Achieve Land Degradation Neutrality Research Articles

Land degradation neutrality and carbon neutrality: approaches, synergies, and challenges

Land is being degraded rapidly worldwide. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in 2015 has invited countries to formulate voluntary targets to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN). Under the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty adopted in 2015, the world is transitioning toward Carbon Neutrality (CN) with more mitigation actions. This paper intended to review the concepts of land degradation, LDN along with CN emphasizing the degradation types, approaches, models available to analyze, synergies, economic aspects and challenges. The review explores approaches and models available for achieving LDN and CN which are both synergistic, economically efficient and could overcome the common challenges. Land degradation has to focus beyond the traditional definitions to incorporate more persistent and the difficult to restore degradation causes. Such complex land degradation requires specialized LDN approaches. The level of degradation and restoration progress could be analyzed using a variety of modeling approaches including economic models. Approaches for LDN and CN can bring significant synergies for each other. The approach proposed by the present study will provide a logical flow for decision-making while minimizing time and effort and avoiding a piecemeal approach. The approach therefore maximizes the output in relation to the inputs thus enhancing sustainability.

Examining The Role of Soil in Promoting Sustainable Development and Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Soil is a critical component of terrestrial ecosystems, playing an invaluable role in supporting plant growth, regulating water and nutrient cycles, filtering pollutants, and providing habitat for soil organisms. However, increasing pressures from human activities, including intensive agriculture, deforestation, urbanization, and climate change are degrading soils across the world. Therefore, sustainable management of soil resources is imperative to ensure continued provisioning of ecosystem services, promote sustainable development outcomes, and help us to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper reviews literature across multiple disciplines to examine the vital links between soil and realization of the SDGs. Soil properties influence productivity and food security, water availability and quality, climate regulation through carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, and human health. Degraded soils undermine these ecosystem services, exacerbating poverty, hunger, and inequality. Research shows ecosystem-based approaches that prioritize soil health, including conservation agriculture, agroecology, and regenerative systems, can sustainably intensify agriculture while restoring multi-functionality. Additionally, nature-based solutions utilizing plant-soil interactions for restoration have demonstrated cost-effectiveness. Achieving land degradation neutrality is now an explicit target under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), emphasizing the need to scale soil-focused initiatives within the SDG framework. Therefore, protecting and restoring global soil assets can serve as a nexus in policy frameworks to simultaneously advance progress across multiple SDGs.

Central Asia's desertification challenge: Recent trends and drives explored with google earth engine

Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) is considered critical to achieving sustainable development goals. However, further research and an improved large-scale desertification assessment framework are needed. We constructed a comprehensive land desertification status index (LDSI) to assess desertification and its driving mechanisms in Central Asia from 2001 to 2020. Our spatial distance models and principal component analysis were verified by combined field data. The results indicate that desertification levels in Central Asia fluctuated, decreasing from south to north and increasing from west to east. The extent of increased desertification (45.75%) and recovery (45.65%) were nearly equivalent. According to optimal parameters-based geographical detectors, climate factors are the main contributors to desertification, the most significant being reference evapotranspiration. We also found regional differences in the driving mechanisms of desertification. Based on Theil–Sen, Mann–Kendall, and Hurst tests, future desertification intensification of 9.69% is possible, with hotspots mainly in northwestern Central Asia, while 9.73% restoration may occur in other areas. The findings have relevance for achieving LDN. Policymakers should monitor the impact of global climate change and develop recovery measures based on comprehensive consideration of local climate, soil, and terrain conditions.

Governing soils sustainably in India: Establishing policies and implementing strategies through local governance

Years of chemical-intensive agricultural practices following the Green Revolution in the late 1960s have led to extensive soil degradation in India. This has implications for food security, farmers’ incomes, and the country's economy. However, domestic top-down policy mandates in recent times have favoured practices like natural farming with a view to slow down and eventually halt soil degradation. This is in line with the international Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which is focused on restoring degraded lands (SDG 15.3 aims to strive achieve land degradation neutrality). Taking cue from recent policy mandates on soil and land, this chapter posits the historical significance of the Panchayat — a village-level administrative institution in India — and argues for its involvement in policy implementation for soil rehabilitation at the village level, The article also makes a case for the introduction of an overarching National Soil Policy to encourage natural farming practices and biofertilizer use.

Toward an operational tool to integrate land degradation neutrality into land use planning: LUP4LDN

AbstractLand use planning (LUP) to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) needs methods and tools that support the identification of best LUP solutions in terms of transitions from current degradative land use (LU) and land management (LM) practices to better LU and LM options. A crucial need is the identification of context specific sustainable land management (SLM) options. Addressing this need must aim at not only reversing/recovering past degradation (e.g., via restoration or rehabilitation in land degradation hotspots), but also avoiding “new” degradation possibly caused by unsuitable LU and LM. This requires SLM planning based on anticipated impact assessment of the LU‐LM transition scenarios set to achieve LDN, which can be achieved through a participatory planning process that integrates interests/needs and knowledge of stakeholders with science‐based supportive tools to identify rational, plausible, and socially relevant options. The geoinformatics Land Use Planning for LDN (LUP4LDN) conceptual procedure and tool have been designed for this purpose. Their aim is to support national and subnational planners by (i) mapping geographic patterns of past land degradation (LD) utilizing the LDN indicators adopted by the UNCCD (SDG 15.3.1 indicator) for user‐defined regions of interest (RoI); (ii) helping users anticipate future LD by identifying land that is unsustainably managed and that will likely become degraded during the planning period; (iii) partitioning the LD areas into spatial domains of socio‐ecological contextual similarity (i.e., contextual similarity units) to which the LU‐LM transitional options will be fitted; and (iv) providing an interactive procedure for participatory LU‐LM transitional scenario development over selected contextual similarity units and timeframes. LUP4LDN uses the Global Database of the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), ICARDA's Geoinformatics Options by Context (GeOC) tool, and ELD (Economics of Land Degradation) indicators to identify context‐relevant SLM that are available in the RoI, suggests candidate SLM options, and visualizes related expected levels of impacts on ecosystem services via maps and graphs. The generated maps inform users about trade‐offs upon which users can discuss or negotiate transitional pathways. LUP4LDN has been codeveloped with national stakeholders in Tunisia and Burkina Faso. The piloting implementation in the two countries assessed how LUP4LDN fits with existing LUP processes and the benefits achieved by using the tool to support LUP for LDN.

Characterization of flue gas desulphurized (FGD) gypsum of a coal-fired plant and its relevant risk of associated potential toxic elements in sodic soil reclamation.

Thermal Power Plant generates FGD gypsum as by-product during coal combustion. This study evaluates the characterization (spectroscopic and elemental), potentially toxic elements (PTEs) distribution, and environmental risk assessment of FGD gypsum for safe and sustainable use in agriculture. The XRD and SEM analysis confirmed the dominance of crystalline CaSO4·2H2O in FGD gypsum. The order of concentrations of PTEs in FGD gypsum was Fe > Al > Mn > Zn > Ni > Co. The residual fraction was the dominant pool, sharing 80-90% of the total PTEs. The heavy metals (HMs) were below the toxic range in the leachates. The Co, Ni, Al, Fe Mn, Zn had low (< 10%) risk assessment code and the ecotoxicity was in the range of 0.0-7.46%. The contamination factor was also low (0.0-0.16) at the normal recommended doses of FGD gypsum application for sodicity reclamation. The enrichment factor was in the order of Al < Mn < Co < Zn < Ni. Mn [enrichment factor (Ef) 1.2-2.0] and Co (Ef 1.7-2.8) showed negligible enrichment of metals, whereas Ni (Ef 4.3-5.2) and Zn (Ef 4.5-5.6) reported moderate accumulation in soil. The application of FGD gypsum @ 10 t ha-1 for sodicity reclamation will develop a geo-accumulation index below the critical values indicating its safe and sustainable use to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN) and UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

How Do We Know When We Achieve Land Degradation Neutrality in Forests? A Systematic Review

This systematic review develops a comprehensive understanding of how land degradation is measured with respect to forests, and what qualitative and quantitative methods are being utilised in the pursuit of land degradation neutrality (LDN) generally. Scopus and Environmental Abstracts (EVA) databases were searched for peer-reviewed studies from 1998–2021 using key search terms including ‘land degradation neutrality’, ‘soil’ and ‘forest’. Of the 53 included studies, most articles (n = 25) are experimental reports, and the next most common classification (n = 14) is literature reviews. Studies tended to be longitudinal (mean length of 15.4 years) and Eurasia-centric. Almost all extant research focuses on the indicators rather than the drivers of land degradation. Choosing indicators to measure remains contentious; however, most research uses those prescribed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification: land cover, net primary productivity and soil organic carbon. Despite this convergence around which indicators to monitor, there is no standardisation in the methods used to do so. Therefore, no meaningful comparison between countries or even studies can be made. This lack of standardisation and bias towards indicators instead of drivers is important because, under the current paradigm, land managers seeking to prevent or offset forest degradation cannot do so with any certainty. Until these issues are addressed, it will be impossible to track progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15.3 for global LDN, and large-scale conservation work in this area is based on guesswork. How will we know when we achieve LDN in forests, globally? Based on current research, we will not. Future research must seek standardised ways to quantify land degradation based on its drivers: erosion, urbanisation and human activity, drought and desertification, and pollution.

Understanding the balance between soil conservation and soil water storage capacity during the process of vegetation restoration in semi‐arid watersheds in the Loess Plateau, China

AbstractIn the Loess Plateau, gaining insights into the water storage and soil retention functions of diverse vegetation types, especially, in the semi‐arid watersheds is crucial for identifying the key factors necessary to ensure sustainable development and achieve land degradation neutrality. In this study, five different land use types such as forest, shrub, artificial grass, and natural grasslands were surveyed from 2014 to 2020. Meanwhile, bare land was also used as a control plot. The trade‐off between erosion mitigation and water consumption indicator was quantified based on the ecosystem services perspective benefits. Our results showed that there are significant differences among different land use types (p &lt; 0.05): natural grassland &gt; shrubs &gt; artificial grassland &gt; forests. Vegetation restoration was able to change the soil particle size distribution, increasing clay and silt content, and decreasing sand particles. During the growing season, surface soil water storage decreased in all land use types coinciding with the higher decrease in the control plot. The change in surface water storage in the forest was the most stable, with a decrease of 0.13 mm. The trade‐off between erosion mitigation and water consumption indicator was less than 0 for all vegetation types, which indicates a synergistic effect on soil conservation and water storage benefit. Our results demonstrated that shrubs can register the most balanced benefit of water storage and soil preservation. This is a solid basis for the selection of specific vegetation types and the optimization of the watershed landscape in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, characterized by vulnerable areas due to aridification.

An interactive system to map land degradation and inform decision‐making to achieve land degradation neutrality via convergence of evidence across scales: A case‐study in Ecuador

AbstractOne of the core challenges to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN) is to spatially identify, and strategically prioritise, the areas to implement actions to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation. To achieve this, a tool for a participatory and data‐driven assessment considering both the biophysical and socio‐economic dimensions of land degradation across scales was developed for Ecuador. In this paper, we present the methodology and results obtained, including the spatially explicit interactive tool developed to integrate indicators that support the scaling‐up of sustainable land management (SLM). The process involved specialists from various national and international institutions, as well as decision makers from the public sector and other relevant stakeholders. Cloud computing allowed the integration of five main sources of data: (1) the results of a participatory land degradation assessment based on an expert knowledge questionnaire following the land degradation assessment in drylands (LADA) and world overview of conservation approaches and technologies (WOCAT) methodology; (2) the Hand‐in‐Hand Initiative Ecuador typology maps based on poverty and estimated agricultural potential and efficiency scores from household surveys; (3) National datasets on land cover and land use, soil properties, and hydro climatic indicators; (4) global satellite‐derived LDN indicators, such as land productivity dynamics; and (5) documented SLM practices from WOCAT Global SLM Database. The tool is based on a Google Earth Engine application and allows decision makers to easily compare results and obtain statistics at different spatial scales and landscapes, including land use systems delimited by experts. It also includes a multi‐criteria module to identify areas with specific characteristics to prioritise different types of interventions to achieve the Country's LDN targets. Convergence of local and global evidence allowed the identification of hotspots of degradation as well as areas of false positives/negatives—if only global or remote sensing indicators were considered. The participatory process contributed to strengthening multi‐sector cooperation mechanisms and to guaranteeing ownership of the tool and the results. The system will support Ecuador's efforts to monitor and report progress towards LDN to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The system's code is shared as a repository at Earth Engine and can be adapted to and used by other countries and regions.

Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality Through Tea Plantation: Future Prospect for Combating Climate Change in the Northeast Himalayan Region of India

Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality Through Tea Plantation: Future Prospect for Combating Climate Change in the Northeast Himalayan Region of India

Beyond "greening" and "browning": Trends in grassland ground cover fractions across Eurasia that account for spatial and temporal autocorrelation.

Grassland ecosystems cover up to 40% of the global land area and provide many ecosystem services directly supporting the livelihoods of over 1 billion people. Monitoring long-term changes in grasslands is crucial for food security, biodiversity conservation, achieving Land Degradation Neutrality goals, and modeling the global carbon budget. Although long-term grassland monitoring using remote sensing is extensive, it is typically based on a single vegetation index and does not account for temporal and spatial autocorrelation, which means that some trends are falsely identified while others are missed. Our goal was to analyze trends in grasslands in Eurasia, the largest continuous grassland ecosystems on Earth. To do so, we calculated Cumulative Endmember Fractions (annual sums of monthly ground cover fractions) derived from MODIS 2002-2020 time series, and applied a new statistical approach PARTS that explicitly accounts for temporal and spatial autocorrelation in trends. We examined trends in green vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and soil ground cover fractions considering their independent change trajectories and relations among fractions over time. We derived temporally uncorrelated pixel-based trend maps and statistically tested whether observed trends could be explained by elevation, land cover, SPEI3, climate, country, and their combinations, all while accounting for spatial autocorrelation. We found no statistical evidence for a decrease in vegetation cover in grasslands in Eurasia. Instead, there was a significant map-level increase in non-photosynthetic vegetation across the region and local increases in green vegetation with a concomitant decrease in soil fraction. Independent environmental variables affected trends significantly, but effects varied by region. Overall, our analyses show in a statistically robust manner that Eurasian grasslands have changed considerably over the past two decades. Our approach enhances remote sensing-based monitoring of trends in grasslands so that underlying processes can be discerned.

Land cover degradation in the reference and monitoring periods of the SDG Land Degradation Neutrality Indicator for Switzerland

Land degradation impacts most terrestrial biomes across all world regions. To address global change challenges emanating from degrading natural resources, many countries voluntarily set themselves the goal of achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN). Baseline conditions are to be established over a reference period (2000 – 2015). With seven more years to monitor this Sustainable Development Goal 15 indicator — SDG15.3.1 until the year 2030, the scientific basis for operationalizing LDN is still evolving. The non-availability of annual land use-land cover maps of sufficient resolution in various countries, among them Switzerland, is a major factor hampering the assessment at national and local levels. Land cover change is assessed for seven land categories (that is, Tree-covered area, Grassland, Cropland, Wetland, Artificial Surfaces, Otherland, and Waterbody). Land cover change is a major LDN sub-indicator required to assess the proportion of degraded land to total land area (SDG15.3.1). Annual land cover datasets from 2015 to 2020 were produced at 10 m from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images using a Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System-based workflow. An evaluation of degradation in land cover is presented in support of the operationalization of LDN in Switzerland. Drawing upon the understanding that changes made to land use-land cover may act as precursors to land degradation processes, transitions relating to the loss of natural cover were identified based on the land cover change criteria during the reference and the monitored periods. The criteria were developed for relating land cover transitions to degrading and non-degrading processes. Such transitions were grasslands to tree-covered areas and croplands to artificial surfaces due to settlement development. For example, the amount of cropland converted to artificial surface areas was greater in absolute terms during the monitored period than during the reference period. Also, the regeneration of natural cover involving transitions from otherland to grassland and from grasslands to tree-covered areas was found. Overall trends between 2000 and 2020 in Switzerland are the increasing settlement areas in the Central Plateau, the Alpine valleys of Valais and Ticino, largely at the expense of croplands and the bush encroachment of pastures such as in the Jura. This study’s contributions include an enhanced workflow for annual land cover mapping for the entire Switzerland and the adaptation of the land cover change criteria to fit the Swiss context. The proposed mapping method has the potential to fill the gap between the production cycles of the Swiss Corine and Arealstatistik land use data.

Restoring soil quality and carbon sequestration potential of waterlogged saline land using subsurface drainage technology to achieve land degradation neutrality in India

Subsurface drainage (SSD) has been proved to be an effective technology to reclaim waterlogged saline soils. Three SSD projects were implemented in Haryana, India in 2009, 2012 and 2016 to study the long term effect of SSD (10, 7 and 3 years) operation on restoring productivity and carbon sequestration potential of degraded waterlogged saline soils under prevalent rice-wheat cropping system. These studies indicated that successful operation of SSD improved soil quality parameters such as bulk density, BD (from 1.58 to 1.52 Mg m−3), saturated hydraulic conductivity, SHC (from 3.19 to 5.07 cm day−1); electrical conductivity, ECe (from 9.72 to 2.18 dS m−1), soil organic carbon, OC (from 0.22 to 0.34 %), dehydrogenase activity, DHA (from 15.44 to 31.65 μg g−1 24 h−1), and alkaline phosphatase, ALPA (from 16.66 to 40.11 μg P-NP g−1 h−1) in upper soil surface (0–30 cm). The improved soil quality resulted in increased rice-wheat system yield (rice equivalent yield) by 328 %, 465 % and 665 % at Kahni, Siwana Mal and Jagsi sites, respectively. Studies also revealed that carbon sequestration potential of degraded land increased with the implementation of SSD projects. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed that % OC, ECe, ALPA, available N and K content were the most contributing factor for soil quality index (SQI). The overall result of the studies showed that SSD technology holds great potential to improve soil quality, increase crop productivity, farmers' income and ensure land degradation neutrality and food security in waterlogged saline areas of western Indo Gangetic Plain of India. Hence, it can be concluded that large scale adoption of SSD may fulfill the promise “No poverty, Zero hunger, and Life on land” sustainable development goals of United Nation in degraded waterlogged saline areas.

The Role of Sustainable Forest Management in Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality Target

The rapidly increasing human population and the needs rise the threats to the future of the world. In order to avoid this situation, all countries come together under the umbrella of the United Nations (UN) and seek common solutions to this issue. One of these solutions is Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), which was founded under the aim of the “Life on Land” number 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and was embodied in UNCCD COP 12 in 2015. So much so that the LDN, by looking at the environmental problems experienced in a high dimension, adopted firstly the prevention of land degradation, then its reduction and the recovery of lost lands. At this point, Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is of great importance. This study has been prepared to indicate the importance of the SFM to reaching the LDN target.

Quantifying the Unvoiced Carbon Pools of the Nilgiri Hill Region in the Western Ghats Global Biodiversity Hotspot—First Report

Accelerating land-use change (LUC) in the Nilgiri Hill Region (NHR) has caused its land to mortify. Although this deterioration has been documented, the destruction of buried gem soil has not been reported. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the impact of LUC on soil-carbon dynamics in the six major ecosystems in the NHR: croplands (CLs), deciduous forests (DFs), evergreen forests (EFs), forest plantations (FPs), scrublands (SLs), and tea plantations (TPs). Sampling was conducted at selected sites of each ecosystem at three depth classes (0–15, 15–30, and 30–45 cm) to quantify the carbon pools (water-soluble carbon, water-soluble carbohydrates, microbial biomass carbon, microbial biomass nitrogen, dehydrogenase, and different fractions of particulate organic carbon). We found that the LUC significantly decreased the concentration of carbon in the altered ecosystems (49.44–78.38%), with the highest being recorded at EF (10.25%) and DF (7.15%). In addition, the effects of the LUC on the aggregate size of the organic carbon were dissimilar across all the aggregate sizes. The relatively high inputs of the aboveground plant residues and the richer fine-root biomass were accountable for the higher concentration of carbon pools in the untouched EFs and DFs compared to the SLs, FPs, TPs, and CLs. The results of the land-degradation Index (LDI) depicted the higher vulnerability of TP (−72.67) and CL (−79.00). Thus, our findings highlight the global importance of LUC to soil quality. Henceforth, the conservation of carbon pools in fragile ecosystems, such as the NHR, is crucial to keep soils alive and achieve land-degradation neutrality.

Assessment of changes in water conservation capacity under land degradation neutrality effects in a typical watershed of Yellow River Basin, China

Large-scale implementation of the Grain for Green Project since 1999, which took the Yellow River Basin (YRB) as the core ecological restoration area, has had an important impact on the hydrological processes and ecological environment. Whether such forest restoration construction is conducive to achieving land degradation neutrality as well as improving water conservation capacity has become a hot research topic. The Yiluo River basin (YLRB), one of the most important water conservation areas in the YRB, was selected as the study area. Firstly, the transfer matrix was used to analyze the changes in the two land use maps in 1990 and 2015 and to determine the transformation relationship between different land use types. Furthermore, land degradation was also investigated for further exploration of the correlation between land degradation neutrality and water conservation. The effects of land use and cover changes (LUCC) on the water conservation capacity across the YLRB were investigated by combining the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, water conservation assessment method and land use change scenarios method. The results showed that the land degradation area was mainly located in the residential area and agricultural land in the downstream of the YLRB, and the execution of the Grain for Green Project is beneficial in promoting land degradation neutrality and increasing the water conservation capacity. The water conservation capacity across the YLRB approximately increased by 19.30 mm yr−1 as every 10% of agricultural land converted to forest, showing a greater increase in the upstream than that in the downstream. Rainfall, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and temperature were the primary factors affecting water conservation in the YLRB, while geological lithology also affects the spatial distribution of water conservation. The findings of this study could provide a theoretical basis for water resources and ecological environment protection.

Assessment of the Dynamics of Land Cover at the Local Level to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (for Desertified Lands of the Dry-Steppe Zavolzh’e)

Assessment of the Dynamics of Land Cover at the Local Level to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (for Desertified Lands of the Dry-Steppe Zavolzh’e)

Assessment of land degradation in Inner Mongolia between 2000 and 2020 based on remote sensing data

Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) worldwide is a significant target of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG15.3). Inner Mongolia, as a typical dryland region in northern China, has carried out several large-scale ecological restoration programs to combat land degradation. However, there is a lack of comprehensive assessment of its land degradation situation after ecological programs implementation, which is of great significance to supporting SDG15.3 in China. This study analyzed the land degradation situation using the improved SDG15.3.1 calculation framework based on fine resolution data in Inner Mongolia from 2000 to 2020, and finally comprehensively evaluated the land status of the whole region and those subject to ecological programs. The results show that net land restoration proportion of various ecological project regions and whole region continues to increase. The scope of the Grain for Green Program (GGP) had the largest proportion of net land restoration while the Natural Reserve Program (NRP) had the lowest proportion from 2000 to 2020. The net land restoration area of Inner Mongolia during 2000–2010 and 2010–2020 was 35,800 km² and 65,300 km², respectively. Overall, Inner Mongolia has achieved statistically zero growth in land degradation under the governance of ecological restoration programs. Therefore, reasonable planning, well monitoring, and timely assessment of ecological restoration programs are crucial to support SDG15.3.

Improved mapping and understanding of land system states for achieving land degradation neutrality using remote sensing surface endmembers—temperature space: A case‐study in Minqin, China

AbstractThe identification and understanding of land system states are critical for achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN). However, present conventional approaches can hardly generate a state space with both complex linear and abrupt shift relationships. Therefore, with the remote sensing surface endmembers—temperature space, this study developed a framework to identify, map and understand land system states and their associated trajectories based on the alternative state theory. Combined with three variables of land cover and landscape, our proposed vegetation productivity index (VPI) can highly improve the mapping accuracy of land system states in Minqin, without considering the variable of soil type. We built the three‐dimensional state catastrophe space with variables of soil organic matter (SOM), VPI, and cover function index (LCI). Thanks to the ball‐and‐cup model, two alternative stable states and five unstable states were identified at the landscape level in Minqin; then, we further explored the desired threshold of VPI and LCI were 13.11 and 0.39, while their undesired threshold were 5.15 and 0.76, respectively. The state space can reveal the linear or non‐linear relationship between VPI/LCI and SOM; besides, it can also present the hysteresis of land system state. Moreover, our established model in 2015 proved to be stable and thus can be used to accurately estimate the states in 2018. Therefore, our proposed framework can be an effective way of mapping and understanding present and future land system states, which can provide useful information on proactive conservation and restorative interventions for LDN management.

Operationalizing an integrative socio‐ecological framework in support of global monitoring of land degradation

AbstractDespite sustained global efforts to avoid, reduce, and reverse land degradation, estimates of land degradation nationally and regionally vary considerably. Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity, impacts the provision of vital ecosystem services, and disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through Sustainable Development Goal 15.3, sets out to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN) by improving the livelihoods of those most affected and building resilience in areas affected by or at risk from degradation. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) leads the charge in creating a spatially explicit framework for monitoring and reporting on LDN goals that countries can integrate into their land planning policies. However, it remains difficult to operationalize the integration of biophysical indicators of land degradation with climatic and socio‐economic indicators to assess the impact of land degradation on vulnerable populations. We present an integrative framework that demonstrates how freely available global geospatial data sets can be leveraged through an open‐source platform (Trends.Earth) to simplify and operationalize monitoring and reporting on progress towards achieving LDN. Then, we summarize a suite of data sets and approaches that can be used to understand and quantify the socio‐ecological interactions between drought, land degradation and population exposed to desertification, land degradation and drought. We discuss how improvements in Earth observation data sets and algorithms will allow UNCCD land‐based progress sub‐indicators (changes in primary productivity, land cover, soil organic carbon, drought, and population exposure) to be computed at enhanced spatial resolutions.