What was a significant negative environmental impact of the Green Revolution?

Correct — D. The Green Revolution package was high-yielding varieties plus assured irrigation, chemical fertiliser and pesticide, and the land carried the cost.

Running the same rice-wheat rotation year after year on the same nutrients drew down soil micronutrients and organic matter, and irrigating without drainage brought waterlogging and salinity. That is soil degradation — option (d).

The other three name real environmental problems, but none of them describes what intensive cropping did to the land itself.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Ozone layer depletion — Ozone depletion is caused by chlorofluorocarbons and related halogenated compounds from refrigeration and aerosols. Farm inputs are not its source.
• (b)
  Increase in air pollution — Air pollution is the weaker answer rather than an impossible one — crop-residue burning in the rice-wheat rotation is a documented consequence. But the impact SSC is asking for is what the input package did to the land itself.
• (c)
  Deforestation — The Green Revolution raised output per hectare on land already under cultivation, so its damage was intensification rather than clearing. Deforestation is driven by other pressures.

The Green Revolution, from the mid-1960s, lifted Indian foodgrain output through high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, assured irrigation, chemical fertiliser and pesticide.

The cost sat inside the same package. Fertiliser applied season after season to a single rotation leaves soils short of micronutrients and organic carbon, and irrigation without drainage raises salinity and waterlogging. Groundwater fell in the intensively cropped belt.

The gains were also uneven, concentrated in the irrigated north-west and among farmers who could afford the inputs.

Key facts

• The Green Revolution in India began in the mid-1960s and centred on high-yielding wheat and rice.
• Its input package was assured irrigation together with chemical fertiliser and pesticide.
• Repeated fertiliser use on a single rotation depletes soil micronutrients and organic matter.
• Irrigation without adequate drainage produces waterlogging and soil salinity.

Common traps

• Picking ozone depletion because it sounds environmental. Its cause is CFCs, not fertiliser.
• Assuming higher yields must mean less damage to land. The damage here is to the land already under the plough.

No directly related past PYQ was found.