The highlights: Monitoring of land degradation and desertification over Thar Desert.
Data integration at spatial scale for evaluation of ESA.
Temporal observation of ESA indicators to measure the desertification.
Study assist to concern authority for better land management.

Globally, desertification is a challenging issue today. As per United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), it has been altering the quality of life of several people across the world. The study deals with temporal monitoring and mapping land degradation and desertification over the Thar Desert, which occupies the northwestern part of Rajasthan, India, with arid climatic conditions. It is necessary to control desertification by taking a few safety steps to create an early warning system based on scientific facts and satellite and secondary data.

The current study has focused on integrating different data (i.e., climate, vegetation, and socio-economic), primary and secondary, as per their availability at a spatial scale for evaluating Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA), prone to desertification. It also provides temporal observation of various ESA indicators to measure the intensity and severity of land degradation in desertification.

The weightage of ESA indicators was assigned based on Analytical Hierarchical Processes (AHP) to quantifying the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI). Overall, current research can guide authorities in proceeding with appropriate measures for addressing the process of land degradation. It would help the concerned authorities to execute suitable actions for combating desertification as apprised in COP-14 meeting under UNCCD framework, lately held in New Delhi (India) in 2019.