Mechanisms and Innovations in Combating Land Degradation and Desertification
A Special Issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X) belonging to the section "Land, Soil and Water".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 497
Editors
Interests: desertification control; water and soil conservation; desert plant ecology; natural disaster risk assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: saline soils; halophyte; saline-alkali; land restoration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia
Interests: stress-adaptive responses; plant growth, halophyte; abiotic stress tolerance
Interests: land evaluation; climate change models; spatiotemporal analysis of irrigation water quality; soil degradation; agriculture productivity; agroecological modelling and remote sensing techniques; soil carbon sequestration; adaptation strategies; improving soil characteristics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Land degradation and desertification are among the most pressing environmental challenges of the twenty-first century, affecting more than 40% of the Earth's land surface and threatening food security, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human livelihoods. Climate change, unsustainable land use, soil erosion, salinization, vegetation loss, and declining soil health continue to accelerate degradation processes, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. Addressing these challenges requires a deeper understanding of the underlying biophysical, ecological, and socio-environmental mechanisms driving degradation, as well as the development of innovative technologies and management strategies for prevention, mitigation, and restoration.
Aim of the Special Issue and how the subject relates to the journal scope.
This Special Issue aims to advance scientific knowledge on the mechanisms of land degradation and desertification and to highlight innovative approaches for restoring degraded ecosystems and promoting sustainable land management. The topic aligns closely with the scope of Land journal, particularly in the areas of land degradation, desertification, soil health, ecological restoration, land–climate interactions, biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management, environmental monitoring, and emerging technologies for land assessment and management.
This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:
- Soil Erosion Processes and Watershed Management.
- Wind Erosion, Sand Stabilization, and Desertification Control.
- Salinization Mechanisms and Saline Land Reclamation.
- Soil Biological Processes, Microbial Communities, and Soil Health.
- Plant Functional Traits and Physiological Adaptations to Degraded Environments.
- Ecological and Evolutionary Mechanisms Supporting Ecosystem Recovery.
- Ecological Restoration and Nature-Based Solutions.
- Sustainable Land Management and Land Degradation Neutrality.
- Remote Sensing, GIS, Artificial Intelligence, and Early Warning Systems.
- Restoration Projects, Policy Frameworks, and Transferable Success Stories.
We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.
Dr. Jinglong Fan
Dr. Lei Wang
Dr. Mohsin Tanveer
Dr. Sameh Kotb Abd-Elmabod
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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-anonymized 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.
Keywords
- desertification control
- land degradation neutrality
- sand fixation/sand stabilization
- soil erosion prevention
- ecological restoration
- afforestation and reforestation
- sustainable land management
- dryland rehabilitation
- windbreak and sandbreak systems
- vegetation restoration in arid zones
- desert highway/railway shelterbelt ecosystem
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