Global land desertification risk assessment

Desertification ranks among the most pressing ecological and environmental challenges worldwide. Identifying high-risk desertification areas and understanding their main driving factors are critical to the realization of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, the current understanding of global desertification risk and its main driving factors remains limited to local regions. Here, we used the enhanced Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use-Environmentally Sensitive Area (MEDALUS-ESA) model, which integrates multifaceted evaluation indicators from four aspects, to conduct an assessment of the global desertification risk in 2020. Our results found that 43.09 % of the global area is currently located in regions at high or extreme risk of desertification. Additionally, areas with low and moderate desertification risk are about 35.52 % and 21.39 %, respectively. Regions at high and extreme risk are mostly concentrated in the Mediterranean, East Africa, East Asia, South Africa, South America, and West Africa. Globally, climate quality emerged as the primary driver of desertification risk, followed by vegetation quality and management quality. At the same time, the contributions of these factors show significant variability with space. These insights can provide valuable guidance for managing desertification risk at global and regional scales.