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Land Degradation in Bihar, India: An Assessment Using Rain-Use Efficiency and Residual Trend Analysis

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Abstract

Land degradation, a major environmental problem, poses threats to agricultural, social and economic stability of many regions of the world. In India, ~ 37% of the total land area is estimated to be degraded. Although assessment of land degradation in arid and semiarid regions of India has advanced through remote sensing time-series analysis such as rain-use efficiency (RUE) and residual trend analysis (RESTREND), the sub-humid and other regions mostly remain unexplored in this respect. In this study, land degradation in Bihar, a sub-humid state, was quantitatively assessed through RUE and RESTREND from 1995 to 2011. RUE is the ratio of aboveground net primary productivity to precipitation and has been widely used as a measure of land degradation. RESTREND, on the other hand, examines the trend of NDVI residuals, which is the difference between observed NDVI and predicted NDVI from rainfall data. Results indicate that RESTREND effectively estimated the extent of human-induced land degradation in Bihar as 4.73 M ha. Agro-climatic zone IIIB, the driest zone, has the highest percentage of degraded lands (33%), while Zone IIIA has the lowest percent of degraded lands (17%). Zones I and II each account for 25% of the degraded lands, most of which are affected by waterlogging and salinity. Although other land degradation databases have also indicated a rapid increase in land degradation across Bihar, it needs more ground-based data collection to substantiate it. The problem, however, may further aggravate with global warming, which calls for policy interventions such as adopting agroforestry, practicing sustainable agriculture and making shifts in cropping patterns.

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Acknowledgements

This work forms part of the first author’s MSc dissertation, and he acknowledges the financial support provided by Nalanda University to undergo the program. The authors are thankful to India Metrological Department, Pune, for providing the rainfall data that were used in this project. The authors are also grateful to Dr. N. R. Patel, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organization, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, and Dr Arnab Kundu, Centre of Atmosphere and Space Studies, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, as well as the GIS Laboratory, Faculty of Technology, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, for their support in data processing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ecology and Environment Studies, Nalanda University, Rajgir, Nalanda, Bihar, India

    Ibrahim Abubakar Radda

  2. College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, KAU PO, Thrissur, Kerala, 680656, India

    B. Mohan Kumar

  3. Department of Physical and Natural Sciences, FLAME School of Liberal Education, FLAME University, Lavale, Pune, India

    Prasad Pathak

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  1. Ibrahim Abubakar Radda
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IAR conceived the study, collected the data and analyzed them. BMK and PP supervised the study. IAR prepared the first draft. BMK revised it.

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Correspondence to Ibrahim Abubakar Radda.

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Radda, I.A., Kumar, B.M. & Pathak, P. Land Degradation in Bihar, India: An Assessment Using Rain-Use Efficiency and Residual Trend Analysis. Agric Res 10, 434–447 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40003-020-00514-y

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