Discuss the role of aeolian processes in desertification and land degradation.
🧭 How to think about this question · directive: “discuss”
Decode the demand
- Directive 'discuss': explain the role of wind from several sides with reasons; a list of landforms alone earns little.
- The issue in one line: how wind erodes, carries and dumps material in drylands, and how that turns usable land into desert-like land.
- Three things to answer: how erosion and transport degrade soil; how deposition and the human–wind loop spread desert conditions; and what checks it. Add the qualification that wind also builds soil.
- The trap: writing only about the Thar's dunes or only about Aravalli greening. The marks sit in linking process (deflation, abrasion, saltation) to degradation (lost topsoil, buried fields).
Think in a structure
- Open with a definition of aeolian processes, the UNCCD meaning of desertification, and one national figure for degraded land.
- One heading per demand part: erosion and transport; deposition and feedback; then a positive heading on what a dryland district can do.
- Visuals: a three-column table mapping process → mechanism → land effect, and a flowchart of the overgrazing–wind feedback loop; both drawable in 30 seconds.
- End on SDG target 15.3 after India's 26 million hectare pledge, so the conclusion is earned, not pasted.
Facts checked at source (5)· open
- India raised its Bonn Challenge pledge to restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 at UNCCD COP14 (2019) — Lok Sabha reply, August 2023.Land Degradation and Desertification — Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Lok Sabha reply (PIB, 10 August 2023) ↗“This pledge to restore of 21 m.ha by 2030 has been increased to 26 mha, during the COP14 to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2019”
- Land degradation and desertification in India was 97.85 million hectares (97,854,851 ha) in 2018-19, per the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India (2021) of ISRO's Space Applications Centre (Rajya Sabha reply, PIB, 7 August 2026).Agricultural yield losses due to human-induced land degradation — Rajya Sabha reply, PIB, 7 August 2026 ↗“Total 97,854,851 This information was given by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare”
- The Aravalli Green Wall Project (launched 25 March 2023) aims to stop the Thar Desert's eastward expansion with green barriers against soil erosion and dust storms.Aravalli Green Wall Project launched — PIB, 25 March 2023 ↗“To prevent eastward expansion of Thar Desert and to reduce land degradation by creating green barriers that will prevent soil erosion, desertification and dust storms”
- The Aravalli Green Wall Project covers Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Delhi.Aravalli Green Wall Project launched — PIB, 25 March 2023 ↗“The project covers states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Delhi”
- SDG target 15.3 seeks a land degradation-neutral world by 2030.Goal 15 targets — UN DESA, sdgs.un.org ↗“By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2026, GS Paper I — paper ↗. Guidance: Minimalist IAS, checked 8 Nov 2026 (how we verify). ·
Model answer· 366words · Minimalist IAS
Aeolian processes, the erosion, transport and deposition of material by wind, dominate where plant cover is thin, soils loose and rainfall scanty. UNCCD defines desertification as land degradation in dry areas from climate and human action; wind is its chief agent in India's west, where degraded land covers 97.85 million hectares (ISRO Atlas, 2018-19).
How wind erosion and transport degrade land
- Deflation: wind lifts silt, clay and humus off bare soil, leaving coarse, infertile lag gravel and deflation hollows.
- Abrasion: saltating sand sand-blasts seedlings, crops and soil crusts, exposing fresh soil to further loss.
- Transport: saltation and creep move sand locally; suspension carries fine dust and nutrients hundreds of kilometres downwind.
- The 1930s Dust Bowl of the US Great Plains showed how ploughed, drought-hit grassland becomes airborne soil.
| Process | Mechanism | Land degradation |
|---|---|---|
| Deflation | Fines lifted | Topsoil, nutrients lost |
| Abrasion | Sand blasting | Crops, crusts destroyed |
| Deposition | Sand settles | Fields, canals buried |
How deposition spreads desert-like conditions
- Dune advance: barchans and longitudinal ridges cover the Thar up to Jaisalmer; migrating sand buries fields, roads and canals.
- Loss of soil structure: deposited sand holds little water or organic matter, so cropping fails and the land turns desert-like.
- Human–wind feedback: overgrazing, dryland ploughing and fuelwood cutting bare the soil; wind strips it, vegetation cannot return.
- Overgrazing
- Bare soil
- Deflation, abrasion
- Sand buries farmland
- Desert-like land
- Qualification: aeolian work also builds land; wind-laid loess forms China's fertile plateau, and stabilised dunes store moisture.
What a dryland district can do
- Green barriers: the Aravalli Green Wall Project (2023) greens a 5 km buffer across four states to halt the Thar's eastward spread and dust storms.
- Dune stabilisation: fix dunes with micro-windbreaks and grasses first, then plant drought-hardy khejri and ber as shelterbelts.
- Field measures: strip cropping, mulching and stubble retention cut wind speed at the soil surface and hold moisture.
- Protect the commons: regulated grazing and revival of Rajasthan's orans, village sacred groves, keep perennial cover on the land.
- National pledge: restore 26 million hectares by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge, raised at UNCCD COP14 (2019).
Wind only finishes what the loss of plant cover begins. Keeping drylands green is India's route to SDG target 15.3, a land degradation-neutral world by 2030.
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 8 Nov 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
