Land Degradation in Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) : Assessment and Conservation (Second Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

With a growing world population, the demand for resources is placing an ever-growing pressure on land. Estimates show that land degradation costs around USD 490 billion per year and causes losses of USD 6.3–10.6 trillion per year in ecosystem services. According to the IPCC (2019), 70% of the Earth’s ice-free land surface is directly affected by human-use, and about a quarter of the ice-free area is under pressure from human-induced degradation. Environmentally sensitive areas (ESA), often already exposed to various stress factors, are becoming increasingly threatened by land degradation, whether in their surroundings or within their perimeter. Such conditions not only affect environmental equilibria and land resources, but also have an impact on socioeconomic livelihoods, worsen the climatic crisis and promote the loss of biodiversity. Accordingly, food security, livelihoods, and land degradation–climate feedback loops are becoming significant hurdles for sustainable development. As the 2030 horizon is approaching, considerable advances in land degradation assessment, characterization and restoration/reversal are needed. At the scale of ESAs, the challenges are greater given the critical status of the zones. However, studies on land degradation in ESAs are still nascent. Consequently, adequate conservation and anti-degradation measures are still limited. Therefore, further research efforts are needed. The gaps that need to be bridged are numerous: land degradation definition, characterization and mapping; understanding the implications of land degradation in ESA; quantifying impacts and feedback loops; and proposing adequate conservation measures. We believe that this Special Issue will provide concrete solutions and strong contributions to the field in an attempt to safeguard land resources and ESA.

After the success of the SI’s first volme, the aim of this Special Issue (Volume II) is three-fold: the first aspect aims to investigate advances in land degradation assessment and quantification in general, and in ESAs in particular. The second aspect consists of understanding and demonstrating the potential of innovative concepts such as land degradation neutrality (LDN), nature-based solutions (NbS) and other conservation measures for combatting land degradation generally and in ESAs in particular. Last, but not least, volume II of this special issue will give a particular attention to the use of climate change scenarios for projecting land degradation, a field that is still relatively understudied in the discpline. 

Accordingly, specific topics of this special isse include, but are not limited to:

• Land degradation assessment methods (remote sensing, in situ, modeling, etc.);
• Investigating the extent of land degradation in ESA using a multitude of methods;
• The effect of external stressors such as climate change, land use change, natural hazards and human-made hazards on land degradation in ESAs;
• The ESA–land degradation–SDG nexus;
• Assessment of physical and/or chemical and/or biological land degradation in ESAs;
• Advances in land degradation mapping and characterization;
• Biophysical and socioeconomic implications of land degradation in ESAs;
• The potential of the land degradation neutrality (LDN) concept for combatting land degradation in ESAs;
• Conservation measures in ESAs for combating land degradation and linkages with nature-based solutions;
• ESA governance systems related to land conservation.

Case studies of interest for an international readership as well as review and research articles are welcomed.

Dr. Mario Al Sayah
Dr. Rita Der Sarkissian
Prof. Dr. Rachid Nedjaï
Guest Editors

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