The global potential for land restoration: Scenarios for the Global Land Outlook 2

Land restoration: multiple benefits

Land restoration has the potential to deliver multiple benefits simultaneously, making it a highly integrated solution for sustainable development. The way that land is used, managed and protected is central to achieving the goals of the UN Conventions on land degradation and desertification, climate change and biodiversity, as well as many of the Sustainable Development Goals. This is because the choices, synergies and trade-offs between sustainability ambitions often materialise on land. Over the past years, attention to and ambitions for restoration have gained momentum, culminating in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030).

Potential effects: scenarios

This study quantifies the potential effects of land restoration at the global and regional levels. Three global land-use scenarios up to 2050 were constructed and analysed to provide a view of the extent and risks of land degradation, and to estimate the potential of land restoration compared to a future without restoration. These three scenarios are the Baseline, Restoration and Restoration & Protection scenarios. The effects of land restoration were assessed for natural area, biodiversity, soil organic carbon, agricultural yields, water regulation and carbon storage.

Restoration commitments

Current global restoration commitments cover around one fifth of the potential area that can be restored in scenarios. Implementation of these commitments costs an estimated 300 to 1600 billion US$. The stimulation of land restoration measures requires countries to integrate restoration into existing policies and institutions. Land restoration and protection measures provide an important part of the solutions to realise internationally agreed goals, but need to be combined with changes to production, supply chains and consumption patterns to bring these goals within reach.

On 16 February 2022, we corrected a few percentages on page 11 of the current version of the report 'The global potential for land restoration: Scenario's for the Global Land Outlook 2'.