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

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 limited. 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.

The aim of this Special Issue is two-fold: the first aspect aims to investigate advances in land degradation assessment and quantification in general, and in ESAs in particular. Once land degradation is assessed/defined, the second aspect of this Special Issue comes into play. The latter 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.

This topic falls under Land’s following subject areas:

• Land systems science and social–ecological systems research;
• All aspects of land use and land cover change;
• Land-related issues in climate, ecology, environmental/geosciences, social, economic (sustainability) sciences and biodiversity research;
• Land-related aspects of nature and biodiversity governance;
• Land management, including the application of ecosystem services, multifunctionality or other concepts;
• Livelihoods, food security and supply chains in relation to land issues;
• Land-related aspects of achieving the UN Sustainability Goals;
• Landscape and territorial planning, conservation and management;
• Land—observation and monitoring.

The journal Land presents this Special Issue entitled “Land Degradation in Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA): Assessment and Conservation”. Specific topics 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 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
Dr. Rachid Nedjaï
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• land degradation
• environmentally sensitive areas
• land degradation neutrality
• land management
• innovative land restoration
• conservation solutions