Despite sustained global efforts to avoid, reduce, and reverse land degradation, estimates of land degradation nationally and regionally vary considerably. Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity, impacts the provision of vital ecosystem services, and disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through Sustainable Development Goal 15.3, sets out to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN) by improving the livelihoods of those most affected and building resilience in areas affected by or at risk from degradation.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) leads the charge in creating a spatially explicit framework for monitoring and reporting on LDN goals that countries can integrate into their land planning policies. However, it remains difficult to operationalize the integration of biophysical indicators of land degradation with climatic and socio-economic indicators to assess the impact of land degradation on vulnerable populations. We present an integrative framework that demonstrates how freely available global geospatial data sets can be leveraged through an open-source platform (Trends.Earth) to simplify and operationalize monitoring and reporting on progress towards achieving LDN.
Then, we summarize a suite of data sets and approaches that can be used to understand and quantify the socio-ecological interactions between drought, land degradation and population exposed to desertification, land degradation and drought. We discuss how improvements in Earth observation data sets and algorithms will allow UNCCD land-based progress sub-indicators (changes in primary productivity, land cover, soil organic carbon, drought, and population exposure) to be computed at enhanced spatial resolutions.

In responding to a call to address DLDD mapping and LDN SDG targets, we present an exhaustive list of free, globally available and geospatially-explicit socio-economic and EO data sets that can be integrated into metrics to assess progress towards a land degradation-neutral world consistent with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Improving the process of integrating socio-economic data with climate change science is necessary for optimal monitoring and evaluation of international objectives such as the SDGs. Ultimately, the accurate monitoring and reporting of integrated socio-economic, EO, and biophysical outcomes in response to land degradation is essential to improve the livelihoods of those most affected and to build resilience to safeguard against the most extreme effects of climate change, drought and land degradation. However, as our analysis of convergence between DLDD, populations affected, and vulnerability demonstrates, in the absence of policy and on-the-ground interventions to reverse the directionality of these trends, albeit at coarse global scales, the regions of the world that stand out as most impacted will continue to struggle to achieve SDGs aimed at reducing land degradation and improving the living conditions of affected populations. Future research and policy could fruitfully focus on improving monitoring and evaluation tools especially for these most vulnerable populations.