Rapid soil degradation is causing desertification of 81.45 million hectares, or 24.8 percent of India's geographic area, a ministry of environment and forests report says.

The new report, submitted to the UN convention to combat desertification (UNCCD), estimates that 32 percent of the total land area in the country is affected by land degradation.

It identifies water and soil erosion as the chief causes of such degradation, highlighting that water erosion is most prominent in agricultural regions.

About 69 percent of India is dry land - arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid. Despite such harshness of the environment, these regions are heavily populated and thus the continuing degradation has severe implications for the livelihood and food security of their inhabitants.

The report names unsustainable agricultural practice, diversion of land to development programmes, industrial effluents and mining and deforestation as the chief antropogenic factors behind the rapid loss of soil quality.

Unsustainable resource management practices is driving the inhabitants of the dry land areas further into poverty even as land rehabilitation has been a priority since independence, the report notes.

However, a glimmer of hope comes from the the impact of several policies and government agencies fighting desertification, the ministry offers in the report.

Read the complete report here.