Given growing demands on land and emerging challenges from land degradation and climate change, policymakers require information on the possible consequences. This chapter explores trends up to 2050, through the Shared Socio-economic Pathways scenarios, based on the report ‘Exploring the impact of…

Agriculture is the single biggest land use covering more than one-third of the world’s land surface, not including Greenland and Antarctica. The amount and quality of land available for food production is under pressure from the decisions and demands made by consumers, producers, and governments…

Today the world faces growing problems relating to land-water interactions and water security, which have reached crisis levels in many countries and regions. Key issues include over-use and waste; fluctuations in abundance, with an increasing frequency of both droughts and floods; poor water…

Soil forms the basis of all terrestrial ecosystems, yet soil status and its biodiversity are often virtually ignored in environmental assessments. As an essential component of land resources, soil issues are given particular attention in this chapter. The term biodiversity refers to the total…

There has been a massive and unprecedented explosion in energy use since the 19th century; global energy use has grown by more than 20 times in the last 200 years, far outstripping the rate of population growth (Grübler, 2004). In particular, the use of fossil fuels has increased dramatically…

Rapid urbanization is taking place all over the world, driven largely by rural migration, resulting in urban sprawl and slum developments as well as in the development of high quality infrastructure and overall improvement in the standard of living. If current projections are accurate, 66 per cent…

Drylands cover 41 per cent of the land surface, produce 44 per cent of the crops, and contain over 2 billion people and half of the world’s livestock. Drylands include some of the most productive areas on the planet, but also some of the most fragile, where minor alterations in conditions can result…

Land is finite in quantity, however: the evidence presented in this Outlook suggests that, with changes in consumer and corporate behavior, and the adoption of more efficient planning and sustainable practices, we will have sufficient land available in the long term to meet both the demand for…

The Global Land Outlook (GLO) Working Papers Series is a supplementary set of publications that cover a wide variety of strategic issues related to land management and planning. The series aims to provide an expanded format as well as an additional vehicle for those authors invited to contribute to…

The loss in both the quality and quantity of healthy and productive land resources is an immediate global concern, especially in developing countries and those with a high proportion of fragile and vulnerable drylands. As a symbol and global champion of such concerns, the United Nations Convention…

Examples from the SPI report The report “Sustainable Land Management contribution to successful land-based climate change adaptation and mitigation” by the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface (SPI) contains several dozen examples of individual sustainable land management (SLM) best practices, categorised…

This July is the first time the United Nations will review the progress made towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal 15, which is about Life on Land. Each goal will be reviewed about every 4 years until 2030. The reviews will be based on the 10 indicators countries agreed on, that assess change…

The UNCCD Science-Policy Interface (SPI) was established in 2013 and promotes dialogue between scientists and policy makers on desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD). The composition of the SPI is designed to provide independent scientific perspective from the full range of disciplines…

Land degradation neutrality (LDN) aims to halt the ongoing loss of healthy land through degradation. LDN creates a target to manage land degradation, through a dual-pronged approach of measures to avoid or reduce degradation of land, combined with measures to reverse past degradation.

The land degradation neutrality (LDN) principles are a set of 19 principles that govern the LDN implementation process. They are designed to ensure that LDN achieves its positive outcomes, while avoiding or minimising the unintended and negative outcomes. They can be considered the foundations of…

The land degradation neutrality (LDN) principles for good governance underpin the whole LDN process and are integral to its overall success. They promote the establishment of mechanisms and policies at the national and sub-national levels that guarantee the long-term sustainability of LDN…

The scientific conceptual framework for land degradation neutrality (LDN) explains the underlying scientific processes and principles that support achievement of LDN and its intended outcomes. The framework provides a scientifically-sound basis to understand and implement LDN, to inform the…

The land degradation neutrality (LDN) model (figure below) illustrates the interrelationships between the major elements of the scientific conceptual framework for LDN. The target at the top expresses the vision of LDN, emphasizing the link between human prosperity and land-based natural capital…

Land is important for human wellbeing, as it provides food, feed and fibre and contributes to regulating the ecosystem services on which the provision of these goods depend. Land is under growing pressure to meet the multiple needs of an increasingly urban and affluent global population, with a…

Neutrality is the aspirational goal of land degradation neutrality (LDN), meaning that there is no net loss of what LDN is intended to maintain, which is the land-based natural capital. No net loss in this context means that land-based natural capital is maintained or enhanced between the start and…

The land degradation neutrality (LDN) conceptual framework applies a neutrality mechanism that is focused pro-actively on planning to achieve no net loss of land-based natural capital, rather than on regulating land degradation. The neutrality mechanism comprises the counterbalancing of anticipated…

The land degradation neutrality (LDN) response hierarchy of Avoid > Reduce > Reverse land degradation (figure below) is an overarching principle for LDN implementation, which guides decision-makers in planning interventions to achieve LDN. The hierarchy articulates which interventions should be…

Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) involves identifying and implementing a combination of appropriate interventions to avoid, reduce, or reverse land degradation in each land type, thereby maintaining (or enhancing) land-based natural capital. To achieve LDN, land use decision-makers need…

Land degradation neutrality (LDN) aims to achieve no net loss of land-based natural capital, compared with the baseline. Monitoring achievement of neutrality is based on quantifying the baseline and then assessing the balance between the area of “gains” (significant positive changes/improvements)…

Knowledge and information generated from the land degradation neutrality (LDN) monitoring process contributes to the learning process. Such knowledge can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in maintaining land-based natural capital (e.g. the outcomes of counterbalancing), to…