Participatory land use planning for climate-resilient governance in Sahel drylands: Evidence from Loga, Niger

• PLUP is assessed as a formal land-use policy instrument in Sahelian drylands. • Mixed methods integrate LULC change, participatory mapping, and surveys. • Participatory planning strengthens local negotiation and reduces conflicts. • Continuous rainfed cropping expands while agroforestry parklands decline. Dryland regions increasingly face climate variability, land degradation, and demographic pressure, intensifying competition over land and challenging conventional, centralized governance. Participatory Land-use Planning (PLUP) promises inclusive, climate-resilient governance, but empirical evidence from fragile institutional contexts remains limited. This study examines PLUP implementation in Loga Department, Niger, using mixed-methods: multi-temporal satellite imagery (Landsat 1992, Sentinel-2 2022), participatory mapping, household surveys, and institutional analysis. Land-use and land-cover (LULC) analysis reveals long-term expansion of continuous rainfed cropping, decline of agroforestry parklands, and intensifying pressures on pastoral and forest resources. Because PLUP began only in 2022, these changes represent a pre-existing baseline rather than program impacts. PLUP improves stakeholder’s coordination, clarifies land-use rules, and enhanced local legitimacy. However weak statutory enforceability, overlapping institutional mandates, and limited local capacity constrain its effectiveness. PLUP operates as a governance and coordination mechanism whose influence on land-use trajectories remains indirect and contingent on broader institutional conditions. These finding offer transferable insights for strengthening climate-resilient land governance in Sahelian drylands.