Degraded Land Restoration Through Aromatic Plants in India: A Nature‐Based Solution

ABSTRACT Intensive farming is a critical factor in global food security that causes soil erosion and biodiversity loss. This has made it increasingly important to restore degraded and marginal lands due to the threat to land resources from unsustainable methods, industrialization, urbanization, and pollution. Present approaches to rehabilitating impaired lands—physical, chemical, and biological—are often expensive and cannot be sustained without advanced technology. Therefore, we hypothesized that reclaiming degraded land ecologically through aromatic plants (APs) would significantly improve soil health. Hence, the objectives were (a) to identify suitable APs in reclaiming degraded lands, and (b) to test the potentiality of APs to restore the degraded lands. Hence, we conducted an extensive review on APs and their role in land rehabilitation through the PRISMA approach. Through an extensive bibliometric analysis of 130 selected studies, we assessed the roles of APs in improving soil health, stabilizing soils, and enhancing ecosystem services. The results revealed that a promising option is to use fast‐growing non‐edible plants with deep roots that stabilize metals; this offer is both economical and green. Among them are aromatic crops sought after across various industries because they survive even in the harsh conditions of degraded lands. The review reveals that APs have potential in enhancing carbon sequestration (5.38 to 15.2 t ha −1 ) and reducing soil loss and runoff by 30%–54% and 60%–80%, respectively, besides mitigating abiotic stresses like heavy metal, salinity, and drought. This study raises the issue of integrating APs into land management strategies to achieve land degradation neutrality, as targeted by India under the Paris Agreement by 2030. It highlights the importance of policy frameworks, scientific research, and community involvement in promoting the use of APs for ecological restoration. The findings advocate for a focused approach to utilizing APs in degraded landscapes, providing valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and land managers to enhance the sustainability of land use practices and support the circular economy.