15 - Contributions from the physical and biological sciences

Summary

The use of land often promotes land degradation and this use is in turn a function of the economic, social, political and technical environments. The economic, political and social environments and their influence on land degradation have been widely canvassed in preceding chapters. The purpose of this chapter is to assess the capacity of the current technical knowledge on biophysical aspects of land degradation to contribute to solutions to the problem.

Definitions

It is perhaps late in the proceedings to define what should be meant by land degradation. As Chisholm notes in Chapter 12, land degradation is a complex phenomenon. In Chapter 3 Wasson notes that it is a change that makes land less useful for humans.

It is important to view land degradation in terms of use, either active or passive. Hence land clearing should not be considered per se as a land degradation process, as Burch, Graetz and Noble have inferred in Chapter 2, unless one of two preconditions is met. That is the land must previously have been more useful in a passive role, for example wildlife conservation, or the clearing must instigate other land degradation processes that detract from the capacity of the land to continue supporting its desired use and reduce its capacity for future uses or options.

The land use environment

Land degradation is fundamentally the product of human decisions, as noted by Quiggin in Chapter 10. These decisions are made in a sociopolitical- economic environment unique to present-day Australia.