The pie chart shows the main reason why agricultural land becomes less productive.

The chart illustrates the

causes

of land

degradation

worldwide,

while

the table gives more specific information about less productive lands by region in the 1990s.

Firstly

, it can be seen how there were three main

causes

of worldwide soil

degradation

, which together explained 93% of

this

phenomenon.

In particular

, over-grazing was the most significant cause of

degradation

, with 35%, followed by deforestation at 30% and

over-cultivation

at 28%.

On the other hand

, some interesting comparisons, between the above data and some regional ones, can be made considering the table. First and foremost, it can be noted how the percentages of total degraded land varied between North America, with 5%, Europe, with 23% and Oceania with 13%. Differently to the worldwide

causes

, more than half of North America degrade was caused by

over-cultivation

, which totalled 3.3% out of 5% of soil

degradation

.

On the contrary

, Oceania saw no effects from

over-cultivation

, with more than 90% of its

degradation

coming from over-grazing, which ruined 11.3% of total Oceania’s terrains.

Finally

, Europe had more balanced

causes

, with 9.8% out of 23% of unproductive lands caused by deforestation, 7.7% by

over-cultivation

and 5.5% by over-grazing. In conclusion, it can be argued that,

whereas

worldwide the three main detrimental activities were balanced in their effect on the agricultural sector, regionally there were some differences.

This

could be caused by diverse predominant activities in the considered areas.