, Jind, Hisar, Sonipat, Jhajjar, and Rohtak. In Punjab, approximately 250,000 hectares face similar problems. Districts in south-west Punjab like Muktsar, Fazilka, Bathinda, and Mansa are particularly affected by the combined impact of canal seepage, shallow aquifers, and paddy cultivation.

The salinity problem has altered cropping patterns significantly. Crops like gram and oilseeds have become nearly impossible to grow in highly saline zones, pushing farmers to rely heavily on paddy – a water-intensive crop that, ironically, further worsens waterlogging.

Waterlogging: when too much water becomes a problem 🔗

Waterlogging occurs when the water table rises so high that the root zone of crops gets saturated, cutting off oxygen supply and killing plants. In India, about 8.4 million hectares are affected by salinity and alkalinity combined, of which approximately 5.5 Mha are waterlogged. Waterlogging and salinity often occur together, each worsening the other.

Canal irrigation as a driver 🔗

The primary cause of waterlogging in India’s agricultural plains is excessive canal irrigation with poor drainage infrastructure. Seepage from unlined canals, over-irrigation, and the obstruction of natural water flow by roads and other constructions all contribute. The most severely affected areas include about two million hectares in the arid and semi-arid northwestern states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, along with one million hectares each in coastal and black cotton soil regions.

The IGNP example in Rajasthan 🔗

The Indira Gandhi Canal area in Rajasthan offers a textbook case of how well-intentioned irrigation can backfire without proper planning. After canal water reached the arid lands of western Rajasthan, groundwater levels began to rise. In Phase I of the IGNP, the water table rose significantly, and severe waterlogging was observed at multiple locations. The result was widespread secondary salinisation – the very land that the canal was meant to make productive began turning barren.

Projections indicate that about 13 million hectares in irrigation command areas across India could be affected by waterlogging and salinity by 2025, and the use of saline or alkali groundwater combined with climate change is expected to make things worse.

Other forms of land degradation 🔗

Acidification 🔗

About 16 Mha of land in India suffers from soil acidification, mainly in the high-rainfall regions of the northeast, parts of the Western Ghats, and some areas of Jharkhand and Odisha. Acidic soils reduce nutrient availability and hamper crop growth. Heavy use of nitrogenous fertilisers and the leaching of bases from topsoil by heavy rains are primary causes.

Vegetation degradation 🔗

Loss of vegetation cover – through deforestation, overgrazing, and shifting cultivation – accounts for a large share of land degradation. The ISRO atlas identified vegetation degradation as responsible for about 9.15% of desertification in the country, making it the second largest contributor after water erosion. States in the northeast that practice jhum (slash-and-burn) cultivation are particularly affected.

Ravines and gullies 🔗

Deep ravines have formed along the banks of rivers like the Chambal, Yamuna, and Mahi in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. These ravines are created by decades of unchecked water erosion and represent some of the most severely degraded lands in the country, with soil loss rates exceeding 20-40 tonnes per hectare per year in many areas.

Addressing the challenge: what is being done? 🔗

India has committed to restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, in line with its obligations under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Several strategies are already in use.

Sub-surface drainage has been successfully implemented in states like Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Punjab, restoring around 110,000 hectares of waterlogged saline soils. Where drainage has been installed, yields of paddy, wheat, and cotton increased substantially – with cotton yields improving by as much as 215%.

Bio-drainage – the planting of fast-growing, water-consuming tree species like Eucalyptus and Prosopis – offers a cost-effective way to lower water tables in waterlogged areas. In the IGNP area of Rajasthan, tree plantations along canals reportedly lowered the groundwater table by 14 metres in six years.

Shelterbelt plantations and sand dune stabilisation have been used in the Thar Desert to check wind erosion. Maintaining crop residues on the field surface also helps reduce wind damage.

Watershed management programmes, including contour bunding, terracing, and check dams, are used in hilly and rainfed areas to reduce water erosion and improve soil moisture retention.

Why this matters for India’s food future 🔗

India is projected to need around 311 million tonnes of food grains by 2030 and 350 million tonnes by 2050 to feed its growing population. With urbanisation eating into agricultural land, the only realistic way to expand the productive land base is by reclaiming degraded land. The good news is that reclamation is economically viable – TERI’s analysis found that the annual costs of degradation actually exceed the total costs projected for reclamation by 2030. In other words, it costs more to let land degrade than to fix it.

Each type of degradation – whether water erosion in the Chambal badlands, wind erosion in the Thar, salinity in Haryana’s canal-fed plains, or waterlogging in the IGNP command area – requires a tailored approach. A national one-size-fits-all solution will not work. What will work is detailed mapping (like the ISRO atlas), region-specific interventions, community participation, and sustained investment.

What do you think? With land degradation costing India billions of dollars annually, should the focus shift more aggressively towards reclaiming degraded land rather than bringing new areas under cultivation? And in states like Haryana and Rajasthan, how can irrigation policy be redesigned to prevent the very infrastructure meant to boost farming from destroying the soil?

References

1. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/4/3528
2. https://www.teriin.org/sites/default/files/2018-04/Vol%20I%20-%20Macroeconomic%20assessment%20of%20the%20costs%20of%20land%20degradation%20in%20India_0.pdf
3. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-news-analysis/land-degradation-and-desertification-in-india
4. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/698_2022_913
5. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/climate-change/what-it-takes-to-reclaim-the-thar-66485
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1875963717300101
7. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.533781/full
8. https://www.indiawaterportal.org/agriculture/when-the-ground-refuses-to-drink-how-waterlogging-and-soil-salinity-are-impacting-haryanas-agriculture
9. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e005/152f99a7917ba5c13a37102bc9f6afd19b84.pdf
10. https://www.icid.org/report_bmw_n_ss.pdf