The pie chart below shows the main reasons why agricultural land becomes less productive. The tables show how these causes affected three regions of the world during the 1990s.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The provided circular chart represents the four main causes of farmland becoming degraded in the world today and the tabular chart shows how these causes three distinct areas of the world during the 1990s. Units are measured in percentage in both.
At a fleeting glance, it can be clearly observed that, globally, 65% of degradation is caused by too much animal grazing and tree clearance, constituting 35% and 30% respectively. A further 28% of global degradation is due to over cultivation of crops. Other causes account for only 7% collectively.
Probing further, these causes affected different regions differently in the 1990s, with Europe as much as 9.8% of degradation due to deforestation, while the impact of this on Oceania and North America was minimal, with only 1.7% and 0.2% of land impacted orderly. Europe, with the highest overall percentage of land degraded (23%), also suffered from over cultivation (7.7%) and overgrazing (5.5%). In contrast, Oceania had 13% of degraded farmland and this was mainly due to overgrazing (11.3%). North America had a lower proportion of degraded land at only 5%, and the main causes of this were over cultivation (3.3%) and, to a lesser extent, overgrazing (1.5%).
Overall, it is clear that Europe suffered more from farmland degradation than the other regions, and the main causes there were deforestation and over cultivation.
