how does deforestation lead to land degradation
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While deforestation has resulted in many ecological problems like habitat loss, mass extinction, increased CO2 emissions, etc., I will specifically focus on the changes it has brought to land and land processes.
Deforestation has a direct link to soil erosion. Trees have large root systems. The roots can typically span more area under the ground than they do above the ground. The roots are like fingers stretching deep into the Earth. And like fingers, they grip the soil they penetrate. This makes the soil immune to getting washed away during rains, heavy winds or floods. Forests actively prevent soil erosion, which has been considered the biggest caused of land degradation. This remains the biggest problem of deforestation. Madagascar, for example, loses so much soil to erosion (400 tons/ha) that its rivers run blood-red, staining the surrounding Indian Ocean. Madagascar is actually called the Great Red Island.
Forests have an active relationship with the land they live in. They form part of one of the most important processes in the ecosystem: nutrient cycling. Trees take up nutrients from the soil for their physiological processes. On the other land, when leaves fall off or when a plant dies, the nutrients are leached back into the soil. If forests disappear, this process in that area is shattered. Nutrients are leached deep into the ground as water infiltrates the soil, or it is washed away as the soil is eroded.
Forests also play a huge role in recharging groundwater. This is the largest source of freshwater available for humans. Trees in the forest hold up flowing water, allowing it to slowly infiltrate into the soil. When forests disappear, the water table falls lower and lower into the ground and the soils become very salty.
The activities that directly depend on forests cannot be sustained. Large populations of people who depend on these activities for their survival will become “deforested refugees”.
A freshly deforested land presents a huge number of opportunities. We can grow crops, mine, build settlements, etc. But this land is cursed. After a few years, the very land that was a treasure trove will become an evil trap. None of those activities can be sustained forever on a land that is not being recharged of those invaluable properties forest lands have.
Deforestation in extreme cases have lead to complete desertification of the land..
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