Climate Change Impact on Soil Erosion and Land Degradation

The climate change process is intricately linked with soil erosion which is a major land degradation issue, decreasing soil productivity and causing soil carbon losses, which in turn accelerates various climate change processes. Climate change will give rise to extreme climatic events and rainfall erosivity which is a major driving force of soil erosion by water is likely to increase manifolds across different regions in the globe. This increase in rainfall erosivity will increase soil loss through erosion. Soil erosion from cropland is also going to increase if intensive agricultural practices are being followed without the adoption of proper soil conservation measures. Soil carbon loss due to the displacement of eroded soil and its subsequent mineralization is another phenomenon of concern that is going to increase under climate change scenario. Almost 30% of the displaced C is likely to be mineralized depleting the soils of C, paralyzing their capacity to provide various ecosystem services, and also increasing the atmospheric C concentration. The present chapter summarizes the various impacts of climate change on soil erosion with a concluding note of how the present world is striving to achieve sustainable soil management through various programs, designed at international and national levels. The need of the hour is to formulate soil legislation at the country and state levels to better address the problem and protect our soils from further degradation and achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030.