Explanation:

 Desertification and land degradation are major threats to agricultural productivity in our country. Combating desertification and land degradation is one of the thrust areas identified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India, New Delhi. Space Applications Centre (SAC), ISRO, Ahmedabad along with 19 concerned partner institutes has carried out an inventory and monitoring of desertification of the entire country using Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS) data in Geographical Information System (GIS) environment.

This Atlas presents state wise Area under desertification / land degradation for the both time frames and changes are reported state-wise as well as for the entire country. The outputs are helpful in prioritizing areas to be taken up for minimizing the impact of desertification and land degradation.