Desertification and Land Degradation in North Africa and the Middle East: Evidence, Drivers and Pathways to Restoration

Drylands cover about 41% of Earth's land surface and are home to more than two billion people, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) together with the adjacent Sahel contain some of the most degraded drylands on the planet. This review synthesises evidence on the extent, drivers and consequences of desertification in the region and on the effectiveness of restoration. Satellite records reveal a complex picture: a global greening trend driven partly by CO₂ fertilisation masks significant degradation where unsustainable land use coincides with drying and warming; observation-based attribution suggests that anthropogenic climate change has degraded about 12.6% of the world's drylands (5.43 million km²) since 1982, affecting more than 200 million people. In MENA, the dominant proximate drivers are overgrazing, cultivation of marginal rangelands, groundwater depletion, salinisation, urban expansion over fertile land and recurrent drought, compounded by rapid warming. Consequences include loss of productivity, increased dust emissions, biodiversity loss, rural poverty and migration. The review assesses evidence on restoration approaches, including rangeland management, water harvesting, agroforestry, regreening by farmer-managed natural regeneration and large-scale tree planting, and argues that community-based land governance and monitoring aligned with the land degradation neutrality framework offer better returns than costly afforestation of hyper-arid land.