Introduction
Land, and its various bio-physical complexities, is an essential life-supporting system, critical for human survival and wellbeing. Unfortunately, a substantial amount of land and associated resources have undergone degradation mainly due to human activities such as urbanization, industrialization and intensive agricultural practices. Climate change is another key factor affecting the resilience of the land system. All of these multiple drivers of change are not only affecting the ecological integrity of the land but also affecting the social, economic, and cultural dimensions of human development. Hence, as envisioned by the United Nations, ‘there has never been a more urgent need to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of land worldwide than now’ to attain the targets of UN-Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) and other international initiatives such as the ‘Bonn Challenge’ and the ‘UN- Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) to restore degraded land and achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN). However, in order to fulfil these ambitions, a well-coordinated approach with strategies that operate at different scales will be essential, and must include the active support of stakeholders varying from individuals to large-scale organizations and governments. Importantly, suitable policy formulation and implementation will be key to successful land restoration worldwide, and thus for the wellbeing of both humanity and our planet. In this context, we are organizing a Special Issue in Land Degradation & Development: Challenges and Opportunities of Global Land Restoration During the UN-Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) to report the current status of land degradation and restoration across the globe, lessons learned from various nations and biogeographical locations, to formulate global action plans and showcase some of the most innovative strategies for accelerating the restoration of degraded land worldwide, to attain UN-SDGs by the year 2030.
This Special Issue aims to publish original and innovative papers as well as reviews, meta-analyses, and opinion papers on the following topics:
Submission Instructions & Deadlines
For manuscript preparation, please follow the LDD Author Guidelines. Manuscripts should be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ldd by registering and logging into the website and can be submitted until the deadline below. To ensure the manuscripts are correctly identified for inclusion into the special issue, it is important to choose the article type as “SI: UN-Decade” when submitting papers to the journal.
All papers will be peer-reviewed according to LDD peer-review protocols.
Guest Editors
Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash, Banaras Hindu University, India, Email: pca.iesd@bhu.ac.in
Sheikh Adil Edrisi, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, India, Email: sheikhadil.edrisi@thapar.edu
Mac Callaham Jr., Center for Forest Disturbance Science, USA, Email: mac.a.callaham@usda.gov
Vishal Tripathi, Banaras Hindu University, India, Email: vishalbiotechbhu@gmail.com
Jan Frouz, Charles University, Czech Republic, Email: jan.frouz@natur.cuni.cz
Ali El-Keblawy, University of Sharjah, UAE, Email: akeblawy@sharjah.ac.ae
Péter Török, University of Debrecen, Hungary, Email: molinia@gmail.com
Ch Srinivasa Rao, National Academy of Agricultural Research & Management, India, Email chsrao_director@naarm.org.in
Managing Guest Editor
Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash, Banaras Hindu University, India, Email: pca.iesd@bhu.ac.in