In the effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to food, health, water, and climate, an increase in pressure on land is highly likely. To avoid further land degradation and promote land restoration, multifunctional use of land is needed within the boundaries of the soil-water system. In addition, awareness-raising, a change in stakeholders’ attitudes, and a change in economics are essential. The attainment of a balance between the economy, society, and the biosphere calls for a holistic approach.

Land-use planning (LUP), an instrument of land governance, is often employed to protect land and humans against natural and human-induced hazards, strengthen the resilience of land systems, and secure their sustainability. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) underlines the critical role of appropriate local action to address the global threat of land degradation and desertification (LDD) and calls for the use of local and regional LUP to combat LDD and achieve land degradation neutrality. The paper explores the challenges of putting this call into practice.

The proper delineation of site-specific management zones is very important in the agricultural land management of potentially degraded areas. There is a necessity for the development of prospective tools in management plans to correctly understand the land degradation processes. In order to accomplish this, we present a pedo-geomorphological approach using soil texture, land elevation and flow vector aspects to distinguish different management zones and to discretize soil micronutrients. To achieve this goal, we conducted the study in the Neyshabur plain, Northeast Iran.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) land degradation neutrality (LDN) scientific conceptual framework underscores that LDN planning and implementation should be integrated into existing planning processes and supported by an enabling policy environment. Land-use planning, which requires the integration of different policy goals across various sectors concerned with land-use, can be an effective mechanism through which decisions with respect to LDN can be coordinated.

Reducing land degradation and farmers’ vulnerability to climate change in the highland dry areas of north-western Ethiopia inception workshop agenda.

Achieving change to address soil erosion has been a global yet elusive goal for decades. Efforts to implement effective solutions have often fallen short due to a lack of sustained, context-appropriate and multi-disciplinary engagement with the problem.

Sustainable land management is of utmost importance in Ethiopia and relies on Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) measures collectively implemented by smallholders through participatory processes. This paper contributes systematic evidence on how SWC strategies are implemented and how participation is operationalized.

Land degradation occurs in all kinds of landscapes over the world, but the drivers of land degradation vary from region to region. Identifying these drivers at the appropriate spatial scale is an essential prerequisite for developing and implementing appropriate area-specific policies. In this study, we investigate nine different driving factors in three categories: human disturbance, water condition, and urbanisation.

Farmland ownership fragmentation is one of the important drivers of land-use changes. It is a process that in its extreme form can essentially limit land management sustainability. Based on a typology of land degradation and its causes, this process is here classified for the first time as an underlying cause which through tenure insecurity causes land degradation in five types (water erosion, wind erosion, soil compaction, reduction of organic matter, and nutrient depletion).

The African Highlands Initiative works to enhance livelihoods and reverse natural resource degradation
through the development of innovative methods,practices,policies and approaches.

Land-degradation neutral world is an aspirational goal, which was agreed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. To achieve this goal, land degradation should be avoided and for every hectare of degraded land a hectare of land should be restored preferably in the same ecosystem and landscape. A land-degradation neutral world is a prerequisite for assuring water, food and energy security, alleviating poverty and mitigating climate change.