Land degradation neutrality, combatting desertification from the baseline

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) defines land degradation neutrality (LDN) as “a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems.”  The LDN indicators  are net primary productivity, soil organic carbon and land cover change. The UNCCD’s conceptual framework aims to ensure that the area of negative changes is counterbalanced by the area of significant positive changes, in the same land type. It sets 2015 as the baseline year and 2030 as the target year, and recommends averaging indicators over a 10-15 year period. In contrast, the UN SDG 15.3.1 Land Degradation Neutrality indicator uses the same sub-indicators assesses the total area of degraded land over the total land area of a country. It recommends 2000-2015 as a baseline period. The World Atlas of Desertification takes a longer term view and assesses land productivity dynamics for the 1982-2010 period. A number of scientists have questioned the objectivity of the land degradation neutrality baseline, over different countries, regions and methods. This contribution aims to review the controversies and highlight recent advances. To further land degradation assessment research, we also aim to bring researchers together in an international Community of Practice.

This research is financially supported by the TERRASAFE project, which is co-funded by the European Union (GA 10115737) and by UK Research and Innovation.