The pie chart below shows the main reasons why agricultural land becomes less productive. The table shows how these causes affected three regions of the world during the 1990s.

The pie chart compares the shares of the main causes of global

land

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degradation

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,

whereas

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the table illustrates the percentage of how three different regions were affected by degraded

land

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during the 1990s.

Overall

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, what stands out from the diagram is that over-grazing is the biggest reason why soil is degraded.

Besides

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, Europe was the region most affected by worldwide

land

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degradation

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. Regarding the first one, over-grazing is responsible for the highest proportion of

land

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degradation

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with 35%. There is little difference between the shares of deforestation and over-cultivation, as the former accounts for 30%,

while

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the latter is lower by a margin of 2%. The remaining 7% is responsible for a variety of other factors.

According to

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the second one, Europe had the highest proportion of

land

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degradation

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with 23%, which was mainly caused by deforestation at approximately 10%.

This

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is followed by the share of degraded soil in Oceania, with 13%.

Additionally

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, there was no observed over-grazing in

this

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area. In comparison, 5% of the

land

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was degraded in North America, and over-cultivation stood as the main cause with 3.3%.