The Land Story - Country experiences with reporting on land degradation and drought

WOCAT, it's consortium partner Centre for Development and Environment and the UNCCD launched a new publication that shares insights and methodologies from 30 countries that contributed to improving land degradation and drought reporting. Some highlights are:

• Panama brought together stakeholders from various sectors in a collaborative workshop to select land cover maps tailored to local contexts. This approach enhanced data precision compared to global datasets and increased national confidence in degradation estimates.
• Bhutan combined expert knowledge with field data to align land productivity maps with the country’s specific conditions. Detailed statistics on areas impacted by forest fires, infestations, timber extraction, and mining further refined their reporting accuracy.
• By focusing on soil health, Türkiye developed different region-specific conversion factors to estimate shifts in soil organic carbon (SOC) resulting from land cover changes. This innovative method provided a more precise assessment of SOC variations nationwide.
• Using sex-disaggregated subnational data on social, economic, and infrastructure indicators, South Africa has tracked drought vulnerability trends since 2014. This data-driven approach enables a nuanced view of drought causes and supports customized resilience planning for various regions.

Upcoming events and dissemination

The publication will debut further at UNCCD COP 16 in Riyadh, during a side event co-hosted by WOCAT and the UNCCD on December 6, 2024. Representatives from featured countries will discuss best practices and lessons learned, showcasing replicable methods for future reporting. An interactive plenary on national reporting, scheduled for December 4, 2024, will precede this event.

Download publication

suggested citation: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), 2024. The Land Story. Country experiences with reporting on land degradation and drought. UNCCD, Bonn, Germany; WOCAT and Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Switzerland.