Approaches to assess land degradation risk: a synthesis

Abstract

Land degradation adversely affects the well-being of approximately 3.2 billion people worldwide and results in a loss of about 10% of annual gross domestic product. Degradation dynamics are often creeping and non-linear, hence the adverse consequences are often not immediately perceived. In consequence, methods for assessing future risks of land degradation and risk reduction strategies are trailing far behind those that have been developed within disaster risk research for natural hazards that appear as shocks, such as floods or earthquakes. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyze existing land degradation risk assessment approaches to assess what is hindering a link to land management strategies. The synthesis presented here reveals that while approaches to calculate land degradation risk have evolved to capture ever more processes and factors involved in land degradation, no consistent conceptual framework for land degradation risk has been developed to the present day. Key identified short-comings are that risk terminology is not consistent across and within studies and that there is often no distinction between a degradation status assessment and an assessment of future risk. Damage is rarely explicitly considered or quantified, and in the majority of studies there is no clear distinction between processes and drivers, hazard and vulnerability. Finally, novel conceptual ideas integrating the risk framework developed within disaster risk research are proposed to stimulate debate and facilitate the development of effective risk reduction measures for land degradation.