State and Trends


multiple factors (Goldammer et al. 2004), these should be considered as an important pressure operating on soils in the years to come.


Urbanization and industrialization are increasing landfill- led land pollution. Although landfills are often designed to contain contaminants, using a bottom liner and a leachate collection system, leaks often occur and contaminants can reach surface and underground water bodies. Industries produce a variety of wastes hazardous to people and the environment including heavy metals (mercury, zinc and lead), and pesticides, for example, aldrin and dieldrin. The sources of these materials include industry, farmlands, commerce, hospitals, urban settlements and nuclear installations.


Social impacts


Nearly 12 per cent of the population lives in degraded areas of Asia and the Pacific (UNDP 2013), and this proportion may increase in years to come (Foresight: Migration and Global Environmental Change 2011) with significant social impacts. Direct impacts of large-scale land-use changes include displacement of indigenous people, loss of biodiversity and a reduction in important forest products. Land degradation has had severe impacts on human development in the region (Ahrends et al. 2015). Land conversion has often led to permanent deforestation, a decline in soil fertility and accelerated erosion (Van Vliet et al. 2012), and imperils associated livelihoods (Lindenmayer et al. 2012). Intensive land-resource use is resulting in several socio-physical impacts in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. The link between environmental degradation and migration is widely acknowledged and land degradation is an important factor especially in short-term migration (Shah 2005). Land- degradation induced migration is projected to increase in Asia in the years to come (ADB 2012; Foresight: Migration and Global Environmental Change 2011). Large-scale land acquisition has also been emerging as an important driver of human migration and economic marginalization (Siciliano 2012).


Ecosystem services in the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal generate economic benefits of USD16 million per year, equivalent to USD982 per household (Sharma et al. 2015). Sound policy and institutional mechanisms exist to empower local communities to preserve these services and to allow them to benefit from doing so, but they are rarely implemented.


Biodiversity and ecosystem impacts


It is important to recognize the links between land-use change and degradation and its impact on associated biodiversity and ecosystem services. Land-use and related pressures have caused severe damage to local species richness in Asia and the Pacific (Newbold et al. 2015). Rangelands of Northeast Asia provide valuable ecological services and support the livelihoods of local herders on the Qinghai- Tibetan Plateau (Harris 2010), but they are being degraded by overgrazing, policy changes and climate change (Xiong et al. 2008). According to Visconti et al. (2015) several species on peninsular Malaysia and insular Southeast Asia are at high risk of extinction by 2050 as a result of projected impacts of land-use changes such as conversion to forest plantations and natural forest logging.


Desertification


Of the 2 billion hectares of drylands in Asia, more than half are affected by desertification. The increasing dust storms are attributed to wind-related desertification processes, resulting from human impacts in arid, semiarid and sub- humid regions of northern China (Wang et al. 2013). The Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA) project revealed persistently declining land productivity throughout 1981–2003 for 24 per cent of global land, mainly south of the equator, in Southeast Asia and south China, and north- central Australia (Bai et al. 2008). Countries in the Asia and the Pacific region rank among the highest globally, with the most affected being China (457 million hectares), followed by India (177 million hectares), Indonesia (86 million


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