Comparison of different land degradation indicators: Do the world regions really matter?

Abstract

In 2010, the Convention on Biological Diversity created the Aichi Biodiversity targets to aid the restoration of degraded ecosystems, which include the restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020. A crucial step to achieve this goal is the development of nonbiased prioritization methodologies that help establish key areas for restoration. However, prioritization methodologies depend heavily on each country's economic capability, governance, internal politics, degradation level, and access to data. Because only 78 countries are considered high-income economies, only this select group of countries would potentially have the necessary resources to compile the information needed to carry out a prioritization process. In this work, our aim was to analyze and compare key land degradation indicators (e.g., land use/change, primary productivity, biodiversity loss, soil organic carbon, degradation level, and social acceptance) in five world regions, with different incomes and political and cultural background, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America (USA-Canada), and Oceania. We also grouped these key land degradation indicators by type (ecological, social, cultural, economic, and policy). Our results indicate that the different world regions seem not to have a direct impact on the number of land degradation indicators used. However, we found differences in the type of indicators used per region, partially denoting the idiosyncrasy of each of these regions. Our study shows that governance is important in the use of indicators although we suspect that there are other variables that could be at play not included in this study.

In 2010, the Convention on Biological Diversity created the Aichi Biodiversity targets to aid the restoration of degraded ecosystems, which include the restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020. A crucial step to achieve this goal is the development of nonbiased prioritization methodologies that help establish key areas for restoration. However, prioritization methodologies depend heavily on each country's economic capability, governance, internal politics, degradation level, and access to data. Because only 78 countries are considered high-income economies, only this select group of countries would potentially have the necessary resources to compile the information needed to carry out a prioritization process. In this work, our aim was to analyze and compare key land degradation indicators (e.g., land use/change, primary productivity, biodiversity loss, soil organic carbon, degradation level, and social acceptance) in five world regions, with different incomes and political and cultural background, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America (USA-Canada), and Oceania. We also grouped these key land degradation indicators by type (ecological, social, cultural, economic, and policy). Our results indicate that the different world regions seem not to have a direct impact on the number of land degradation indicators used. However, we found differences in the type of indicators used per region, partially denoting the idiosyncrasy of each of these regions. Our study shows that governance is important in the use of indicators although we suspect that there are other variables that could be at play not included in this study.