Band 9: 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. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make relevant comparisons.

The pie chart shows the main reasons why agricultural land becomes less productive worldwide, while the table compares how these causes affected North America, Europe and Oceania during the 1990s.

Overall, over-grazing was the most common cause of land degradation globally. In addition, Europe had the highest percentage of degraded land, whereas North America was the least affected region.

According to the pie chart, over-grazing was responsible for 35% of worldwide land degradation. This was followed by deforestation, which accounted for 30%, and over-cultivation at 28%. Other factors made up a much smaller proportion, at only 7%.

The table shows that Europe experienced the greatest land degradation, with 23% of its land affected. Deforestation was the main cause in this region (9.8%), followed by over-cultivation (7.7%) and over-grazing (5.5%). Oceania had 13% of land degraded, mostly due to over-grazing (11.3%), while over-cultivation did not affect this region at all. In contrast, North America had only 5% of degraded land, with over-cultivation (3.3%) being the largest contributor.