The several anthropological activities such as improper land use, illicit mining, faulty methods of road construction, uncontrolled grazing, deforestation, increased population, overexploitation of natural resources, unplanned urbanization, unregulated industrialization, increased rural poverty, low natural resource management skill and absence of appropriate resource conservation measures etc.

Ravine is subjected to extreme hydrological events (flood and drought), high summer temperatures, high wind velocity and extreme soil erosion that make them more vulnerable to land degradation. The restoration of these ecosystems through bio-engineering measures is extremely important to conserve natural resources, maintain landscape sustainability, enhance carbon sequestration, mitigate climate change, improve socio-economic conditions and ensure food and livelihood security throughout such regions. These are the worst form of land degradation formed, when the vegetal cover is not strong enough to hold and bind the soil particles together from being carried away by the runoff water. These ravine lands are under biotic stress due to uncontrolled grazing by stray and wild animals and poor vegetation cover leading to huge soil loss during rainy season. The marginal lands adjacent to ravines are under extensive cultivation without much attention to conservation measures, which leads to further extension of gullies head during rainy season. Generally ravine areas have 15 to 32% arable lands and 60 to 85% non-arable lands. The marginal lands near to gully head in ravines are dominated by agriculture land use, while pastures and open forests on the side slopes and gully bed. In India, ravines occupy about 4.3 M ha along the rivers Yamuna, Chambal, Mahi, and Sabarmati. The high drainage density and multi-directional steep slopes are other morphological characteristics of ravines.

Ravine is intricate network of large gullies with depth ranging from 3 m or more and affected by extreme form of mass soil erosion. The continuous and aggravated soil erosion and subsequent anthropogenic activities leads to the formation of ravine landscapes.

The ravine landscape is considered as one of the most degraded terrestrial ecosystems in the world.

Steep ravines download