Turning badlands into fields
Avatar

Turning badlands into fields

by Irene Marzolff, Dep. of Physical Geography, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

This mustard field in the Lower Chambal Valley, India, was once a deeply dissected badland. A sub-catchment of the main ravine system was levelled with bulldozers by successive removal of ridgetops, oversteepening of side-slopes and infilling of ravine bottoms. The topography of the reclaimed field is uneven with lower parts remaining in the old thalweg positions; farmers expect eroded soil to accumulate here and increase soil fertility over the next years.