Soil Pollution and Desertification: Causes, UNCCD and Control

The correct answer is D, Shelter belts. A shelter belt is a row or a block of trees and shrubs planted across the direction of the prevailing wind. It breaks the force of the wind before it reaches the field, and because wind erosion is the dominant form of soil loss in dry regions such as western Rajasthan and along open coasts, shelter belts are the measure chosen there; they also check the advance of sand dunes. A is wrong because contour ploughing runs furrows along the contour of a slope to hold back running water, so it answers water erosion on sloping land, not wind. B is wrong because terrace farming cuts a hill slope into level steps and is used in hilly and mountainous country such as the Himalayas and the Nilgiris, not in flat coastal or arid plains. C is wrong because mulching covers bare soil with straw or crop residue to reduce evaporation and splash erosion; it is a useful supporting practice but it is not the method specifically associated with coastal and dry regions.

The correct answer is C, Use of chemical fertilizers. The question asks for the odd one out, and the heavy use of chemical fertilisers damages soil rather than conserving it: it acidifies the soil, kills soil microorganisms, leaves salt residues, and the surplus nitrate and phosphate wash into water bodies and cause eutrophication. Soil conservation is achieved with organic manure, green manure and biofertilisers instead. A is a genuine conservation technique, because uncontrolled cattle grazing strips the grass cover and exposes bare soil to wind and rain, so regulating grazing allows pasture to recover. B is a genuine technique, since rotating a cereal with a leguminous crop restores nitrogen through root nodule bacteria and breaks pest cycles. D is also genuine, because strip cropping alternates bands of close-growing crops with row crops so that the dense strips trap the soil carried off the open strips.

The correct answer is B, 1994. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was adopted at Paris on 17 June 1994 and it entered into force in December 1996. It is the only legally binding international agreement that links environment and development to sustainable land management, and it is counted as the third of the three Rio Conventions. A is wrong because 1992 is the year of the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, where the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity were opened for signature and where governments only agreed to negotiate a desertification treaty. C is wrong because 1996 is the year the Convention entered into force and the year India ratified it, not the year of adoption; candidates are regularly trapped by this pair. D is wrong because 2001 is the year of India's National Action Programme to Combat Desertification, a national plan made under the Convention.

The correct answer is B, 17 June. The day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification at Paris on 17 June 1994, and the United Nations General Assembly declared it in the same year so that governments would review progress on land restoration annually. A is wrong because 5 June is World Environment Day, instituted after the Stockholm Conference of 1972 and first observed in 1973. C is wrong because 22 April is International Mother Earth Day, which grew out of the first Earth Day held in the United States in 1970 and is not a United Nations convention anniversary. D is wrong because 16 September is the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, which marks the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987. Keeping these four June and April dates apart is a frequent one-mark question in SSC and railway papers.

The correct answer is C, Cadmium. Itai-itai, which means ouch-ouch in Japanese, was first recorded in the Jinzu river basin of Japan, where mine waste put cadmium into irrigation water and then into rice grown in the contaminated soil. Cadmium weakens the bones and damages the kidneys, so the softened bones fracture easily and cause the severe pain that gave the disease its name. Phosphatic fertiliser carries cadmium as a natural impurity, which is why overuse of fertiliser is a soil pollution concern. A is wrong because lead poisoning, or plumbism, causes anaemia and damage to the nervous system, especially in children. B is wrong because mercury causes Minamata disease, also named after a place in Japan, which affects the nervous system and was traced to industrial effluent in a bay. D is wrong because arsenic causes skin lesions, hyperkeratosis and black-foot disease.

The correct answer is B, New Delhi Declaration. India hosted the fourteenth Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD at Greater Noida near New Delhi in 2019, and the meeting closed with the New Delhi Declaration, in which the parties committed themselves to restoring degraded land and to working towards Land Degradation Neutrality. India used the same platform to announce that it would restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. A is wrong because the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development came out of the Earth Summit of 1992 and set out twenty-seven principles including the precautionary principle. C is wrong because the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 belongs to the Convention on Biological Diversity and deals with access to genetic resources and benefit sharing. D is wrong because the Bonn Challenge is a voluntary global forest landscape restoration target launched in 2011, not a declaration adopted at this conference.

The correct answer is B, Jodhpur. The Central Arid Zone Research Institute was set up at Jodhpur in Rajasthan in 1959 and works under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. It studies the ecology of the Thar desert, the stabilisation of sand dunes, shelter belt plantation, dryland farming systems and water harvesting in arid tracts, which makes it the first institution named in any question on combating desertification in India. A is wrong because Jaipur, though the state capital of Rajasthan, does not house this institute. C is wrong because Bikaner lies deep in the Thar desert and has an agricultural university but not CAZRI. D is wrong because Ahmedabad is the base of the Space Applications Centre of ISRO, which publishes the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India; confusing the mapping agency at Ahmedabad with the research institute at Jodhpur is the trap in this question.

The correct answer is A, Karnal. The ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute is at Karnal in Haryana and is the national institute for the reclamation of salt-affected soils, the use of poor quality water in irrigation, subsurface drainage in waterlogged land, and salt-tolerant crop varieties. Salt affected land, known as reh, kallar or usar in the Indo-Gangetic plain, is one of the largest forms of land degradation in India, which is why this institute appears in environment and agriculture papers alike. B is wrong because Hisar houses Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University and a central institute for buffalo research, not the salinity institute. C is wrong because Ludhiana is the seat of Punjab Agricultural University. D is wrong because Kanpur has the Indian Institute of Pulses Research and an IIT, but neither deals with soil salinity reclamation as its mandate.

The correct answer is C, Gully erosion. Running water in the Chambal basin of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh has cut deep, steep-sided channels into soft alluvium, and when these channels multiply and widen the land becomes unfit for cultivation. Such dissected and broken land is called badland or ravine land, and the Chambal ravines are the standard Indian example of gully erosion. A is wrong because sheet erosion removes a thin and even film of topsoil over a wide surface and leaves no visible channel, which is why it is the most insidious rather than the most visible form. B is wrong because rill erosion is the intermediate stage of small finger-like channels that can still be ploughed over; gullies are what rills become when they are not checked. D is wrong because wind erosion produces shifting sand dunes and deflation hollows, and dominates western Rajasthan rather than the Chambal ravines.

The correct answer is C, Bonn. The permanent secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification has been based at Bonn in Germany since 1999, in the same United Nations campus that hosts the secretariat of the UNFCCC, which is a useful memory link because both are Rio Conventions with their secretariats in the same German city. A is wrong because Geneva hosts bodies such as the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the World Trade Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change secretariat, but not the UNCCD. B is wrong because Nairobi is the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme and of UN-Habitat, a fact often mixed up with this one. D is wrong because Paris is where the Convention was adopted in 1994 and is the seat of UNESCO, but the Convention's working secretariat is not there.

The correct answer is D, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The Ramsar Convention was signed at Ramsar in Iran in 1971 and came into force in 1975, two decades before the Earth Summit, and its secretariat sits at Gland in Switzerland; it therefore has no connection with Rio. The three Rio Conventions are those that arose from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. A is wrong as an answer because the UNFCCC was opened for signature at Rio in 1992 and entered into force in 1994. B is wrong as an answer because the Convention on Biological Diversity was also opened for signature at Rio in 1992 and entered into force in 1993. C is wrong as an answer because the UNCCD, although adopted at Paris in 1994, was mandated by Agenda 21 at Rio and is counted as the third Rio Convention.

The correct answer is D, SDG 15. Sustainable Development Goal 15 is Life on Land, and target 15.3 commits countries to combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation neutral world. Land Degradation Neutrality means that the amount of healthy and productive land stays stable or increases, because whatever is degraded is matched by an equal area restored. A is wrong because SDG 6 is Clean Water and Sanitation. B is wrong because SDG 13 is Climate Action, which is linked to land degradation through drought and carbon loss but does not carry the neutrality target. C is wrong because SDG 14 is Life Below Water and deals with oceans, seas and marine resources. Remembering the pair of goals 14 and 15 as water and land is the quickest way to avoid this trap.