Land degradation and desertification are among the biggest environmental challenges of our time. In the last 40 years, we lost nearly a third of the world’s arable farmland due to erosion, just as the number of people to be fed from it almost doubled. That’s why the UN General Assembly declared 2015 as the International Year of Soils. And the good news is that this new report shows that while Africa remains the most severely a«ected region, the benefit of taking action across the continent outweighs the cost of implementing it: not just by a little, but by a factor of seven.

As the world’s population continues to rise, there is
an ever increasing demand for our land to produce
a diverse range of products such as food, timber,
and fuel. Our growing need for these goods is
leading to higher levels of competition between
different land uses and, as a result, land users. Not
only is the quantity of land available for production
under current technical and economic conditions
limited, but there is also growing evidence that the
quality of our land is degrading (Safriel, U. N. 2007;

Jordanian rangelands are a source of valued livestock produce, carbon storage, biodiversity, and medicinal plants. They also serve as watersheds that receive rainfall, yield surface water, and replenish groundwater throughout the area east and south of the western Jordan highlands. Appropriate land management, which is currently lacking, can protect and maximize these services for society. With the acceleration of desertification, land degradation and drought during the twenty-first century in the arid and semi-arid regions of Jordan, these services are becoming jeopardized.

The Kelka forest in the Mopti region of Mali is important for the provision of ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and maintenance of the hydrological cycle. The Kelka forest area occupies more than 300, 000 hectares with 15
villages within and around its boundaries. The forest resources and soil fertility of the forest are in continuous decline due to a combination of climatic and human induced factors. For example, the availability of firewood has halved

Soil erosion and deposition values were estimated using pixel based landscape information and the Unit Stream Power Erosion Deposition (USPED) model, which works with the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) parameters. The USPED model was adapted to Ethiopian conditions based on evidence from the Soil Conservation Research Programme, and calibrated and validated using data from former research stations as well as the Abbay (Blue Nile) Basin. Additionally, some of the USLE parameters were reduced in order to achieve a satisfactory approximation of sediment loss for the Abbay Basin.

Drylands have always been the subject to intra- and inter-annul fluctuations of climate conditions, with important consequences for ecosystem function and productivity.

Two billion hectares of productive land are degraded worldwide. This is an area larger than South America or twice the size of China, and 500 million hectares of this is abandoned agricultural land. We continue to degrade another 12 million hectares of productive land every year. We need to break this destructive cycle because the benefits of preventing land degradation and reversing it are far greater than the gains from degrading new land year after year.

In West Africa, many countries are adversely affected by the effects of desertification, land degradation and drought(DLDD), with climate change also increasingly making an impact on local livelihoods. The most visible consequences are a loss of soil fertility and a reduction in agricultural productivity, which can lead to food and social crises and, consequently, to increased poverty. Furthermore, farmers are often forced to exploit the land to its maximum capacity in order to obtain good yields and to avoid the risk of famine.

The report aims to help improve the productivity and resilience of the current food system, and to make agriculture part of the solution to climate change. It presents compelling evidence and new tools for policymakers, serving as a guide to better address the impacts of a warming climate on agriculture and food production. This report argues that climate-smart agriculture is central to efforts to end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity.

This report presents the water and
climate adaptation plan (WATCAP) developed for the Sava
river basin (SRB) as result of a study undertaken by the
World Bank. The WATCAP is intended to help to bridge the gap
between the climate change predictions for the SRB and the
decision makers in current and planned water management
investment projects that will be affected by changing
climate trends. The purpose of the report is to: (i) assist

ELD Initiative: User Guide_A 6+1 step approach to assess the economics of land management

Integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets into the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Intergovernmental Working Group report on land degradation neutrality