This UNCCD-SPI technical report provides well-established scientific evidence for understanding the strong linkages between land use and drought and how management of both is connected through water use. It introduces a new concept of Drought-Smart Land Management (D-SLM) and organizes relevant approaches and practices in fourteen groups across four major classes of land use.

The objective is to guide decision makers and land managers working on “proactive drought risk management” towards interventions designed to improve community and ecosystem resilience to drought, ideally leading to higher socioeconomic returns than conventional practices under drought conditions. It also proposes guidance for enhancing five enablers to support adoption, implementation and scaling up of D-SLM. And it brings to the forefront the need for vulnerability and risk assessments in different contexts, covering both natural (climatic, soil and water) and socioeconomic aspects of land and drought management.