Grassland degradation, also called vegetation or steppe degradation is a biotic disturbance in which grass struggles to grow or can no longer exist on a piece of land due to causes such as overgrazing, burrowing of small mammals, and climate change. Since the 1970s, it has been noticed to affects plains and plateaus of alpine meadows or grasslands, most notably being in the Philippines and in the Tibetan and Inner Mongolian region of China where 2460 km of grassland is degraded each year