25 percent of India's land area is already turning to desert and 32 percent is at risk – classified as degraded. This is seriously threatening agricultural productivity in the world's second most populous country, according to Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, who issued a stark warning earlier this week.

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Environment, forests and climate change minister Javadekar was speaking on Tuesday, to mark the World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD). The minister said the slide towards desertification over much of India threatens food security in the country, which is home to 17 percent of the world's population. Though the minister warned that "A lot of areas are on the verge of becoming deserts," he added, "[this] can be stopped."

Javadekar has pledged to slow the slip into desert, making India desertification-neutral by 2030.

The main reason for the land degradation facing India is unsustainable agricultural use of land, including overgrazing, which has combined with changing rainfall patterns to seriously impact on the country's capacity for food production. Soil erosion accounts for the majority of degradation, though salinisation of soils and wind erosion also worryingly prevalent.

A National Report on Desertification produced by the Indian government and submitted to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification has also shown that over two thirds of India's land area is susceptible to drought.  

Experts have warned that soil erosion also threatens Europe, particularly areas of Central and Western Europe where intensive agricultural methods and a lack of legal protection for healthy soils are also likely to combine with changing weather to threaten productivity and exacerbate degradation.

In the UK, climate change will compound the problems caused by erosion of topsoil, which is not being measured but is estimated to be in the region of 2 million tonnes per year. The country is expected to receive more rainfall, but less often and in more intense bursts, which will affect the ability of soils – particularly degraded soils – to absorb rainwater.

Prior to the EU Commission decision to withdraw the draft Soils Framework Directive last month, the Commission's in-house scientific service, the Joint Research Centre, released a report detailing the worrying realities of soil degradation in the EU.

The JRC found that soil biodiversity is under threat on over half of EU territory, and researchers added that, "Due the combined effect of high intensity agriculture, many invasive species and an increased risk of organic carbon loss, the potential pressures were found to be particularly high in the UK and central Europe."

Even so, the Commission last month opted to scrap the proposals, which would have given soil the same protections accorded to other finite resources, such as clean water. The proposed Directive had been blocked in its draft stage for several years by a minority of member state governments, including that of the UK.