Land degradation happens when land becomes less healthy and less able to support life because of human actions or natural conditions. Many different factors cause land degradation, but human activities are often the main reason, such as using land in ways that are not sustainable. Natural events like floods or wildfires are not considered direct causes of land degradation, but human actions can sometimes increase the chances of these events happening.

By 2025, farming and land management practices that were not sustainable caused the degradation of 996 million hectares of farmland. This area makes up more than 60% of all land degradation caused by humans, which affects over 1,660 million hectares of land worldwide.

One effect of land degradation is that it reduces the land’s ability to hold and clean water, which can lead to water shortages. Land degradation and water shortages increase the risks for farming and the services ecosystems provide.

The United Nations say that about 30% of land around the world is degraded, and about 3.2 billion people live in areas where land is degrading. This leads to higher levels of environmental pollution. Land degradation lowers farming productivity, causes loss of plant and animal life, and can harm food and water security. In 2007, it was estimated that up to 40% of the world’s farmland is seriously degraded. The United Nations also say that land degradation could cost the global economy up to $23 trillion by 2050.

Definition

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, land degradation is defined as "the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity of drylands." Another definition describes it as "the degradation, impoverishment, and long-term loss of ecosystem services." It is considered any change or disturbance to the land that is seen as harmful or unwanted.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations explains that land degradation is caused by human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, and farming that is not sustainable. It refers to an ongoing decline in the land’s ability to support ecosystem functions and services. The effects can range from small decreases in productivity to the complete loss of agricultural use, highlighting the need for sustainable land management or restoration efforts.

Scale

According to the Special Report on Climate Change and Land by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2019, about one-fourth of Earth's ice-free land is damaged by human activities (medium confidence). Soil loss from farmland is currently 11 to 20 times higher (with no-tillage methods) or more than 100 times higher (with traditional tilling) than the rate at which soil forms naturally (medium confidence).

In 2014, the United Nations estimated that about 30% of land worldwide is degraded, and approximately 3.2 billion people live in these damaged areas, leading to high levels of environmental pollution. Each year, about 12 million hectares of productive land—roughly the size of Greece—is lost to degradation. This happens because land is used for economic purposes without proper planning for long-term sustainability.

In 2021, estimates showed that two-thirds of Africa’s productive land is severely affected by land degradation. In 2024, the United Nations reported that 75% of soils are degraded to some degree. If current trends continue, by 2050, 90% of land could be degraded. Between 2015 and 2019, about 100 million hectares of soil were degraded each year. The Global Environment Facility suggested that 95% of soil could be degraded by 2050.

In 2025, about 1.7 billion people live in areas where land degradation causes significant crop losses. Middle-income countries are most affected, with nearly 1 billion people living in these regions. In high-income countries, heavy use of resources helps maintain crop yields but hides land damage and increases environmental harm. The largest number of people affected by degradation live in Eastern and Southern Asia, where land damage has grown significantly and population density is high.

Types

In addition to common types of land damage that have been known for a long time (such as erosion from water, wind, or machines, and damage from physical, chemical, or living causes), four new types of land damage have appeared in the past 50 years:

• Pollution, often from chemicals, caused by farming, factories, mining, or businesses;
• Loss of farmland because of buildings, roads, changes in land use, or farming expansion;
• Radioactive materials from human activities, sometimes by accident;
• Limits on how land is used because of wars or conflicts.

In total, more than 36 types of land damage can be studied. All of these are caused or made worse by human actions, such as erosion, polluted soil, soil becoming too acidic, land being washed away by water, dirt building up in waterways, dryness, salty soil, and growing cities.

One challenge in defining land damage is that some people may see it as a problem, while others may see it as helpful. For example, growing crops on land with heavy rain and steep hills might worry scientists about soil erosion, but farmers might think the land is good for growing food.

Causes

Land degradation happens because of many human and natural causes that are connected. In Ethiopia, land has been harmed over a long time by processes that damage the land. The main direct causes are physical factors and poor ways people use the land, while the deeper causes are related to society, money, and rules.

Land degradation is a worldwide problem linked to farming, cutting down trees, and climate change. Causes include:

• Clearing land, such as cutting down forests or overharvesting trees.
• Farming practices: More than 1,660 million hectares of land, which is more than 10% of the world’s land, has been damaged by poor farming methods. Over 60% of this damage happened on farmland and pastures. This includes: Farming that removes soil nutrients, like leaving soil exposed after harvesting or plowing deeply (soil in areas with no-till farming degrades 5–10 times slower than soil in areas with deep plowing). Growing only one type of crop, which harms ecosystems. Overgrazing, which happens when too many animals eat plants on land that can’t support them. Using water in ways that harm the soil.
• Polluting the soil through littering, cities growing, mining, oil spills, chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers, and animal waste.
• Climate change, which makes land degradation worse in places like coastal areas, river deltas, drylands, and areas with frozen ground.

High population numbers do not always cause land degradation. It is the actions people take that can harm the land.

Serious land degradation harms a large part of the world’s farmland, which makes it harder for countries to grow wealth and develop. When land becomes less productive, food supplies are at risk, and competition for limited resources increases, which can lead to hunger and conflicts.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change worsens land degradation, especially in coastal areas, river deltas, drylands, and frozen ground. Between 1961 and 2013, the area of drylands in drought increased by more than 1% each year. In 2015, about 500 million people lived in areas that had desertification between the 1980s and 2000s. People in these areas are greatly affected by climate change. It is also reported that 74% of the world’s poor people are directly impacted by land degradation.

Land degradation caused by seawater flooding, especially in river deltas and low-lying islands, was noted in a 2007 IPCC report.

Because of rising sea levels from climate change, salt levels in some very low areas can become so high that farming is no longer possible.

In 2009, the European Investment Bank agreed to invest up to $45 million in the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund (LDN Fund). The LDN Fund started in 2017 at UNCCD COP 13 and supports projects that help the environment, improve people’s lives, and provide financial returns. The fund began with $100 million and is expected to grow to $300 million.

In the 2022 IPCC report, land degradation is becoming more directly linked to climate change. All types of soil erosion and loss of soil organic matter are increasing. Other causes of land degradation include human activities in managed ecosystems, such as farmland and pastures.

Impacts

Land degradation can take many forms and harms water and land resources. It can reduce the land's ability to store and clean water, leading to less water being available for use.

The effects of land degradation are serious and complex. These effects include lower amounts of food grown from crops, fewer types of plants and animals in ecosystems, greater risk of natural disasters such as floods and droughts, people losing their homes, less food for people to eat, and economic challenges. Degraded land also releases gases that contribute to climate change.

Other possible effects include:

• A short-term or long-term decrease in the land's ability to produce food or support life. This can be seen through less plant life, less actual or future food production, or changes in the types of plants and soil nutrients.
• Loss of biodiversity: Fewer types of plants and animals, and less complex ecosystems, which means the environment becomes less healthy.
• Increased risk of harm to the environment or people from disasters or crises.
• Wars and conflicts. Poor soil quality can increase competition over farmland, and most conflicts within countries in Africa since the 1990s are linked to such competition.
• People moving from their homes because of environmental problems.

Sensitivity and resilience are ways to measure how likely a landscape is to be damaged. Sensitivity describes how much a land area changes due to natural causes, human actions, or both. Resilience refers to how well a landscape can handle changes without greatly altering the balance of plants, animals, and other living things. It also means how well a place can return to its original condition after being changed. Human actions, such as how land is used, can increase or decrease resilience. Degraded land is less able to recover than land that is not degraded, which can lead to even more damage from sudden changes.

By 2025, farming and land use practices that are not sustainable caused the degradation of 996 million hectares of farmland. This accounts for more than 60% of land degradation caused by humans, which affects over 1,660 million hectares of land worldwide.

Land degradation on farms is influenced by local choices and global factors such as trade, climate change, and changes in population. Farmers usually make decisions based on how much food they can grow and how much money they can earn. The relationship between land degradation and food production varies depending on the region and the wealth of the country. In high-income countries with large-scale farming, land degradation causes severe losses in food production per hectare, though these losses are often hidden by heavy use of fertilizers and other resources. This approach can lead to higher costs, less return on investment, and worsen soil problems like acidification and pollution. In some areas with long histories of heavy farming, land degradation may cause farmland to be abandoned. In sub-Saharan Africa, lower food production is not due to healthier soil, but because other challenges, such as limited access to tools, money, and markets, are bigger problems. Land degradation is not the same everywhere, even on the same farm, as different areas may have different conditions.

The size of farms strongly affects how land is managed and how much food is produced. Of the world’s 570 million farms, 85% are smaller than 2 hectares and grow food on only 9% of farmland. The 0.1% of farms larger than 1,000 hectares control nearly 50% of farmland. Farms that are medium-sized, between 2 and 50 hectares, are especially important in Africa and Asia, where they manage about half of all farmland.

In Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, areas with degraded land often have high rates of poverty and childhood stunting. In 2025, 47 million children under five years old who are not growing properly live in areas where land degradation causes major losses in food production. These areas show a combination of environmental harm and human hardship.

Prevention and reversal

Restoring 10% of croplands damaged by human activities could produce enough food to feed an additional 154 million people each year. However, this number does not show the full impact of land damage. These estimates do not consider how land degradation leads to abandoned farmland. Studies suggest that restoring unused croplands could feed between 292 and 476 million people. Additionally, these estimates do not include the effects on pastures or the ecosystem services that benefit society, such as clean water and healthy soil. Because of this, land degradation is a problem that requires action from many people working together.

Actions to stop land degradation can be grouped into three types: prevention, mitigation, and restoration.

Sustainable land management has been shown to reverse land damage. It also helps ensure water security by increasing the amount of water stored in soil, reducing water that flows over the land, and lowering soil erosion. This leads to more water soaking into the ground and less water flowing into rivers during floods.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 has a target to restore damaged land and soil and achieve a land degradation-neutral world by 2030. The full name of Target 15.3 is: "By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought, and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world."

Increasing public understanding of the importance of land conservation, sustainable land management, and the effects of land degradation is essential for encouraging better habits and gaining support for solutions. Educational programs, public campaigns, and sharing knowledge can help individuals, communities, and groups adopt more sustainable practices and take care of the land.