Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Edrisi, Sheikh Adil
• Bundela, Amit Kumar
• Verma, Vivek
• Dubey, Pradeep Kumar
• Abhilash, Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil

Titel

Assessing the impact of global initiatives on current and future land restoration scenarios in India

Ist Teil von

• Environmental research, 2023-01, Vol.216 (Pt 1), p.114413-114413, Article 114413

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Access via ScienceDirect (Elsevier)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Land degradation across the world has resulted in an unprecedented decline of ecosystem services, affecting the livelihood of 3.2 billion people globally. Sustainable land management is essential to protect our finite land resources from over-exploitation and degradation. Therefore, the present article was aimed to analyze the impacts of various national and international policies on current and future land restoration scenarios in India. A spatially explicit model (CLUMondo) was employed to predict scenarios, i.e., the ‘business as usual’ (BU) and ‘sustainable restoration’ (SR) by 2030. Though the results showed an increasing trend in land degradation , i.e., from 44.28 to 49.74 Mha during the period of 2005–15, a slight decrease was observed in 2019 (49.24 Mha), suggesting a net increase of 11.21% during the 2005–19 period. However, an increase in forest cover by 5.08% under existing policy targets overtook the degradation rate by restoration initiatives. The net decline in degraded land area by 1% with an increased forest cover by 1.83% observed during the 2015–19 periods reflected the positive impact of various national and global policies on existing restoration ventures in India. Our modeled results (weighted AUC = 0.87) also suggested an increase in forest cover by 6.9% and 9.9% under BU and SR scenarios, respectively. Under the BU scenario, degraded land will be restored up to 12.1 Mha; however, 6.27 Mha of these lands will be converted to cropland for food production. Importantly, a decrease in grasslands by 35.1% under the BU scenario warrants the urgency to maintain the integrity of such ecological systems. However, the SR scenario showed an increase in grasslands by 8.9%, with an overall restoration of degraded land up to 18.31 Mha. Moreover, a reduced cropland expansion rate of 1% suggested an effective land management response. While our results may have some uncertainties due to the model limitations, they can still be used for framing suitable land management policies to facilitate sustainable land restoration programs in India. [Display omitted] •Impact of various policies on India's current and future land restoration is studied.•There were 49.24 Mha of deforested and degraded lands in India as of 2019.•Business as usual scenario shown restoration of 12.1 Mha by the year 2030.•Out of this, 6.27 Mha can be converted to cropland despite being restored.•Sustainable restoration scenario shown further restoration of 18.31 Mha by 2030.