Gully erosion is a worldwide matter of concern because of the irreversible losses of fertile land, which often have severe environmental, economic and social consequences. While most of the studies on the gullying process have investigated the involved mechanisms (either overland flow incision, seepage or piping erosion), only few have been conducted on the controlling factors of gully wall retreat, an important, if not the dominant, land degradation process and sediment source in river systems.

Italy has always had a long dramatic history of extreme events such as landslides, flooding, land degradation and drought. Much has been done in terms of prevention and monitoring but still there is much left to do, in particular introducing innovative alert systems based on the integration of real‐time weather forecasting with national alert and protection systems.

This paper focuses on the reconstruction of Holocene climatic and environmental changes in two archaeological sites of southwestern and north-central Calabria (southern Italy). It is based on a comparison of geoarchaeological, pedological and pedoanthracological data from soil profiles in the coastal hilly and inland mountainous surroundings of Palmi and Cecita Lake, respectively. At the Palmi site, the representative soil profile includes settlements and artefacts ranging from late Neolithic to late early Bronze Age and undifferentiated historical epochs.

This study addressed long-term land degradation and regeneration effects on soil organic carbon (SOC) composition. This was done in a context of secondary succession following land abandonment in the Mediterranean region of SE Spain. The effects of land use change and soil erosion on SOC composition were studied by using lignin as a biomarker. To get insight into the evolution of SOC composition along a land use and topographical gradient, differences in lignin contribution to SOC were determined at different soil depths (0–0.1m, 0.1–0.2m, 0.2–0.3m).

Land degradation is a gradual, negative environmental process that is accelerated by human activities. Its gradual nature allows degradation to proceed unnoticed, thus reducing the likelihood of appropriate and timely control action. Presently, there are few practical frameworks to help countries design national strategies and policies for its control. The study presented here developed a framework for the national assessment of land degradation. This framework is envisaged to support governments in formulating policies on land degradation.

Historical domestic livestock grazing in sensitive landscapes has commonly been regarded as a major cause of land degradation in Iceland. Shieling areas, where milking livestock were taken to pasture for the summer, represented one element of grazing management and in this paper we consider the extent to which historical shieling-based grazing pressure contributed to land degradation.

Water availability is a major constraint to crop production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where agriculture is predominantly rain-fed. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the nitrogen-fixing legume tree Leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala) and inorganic fertilizer on rain use efficiency (RUE), a robust measure of productivity and land degradation, in three long-term (11–12 years) experiments conducted in Zambia and Nigeria.

The conversion of marginal croplands to tree plantations, as an option to address climate change, land degradation, and irrigation water scarcity, as well as to improve the welfare of local population requires prior analysis.

The island of Sri Lanka is free from serious natural hazards such as volcanic activity and earthquakes resulting from climatic extremes, but there are impacts of many natural disasters, such as landslides, floods and droughts, the intensity and frequency of which are increasing due to human interventions. Some areas of Sri Lanka are also periodically subject to cyclones that occur due to climatic conditions and geographical locations.Land degradation denotes all natural or anthropogenic processes that diminish or impair productivity of land.

Sustainable water resources management plans depend on reliable monitoring of land use –land cover (LULC) changes. The use of the remote sensing techniques in LULC changes detection brings consistency and reliability to the decision maker at regional scale. Three temporal data sets of images were used to obtain the land cover changes in this study: Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) acquired in 1984, and Landsat-7 enhanced Thematic Mapper acquired in 2000 and 2005 consequently. Each temporal data set consists of four Landsat scenes, which were mosaicked to cover the whole Nile Delta.

Land degradation is a primary issue that affects environmental conservation and socioeconomic development. However, ecological restoration has complex and poorly understood consequences for the structure and composition of future ecosystems and socioeconomic systems. To illustrate the complexity of ecological restoration, we discuss the potential links between China's ongoing large-scale ecological restoration practices and the resulting changes of natural factors such as landscape characteristics, climate, and vegetation communities.

This study is based on data collected from 141 family-type farms in the Yatenga province in Burkina Faso. A probit approach is used to analyze the effect of perception of land degradation and other factors on the adoption of zaï and stone rows. The results of the estimation show that the availability of organic matter from small ruminants is determinant for the adoption of both zaï and stone rows. Although most of farmers are aware of the causes and consequences of land degradation, this factor does not significantly impact on farmers’ decision to invest in SWC measures.