If we want to know whether land is slithering towards desertification – or recovering from it – one of the best clues is its ‘productivity’. In simple terms, productivity is the land’s ability to grow plants.
Andreas Savvides and Adriana Bruggeman explain how watching productivity changes over time gives us a window into the health of ecosystems and farmland – and helps guide action before it’s too late.
What is land productivity and what does it have to do with desertification?
Land is much more than just soil particles. It is a living, biological system that includes plants, animals, microbes, and ecological and hydrological processes that sustain life on Earth.
At the heart of this system is land productivity – the capacity of land to produce biomass, such as forests, grasslands, or crops.
When land becomes less productive (producing fewer or weaker plants) in drylands, this is often an early sign that desertification may be under way. That is why monitoring land productivity over long periods is one of the key tools for tracking and combating desertification.
Seeing whether land productivity is increasing or declining provides vital insights into the health and resilience of our natural and agricultural ecosystems. A decline is a signal that action may be needed to prevent the situation from worsening.