Soil erosion is one of the major forms of land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with serious impact on agricultural productivity. Due to the absence of reliable data at appropriate resolution and differences in the methods used, there are discrepancies in soil erosion estimates at both continental and basin levels. This study attempts to contribute to the existing regional soil erosion estimates based on a two-stage approach.

Forests play an important role in the livelihoods of ethnic communities living in the south-eastern region, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTs), of Bangladesh. Over decades, deforestation and land degradation have markedly affected ethnic peoples’ livelihoods in the CHTs. Although communities once managed extensive forest commons to support their livelihood needs, population explosion triggered fragmentation of common land leading to a gradual decline in livelihood opportunities.

Land degradation dynamic assessment is very important to understand the effectiveness of ecological engineering and provide decision support for future restorations. Taking the Beijing–Tianjin dust and sandstorm source region (BTSSR) as the study area, the land degradation dynamic in the first decade of twenty-first century is assessed by utilizing the time series trends of net primary production (NPP) and modified rain use efficiency (RUE), respectively, and their sensitivities and performances are evaluated through the validation.

The rapid development of the Vietnamese coffee industry caused widespread deforestation, land degradation, desertification, and soil and water degradation in the late 1990s. However, little is known about the impact of intensification of coffee farming on arthropod diversity in Vietnamese coffee agroecosystems.

The Turpan Oasis is a typical fragile environment that lies in an arid region of eastern Xinjiang and is affected by natural conditions and human activities. The severity of the land degradation and desertification in this area is increasing; therefore, ecological vulnerability evaluations are important for environmental management of the region. In this study, theories and methods of evaluating ecological vulnerability and the typical characteristics of ecological vulnerability were summarized.

Land degradation in the Mediterranean Basin is clearly connected to the resilience of perturbed ecosystems, contributing to land abandonment, recurrent fires and biodiversity loss, with the prevalence of secondary shrublands that tend to occupy large areas. This is the case of Cistus ladanifer shrublands, one of the most widespread shrub communities in the Iberian Peninsula and a poor, uniform and resilient system. Here, we analyse the impact of several management practices in the recovery of territories largely occupied by this shrubland.

Periodic and regular assessment of land degradation in arid regions of the world is essential for implementing suitable corrective measures in time. Assessment of soil properties based on soil sampling from hot arid tracts followed by laboratory analysis is a formidable task. Reflectance spectroscopy appears to be an emerging technology for the assessment of soils in extreme environment.

Developing sustainable grazing management systems based on perennial species is critical to preventing land degradation in marginal land classes. A field study was conducted from 2002 to 2006 to identify the impacts of deferred grazing (no defoliation of pastures for a period generally from spring to autumn) and fertilizer application on herbage accumulation, soil seed reserve and nutritive value in a hill pasture in western Victoria, Australia.

This paper investigates empirically the effect of land invasions on farm production decisions. The main hypothesis is that more invasions in a region are associated with lower investment, and in particular a bias towards annual crops as opposed to long‐term crops. We use a county‐level dataset for the state of Paraná, Brazil, from 2003 to 2007, with 1,995 observations. The panel data structure allows us to control for fixed effects, such as the formalisation of land titles and land concentration, which might be correlated with the intensity of invasions.

Groundwater extraction is one of the most important criteria of land degradation especially land subsidence in arid and semi-arid areas. Understanding the relationship between water extraction and recharge of groundwater can lead to better watershed management. For the estimation of groundwater recharge in Razan-Ghahavand watershed in Central Iran the Soil and Water Assessment Tools was used.

The analysis of evaluable information on degradation and dangerous natural processes at the agricultural lands on Asian territory of the Russian Federation (according to the data of 1991-2015) was done. The natural processes negatively affecting the soil (available land) are divided into groups according to their hazard extent: a) processes oriented to destroy the soils and lands, b) processes changing the soil cover pattern and leading to degradation of soils and decreasing their fertility

Land degradation in the Little Karoo is extensive. Overstocking of breeding ostriches on natural veld has been among the main causes of this. The National Department of Agriculture has set a general stocking rate of 60 ha LSU ⁻¹ as a guideline for livestock on natural veld in the Little Karoo, which equates to 22.8 ha ostrich ⁻¹.