Band 8+: The pie chart below represents the main reasons why Agricultural land becomes less productive. The bar chart show how these causes affected three regions of the world in the 1990s. Summarise the data by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

The pie chart gives information about the main reasons why global agricultural land becomes less productive, while the bar chart compares the impact of these causes in North America, Europe and Oceania during the 1990s.

Overall, deforestation was the largest contributor to land degradation worldwide. Europe experienced the highest level of land damage among the three regions, whereas North America was the least affected.

According to the pie chart, deforestation accounted for 34% of total land degradation, making it the biggest cause. Over-grazing made up 30%, followed by over-cultivation at 28%. Only 8% was due to salinisation. In terms of regional figures, Europe had high levels of deforestation and over-cultivation, which together contributed to its large amount of damaged land.

The bar chart also shows that Oceania had around 13% of its land degraded, and most of this came from over-grazing, which reached about 11%. In contrast, North America showed the lowest figure at roughly 5%. The main issue there was over-cultivation at 3.3%, while both over-grazing and deforestation were much lower.