Geog essay

discuss the factors responsible for the degradation of rural environments

Rural areas are one of the main supplies of human needs such as: food, raw materials and
forests which have wood and are in charge of ❝cleaning the air❞. However, most of the
rural environments in the world have been suffering in the past few decades from population
growth, increasing pressures in the land, overgrazing, and chemical degradation. All of the
caused by the factors that involve a change from rural areas to urban areas

Firstly, one of the main factors of rural degradation is deforestation, it can occur for several
reasons, for example, the clearing of land for agricultural use (a clear example can be the
amazonas where large-scale commercial farms have been removing vast amounts of trees
to use that land to plant crops, making the soil less fertile and facilitating the erosion by wind
and water also the building of infrastructure to communicate these farms lead to the removal
of even more vegetation) , exploitation of resources such as mining (an example can be
asturias located at the north of spain, in asturias more than 12km² of land was eroded to
search for coal) or it can be just to use it as fuel to heat the house, this occurs mainly in LIC,
an example can be Delhi where there are high levels of pollution and deforestation because
in the cold winters the population used to do open fires to keep warm in winter this involved
huge amounts of wood and air pollution.

Secondly, overgrazing which is the grazing (land where farm animals feed on grass) of
natural pastures at a very high rate, this can be caused by overpopulation of animals in a
enclosure, animals will trample (step on the soil and therefore compact it) and eat the grass
leading again to soil erosion by wind and water making the soil not fertile this usually
happens in LIC where they strongly depend on the primary sector, a sector that is developed
in rural environments, therefore we could link that when a rural area is starting to develop to
become a urban area there is overgrazing as the population is exploiting the animal industry
to be able to generate revenue and boost the economy. This is the case of Nepal where they
have small farms overcrowded with buffaloes and goats that are later on selled to
celebrate nepali traditions.

Thirdly, new settlements for poor people from the urban areas, as urban areas
become more and more crowded, the citizens can't afford to keep living there and
are forced to move to rural areas where they have cheaper land. An example can be
Brazil, the Brazilian government has used the rainforests to provide land for some of
the 25 million landless people of the urban areas to rural environment areas and has
built 12000 km of new roads along these areas.

finally another responsible for the degradation of rural environments is overcultivation,

although it has been mentioned before, it has been mentioned in a very brief way many
farmers in rural areas are being forced to increase their yield they change land to have more
fertility and therefore leave the previous land infertile and unprotected by vegetation
therefore being eroded by wind and rain
in conclusion there are lots of factors that will be responsible for the degradation of rural
environments, but some of this factors will have more relevance in HIC LIC or MIC for
example overpopulation will usually happen in a lic where there are no regulations whether
as new settlements for poor people in urban areas may happen more likely in MIC or HIC
where cities are crowded and are very costly to live in.