Towards sustainable land management: A regional perspective for a comprehensive Land Degradation Assessment

Sustainable land management (SLM) is crucial for mitigating land degradation (LD), restoring degraded areas, and ensuring the optimal use of land resources for the benefit of both present and future generations. LD adversely affects agriculture, water resources, and vegetation, thus compromising regional sustainability. Despite the availability of several planning tools, there is a lack of an integrated, multi-level assessment that incorporates both top-down and bottom-up approaches with inclusive, data-driven decision-making. Moreover, the potential of geospatial databases at the community level remains largely unexplored. This study proposes a methodological framework for evaluating LD, identifying areas most susceptible, and supporting evidence-based land use planning. A three-tier assessment at the macro, meso, and micro levels is introduced, and the macro-level assessment is attempted in the district of Kasaragod, Kerala, India. The comprehensive degradation assessment adopted a weighted overlay technique based on principal component analysis (PCA) applied to the 26 critical variables identified through a systematic literature review. Cluster and hotspot analyses were performed to determine the drivers of degradation and areas requiring immediate intervention. Findings reveal that approximately 65 % of the total area falls within the ‘Medium to Very High degradation’ category when classified by varying intensity, ranging from ‘Very low’ to ‘Very high’. Moreover, 36.3 % of the degraded land is identified as hotspots, many of which intersect with environmentally sensitive zones. Cluster analysis divided the region into five distinct zones, which showed the spatial variation in drivers of degradation, highlighting the need for further study to develop context-specific strategies for SLM. The proposed methodological framework can be adapted to similar contexts, and the generated baseline data can be used for future development plans, considering the socioeconomic and environmental impacts. The research provides a foundation for future LD assessments in various contexts to develop targeted land management strategies.