Soil Degradation und Desertification including Land Conversion
Soil degradation has several faces and facets: Agricultural land use is the main source of soil degradation such as soil compaction, soil erosion and nutrient loss. In areas with intensive irrigation, for example in the Mediterranean regions, salinization is the main reason for soil degradation, whereas in Africa it is primarily overgrazing. In arid regions of the world such as Africa and parts of Asia and South America desertification is a threat to soil as a natural habitat. Climate change and inadequate agricultural practices are causal factors.
Despite the fact that the German Federal Government aims at reducing land consumption to 30ha/day until 2020, soil loss due to urbanization and infrastructure development remains high in Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt 2011). In many emerging countries such as China land conversion is much higher. The agricultural area decreases not only by soil sealing but also because more and more land can no longer be cultivated due to erosion and droughts. Serious social consequences such as rural exodus, land use conflicts and others more are the result.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity are examples for several international agreements that take soil and the protection of soils into account. At European level the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provides a regulatory framework targeting inter alia soil conservation, however, in the end this framework does not provide the respective incentives or regulations are not sufficiently implemented (Gay et al. 2009). Obviously soil degradation is a problem of institutions calling for the analysis of relationship between transactions, actors, institutions and governance structures for the design and implementation of political and technical measures.
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This problem dimension has been addressed in the following research projects:
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