Threats to Grass land

In many areas,grasslands have been used for centuries by pastoral communties.Over utilization and in many changes in landuse of the 'common grazing lands' of rural communities has lead to their degradation c.The grassland cover in the country,in terms of permanent pastures,nw covers only 3.7% of the total land.A main threat to natural grasslands is the conversation of grasslands into irrigated farmlands .In the Deccan,grasslands have been altered to irrigated farms and are now mainly used to grow sugercane,which is a water-intensive crop.After continuous irrigation ,such land becomes salineuseless in a few years .More recently,many of these residual grasslands tracts have been converted in to industrial areas.This provides short-term economic gains but results in longterm economic and ecological losses.
Grasslands have a limited ability to support domestic animals and wildlife.Increasing this pressuring by increasing the number of domestic animals reduces the'naturalness' of the grassland ecosystem leading to its deterioration.
Most grassland ecosystem are highly modified by human activities .Cattle,sheep and goat grazing and lighting repeated fires all affect the grass lands adversely.changing the grasslands to other forms of landuse such as agriculture,tree plantations and industrialization poses a serious threat to this highly-productive ecosystem.Thus some of the grassland patches,which are in a less disturbed state and have retained their special plants and animals ,need tobe urgently protected.
The degradation of grasslands due to over-grazing by scttle,sheep and goats occures if more than a critical number of doemstic animals are presemt in the grasslands.when animals overgrgraze the area,the grasses are converted into flat stubs with very little green matter .Degraded grasslands have fewer grass species as the nutrious species are entirely used up by the large number of domestic animals and are thus unable to regenerate.