Advancing Sustainable Development in Arid and Semi-Arid Agro-Ecosystems (Editorial)

Arid and semi-arid regions are inherently shaped by water scarcity, climatic variability, land degradation, and fragile natural resources (Kaur et al., 2025;Zaghouani et al., 2026;Das et al., 2024).Yet, they also harbour remarkable biological diversity and offer substantial scope for agricultural innovation and sustainable resource management (Singh and Singh, 2025).This issue of Annals of Arid Zone brings together diverse contributions addressing these dryland challenges through research across soil and water management, climate change, crop and livestock production, biodiversity, agricultural economics, biological technologies, and resource conservation.Collectively, these studies illustrate how scientific understanding, technological innovation, and locally tailored interventions can combine to foster more productive and resilient dryland systems (Shekhawat, 2024).