Desertification risk, economic resilience and social issues: From theory to practice

Land degradation and early forms of desertification in both advanced economies and emerging countries reflect complex socio-environmental processes driven by multiple interactions between biophysical and socioeconomic forces across different spatial scales. The present study investigates desertification risk, land degradation, and socio-demographic dynamics through the lens of “resilience,” adopting complex adaptive systems (CAS) thinking. The resilience of socio-environmental systems exposed to land degradation is defined as the capacity of a regional economy to respond to crises and reorganize by making changes to preserve functions, structure, and feedback, and to promote future development options. By reviewing the socioeconomic resilience of local socio-ecological systems exposed to land degradation, this study achieves a better comprehension of the multifaceted processes that lead to a higher risk of desertification and the intimate relationship with underlying population trends and demographic dynamics. A comprehensive approach based on resilience thinking was formulated to review both environmental and socio-demographic issues at the landscape scale, and provide a suitable foundation for sustainability science and regional development policies.