All publications and documents

Efforts to establish Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) as a global objective in the fight against land degradation culminated in 2015 when LDN became part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (target 15.3). Following swiftly, the twelfth session Conference of the Parties (COP 12) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) decided to integrate LDN into the Convention…

In low-nutrient environments with few vascular plant symbiotic N fixers, biocrusts play an important role in ecosystem N cycling. A large number of studies across a wide range of biomes clearly confirm that not only the presence of biocrusts but biocrust community composition strongly influences N-fixation activity, with N fixation increasing with level of development (cyanobacterial-lichen…

This volume summarizes our current understanding of biological soil crusts (biocrusts), which are omnipresent in dryland regions. Since they cover the soil surface, they influence, or even control, all surface exchange processes. Being one of the oldest terrestrial communities, biocrusts comprise a high diversity of cyanobacteria, algae, lichens and bryophytes together with uncounted bacteria,…

More than 200 million people living in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa make their living from agriculture. Most are exposed to weather shocks, especially drought, that can decimate their incomes, destroy their assets, and plunge them into a poverty trap from which it is difficult to emerge. Their lack of resilience in the face of these shocks can be attributed in large part to the poor…

The Global Gender Environment Outlook provides an overview of existing knowledge to generate insights and propose some answers to the following key policy-relevant questions: • What social forces are producing the changes seen in the environment, and are they gender dependent? • What are the large-scale consequences of ongoing ecological changes for social systems and human…

The Food Systems working group of the International Resource Panel has prepared a comprehensive scientific assessment of the current status and dynamics of natural resource use in food systems and their environmental impacts. The IRP identifies opportunities for Resource Smart Food Systems responding to policy-relevant questions like what do sustainable food systems look like from a natural…