Why environmental studies must work with economics and the social sciences to tackle desertification

Introduction

Desertification is the degradation of land in dry and semi-dry regions until it loses its productivity and becomes desert-like. It happens when the vegetation that binds the soil is removed: when forests are cleared or grasslands overgrazed, the land becomes unproductive wasteland, and over-irrigation adds salts to the surface on which crops cannot grow. Worldwide, some 5 to 7 million hectares of farmland are degraded every year. The DU course treats it as part of land degradation within natural resources.

Why natural science alone is not enough

Soil science, ecology and hydrology can explain how land degrades and can design remedies: shelter belts, contour bunds, drought-tolerant grasses, drip irrigation. But the remedies fail if people cannot afford them, gain nothing from them, or do not agree to follow them. The why of desertification, who overuses the land and for what reason, is an economic and social question. That is why the two must be joined to environmental studies.

What economics adds

1. Finding the real drivers. Land is often overused because of economic pressure. Cheap food dumped by rich countries on poorer markets lowers prices and pushes farmers there into unsustainable practices to compete; rising consumerism among the well-off and rapid population growth raise the demand on land.
2. Putting a value on land and soil. Economics can show that fertile soil lost today means lower yields and incomes for years, so prevention is cheaper than cure. Example (ours): comparing the one-time cost of check dams and bunds in a dry Rajasthan village with the crop income they protect over ten years.
3. Designing incentives. Subsidies, prices and credit decide what farmers grow. Cheap water and power encourage over-irrigation and salinisation; support for water-saving methods, millets and agroforestry can reverse it.
4. Alternative livelihoods. Where a family survives only by cutting the last shrubs for fuel or sale, the land cannot rest. Income from other work reduces the pressure.

What the social sciences add

1. Understanding how communities use land. Grasslands are the grazing grounds of many rural communities; cattle, goats and sheep are grazed on the village common land, and overused or repeatedly burnt grasslands lose their plant diversity. Sociology explains who uses the commons, and why no one person feels responsible for them.
2. Building local institutions. Rules on rotational grazing, closing degraded plots to let grass recover, and sharing the benefits fairly work only when the community makes and enforces them. Example (ours): a gram sabha in a dry district deciding to close a hill slope to goats for three years and share the fodder grass that grows back.
3. Using traditional knowledge. Older farming and herding societies had their own ways of protecting resource areas; anthropology helps revive what still works.
4. Equity and participation. Women, landless herders and small farmers are hit first and hardest; policies that ignore them lose their support. Choices made by individuals about consumption and family size also matter.

Conclusion

Science tells us how to hold the soil; economics tells us why people cannot or do not, and how to make conservation pay; the social sciences tell us how to get whole communities to act together. Desertification can be checked only when all three are combined, which is exactly what the multidisciplinary approach of environmental studies offers.