Land resources and its degradation in Asia: Its control and management

• Published in: Land and Environmental Management through Forestry
• Main Author: Liliwirianis N.; Isa N.N.M.; Suratman M.N.
• Format: Book chapter
• Language: English
• Published: wiley 2024
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85165057178&doi=10.1002%2f9781119910527.ch2&partnerID=40&md5=52e26ca20494906407a0dc096b99a54c

Land resources represent the direct and indirect advantages of human existence. In general, the resources support most fundamental human needs and everyday sustenance, ensuring that ecosystems flourish and function effectively. However, many issues have been raised as humans pursue modernization and urbanization. Land resource degradation is one of the most underlying and ongoing environmental issues. It has become significantly worse in recent decades because of the rising population, which demands the cultivation of secondary lands to fulfill the growing food demand. Globally, the leading causes of land resource degradation are due to direct and indirect human intervention. The intervention is deforestation, overexploitation of the trees for domestic use, and agricultural and industrial activities. Other interferences involve overpopulation, pollution, waste, and technological development. Significant threats to the conservation of land resources are health effects, global climate change, destruction of forests, extinction of animals and plants, loss of elements and minerals, scarcity of water, and many more. In order to reduce all the threats, urgent measures should be implemented to prevent the degradation process. On top of that, the effort will ensure the restoration of productivity of land resources so that the land resources can be conserved to provide livelihood and environmental security to the next generation of humankind. This chapter aims to review types of land resources, causes of land resource degradation, significant degradation threats, and activities to control the degradation, and management options for better land resource conservation. © 2023 Scrivener Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.