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Impacts of rural degradation - Coggle Diagram
Impacts of rural degradation
Poverty
Causes of poverty:
Rapid population growth
Agricultural modernisation
Limited non-farm income opportunities
Inequitable land distribution, insecure tenure
External shock (e.g. drought) and macro-economic impacts
This leads to:
Limited access to productive lands
Limited credit, technology, for resource management
Reduction in common propert resources (CPR's)
Then:
Urban migration
Rural stagnation in dry areas
Drought conditions exacerbated
Desertification and land degradation
Destruction of vegetative cover
Threats to biological diversity
Fuelwood shortages
Declining land productivity
Food insecurity
Greater exploitation of steep hillslopes and grazing lands
Destruction of vegetative cover in watersheds
Siltation etc. downstream
Soil erosion
Threats to biological diversity
Declining productivity
Fuelwood shortages
Downstream flooding etc.
Pressure to open forested frontier areas
Large scale deforestation
Flooding, siltation etc. downstream
Loss of soil fertility
Threats to biological diversity
Contributes to global warming
Declining land productivity
Loss of potential forest-based production
Capital-intensive farming
Agro-industrialisation impacts
deforestation
land degradation and desertification
salinisation and contamination of water supplies
air pollution
increasing concerns about the health of long-term farm workers
landscap change
declining biodiversity
Facts
About a third of the world's farmland is already affected by salinisation, erosion or other forms of degradation.
The global cattle population is around 1.5 billion and the pasture required amounts to about a third of the world's agricultural land. A further third of this land is taken up by animal feedcrops.
An estimated 1.3 billion people are employed in the livestock industry.
The balance between livestock and grass is sustainable at present but as demand increases, the pressure that cattle makes on the land may well soon exceed supply.
More cattle means more manure. Manure is often used to retore depleted soil, but it can lead to pollution by heavy metals such as cadmium, nickel, chromium and copper.
Further impacts
Livestock
Mainly due to the uniformity required by large food companies, important breeds of livestock are becoming extinct.
The FAO's
State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources
report stated that at least one livestock breed a month has been lost over the previous seven years.
Food scientists are concerned about this trend as genetic resources are the basis of food security
Crops
Agro-industrialisation is characterised by large areas of monoculture that, among other things, leaves crops more vulnerable to disease due to the depletion of natural systems of pest control.
Monoculture results in reliance on pesticides, which in turn causes a downward environmental cycle.
Large-scale farming
Large-scale farming has been expanding geographically into a number of fragile environments, particularly into areas of rainforest.
The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources,
published by the FAO, reported that between 1990 and 2005, the world's total forest area was reduced by 3%. This is a rate of 7.3 million hectares a year.
Meat consumption
In 2000, global meat consumption was 230 million tonnes. The forecast for 2050 is 465 million tonnes.
There is a strong relationship between meat consumption and rising per person incomes, although anomalies do occur due to cultural traditions.
It is no coincidence that many environmentalists are vegetarian - A study at the University of Chiago calculated that changing from the average American diet to a vegetarian one could cut annual emissions by almost 1.5 tonnes of CO2.
Urban/rural impact
Surrounding area
Untreated wastewater is a major pollutant of rivers, which can contaminate estuaries and coastal fishing areas, and can pollute the drinking-water supplies of rural communities downstream.
Urban use of groundwater can result in a depletion of the aquifer to the detriment of small farmers who rely on shallow wells.
In arid areas, cities many km inland can cause saltwater intrusion under coastal areas as a result of groundwater pumping.
Large scale impact
The human-industrial complexes of the world are a the main cause of slimate change.