Land management

Short description: Processes of managing land

a rangeland management specialist

Land management is the process of managing the use and development of land resources. Those resources are used for a variety of purposes for example agriculture, forestry, water resource management, human settlements and tourism. One aim of land management is to prevent or reverse land degradation. Another aim is to ensure water security by increasing soil moisture availability, decreasing surface runoff, and decreasing soil erosion.[1] Unsustainable land managements leads to land being over- or misused which in turn degrades the land, reduces productivity and disrupts natural equilibriums.[2]

## Contents

* 1 Definition
* 1.1 Sustainable land management
* 2 Purposes
* 3 In climate change context
* 4 Methods
* 5 Policy instruments
* 6 See also
* 7 References

## Definition

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report describes land management as "The sum of land-use practices (e.g., sowing, fertilising, weeding, harvesting, thinning and clear-cutting) that take place within broader land-use categories."[3]: 2914 Land use itself is "The total of arrangements, activities and inputs applied to a parcel of land." Land use categories include: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands.[3]: 2914

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) applies the term land management in a wide context. Besides agriculture and forestry, they include the mineral extraction sector, property and estate management: "Land management is the process by which the resources of land are put to good effect. It covers all activities concerned with the management of land as a resource both from an environmental and from an economic perspective. It can include farming, mineral extraction, property and estate management, and the physical planning of towns and the countryside.[4]: 13

### Sustainable land management

Sustainable land management (SLM) is the set of practices and technologies that aim to integrate the management of land, water, and other environmental resources to meet human needs while ensuring long-term sustainability, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and livelihoods.[3]: 2924 Sustainable forest management is a sub-category of sustainable land management.[5]: 23

SLM has been defined as follows:

* According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), sustainable land management can be defined as “the use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, for the production of goods to meet changing human needs while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions.”[6]
* By IPCC in 2022: "The stewardship and use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, to meet changing human needs, while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions".[3]: 2924 This wording is very similar to the longer wording used by the United Nations (UN) 1992 Rio Earth Summit in 1992: "The use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, for the production of goods to meet changing human needs, while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions."[1]
* By World Bank in 2006: "SLM is defined as a knowledge-based procedure that helps integrate land, water, biodiversity, and environmental management (including input and output externalities) to meet rising food and fiber demands while sustaining ecosystem services and livelihoods.[7]: xiv

At the international level, the importance of SLM is reflected in global policy frameworks. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – an international treaty adopted in 1994 to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought – promotes sustainable land management and aims to achieve land degradation neutrality.[8]

## Purposes

One aim of sustainable land management is to avoid, reduce or reverse land degradation.[8] Another aim is to ensure water security by increasing soil moisture availability, decreasing surface runoff, and decreasing soil erosion.[1]

The IPCC stated that sustainable land management can play a role in climate change mitigation and adaptation.[5]: 23 This takes place at various scales, at scales, namely "from individual farms to entire watersheds".[5]: 23

A World Bank report in 2006 explained: "SLM is necessary to meet the requirements of a growing population. Improper land management can lead to land degradation and a significant reduction in the productive and service (biodiversity niches, hydrology, carbon sequestration) functions of watersheds and landscapes."[7]: xiv

## In climate change context

The IPCC's Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) explains the linkages between sustainable land management and climate change mitigation. The full title of the report is the "Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems".[9][5]

The report's summary for policy makers explains that, "Many sustainable land management technologies and practices are profitable within three to 10 years (medium confidence). While they can require upfront investment, actions to ensure sustainable land management can improve crop yields and the economic value of pasture. Land restoration and rehabilitation measures improve livelihood systems and provide both short-term positive economic returns and longer-term benefits in terms of climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity and enhanced ecosystem functions and services."[5]: 35

## Methods

Land management options exist to focus on healthy soils and to "reduce vulnerability to soil erosion and nutrient loss". Examples include "growing green manure crops and cover crops, crop residue retention, reduced/zero tillage, and maintenance of ground cover through improved grazing management".[5]: 23 There are also land management options for farmers that build soil carbon and therefore provide important climate change mitigation benefits through carbon sequestration: "agroforestry, perennial pasture phases and use of perennial grains". All these methods reduce soil erosion and nutrient leaching.[5]: 23

Land management options that "do not require land use change and do not create demand for more land conversion" include:[5]: 20

* improved management of cropland and grazing lands,
* sustainable forest management, and
* increased soil organic carbon content.

For example in Ethiopia, "over 85% of the land is estimated to be moderately to severely degraded".[10] The current practices of sustainable land management (SLM) involve a variety of structural and nonstructural elements integrated at the catchment scale, providing different roles in managing water resources.[1] The structural measures (soil bunds, contour trenches, etc.) significantly improve infiltration and water storage potential of the agricultural landscapes. On the other hand, the nonstructural measures, such as the elimination of open grazing on communal grazing land and the abandonment of postharvest grazing on cultivated land, help improve the water retention capacity of the soils and reduce nonproductive evaporative water losses.[1] In addition, the current practices of SLM attempts to sustain diverse land use mosaics at the catchment scale, including protected areas (gullied lands and communal grazing lands), cultivated land and home gardens, with the aim of harnessing potential uses, services, and values from a catchment.[1]

The Litlington White Horse requires "scouring" to prevent vegetation from obscuring the chalk figure.

Land management also includes the stewardship of cultural and historical landscapes. This often involves specific practices designed to maintain 'artificial' or 'managed' features that would otherwise be reclaimed by natural succession. A notable example is the management of hill figures in the United Kingdom, such as the Litlington White Horse in East Sussex. The maintenance of such figure's involves a process known as 'scouring.' This is a form of land restoration where topsoil and encroaching vegetation are manually removed to reveal the underlying chalk. This practice aligns with the IPCC definition of land management as a 'sum of land-use practices'—in this case, weeding and surface clearing—performed to ensure the long-term preservation of a cultural resource for tourism and education.

## Policy instruments

Land management decisions are often shaped by policy instruments designed to promote sustainable practices and mitigate environmental harm. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), these instruments typically fall into three categories: regulatory, incentive-based, and cross-compliance approaches.[11] Regulatory policies impose legally binding rules such as land-use zoning or deforestation bans. Incentive-based mechanisms—like payments for ecosystem services—offer financial rewards for sustainable actions. Cross-compliance schemes condition government support on adherence to environmental standards. Each approach presents trade-offs in terms of enforcement costs, accessibility, and effectiveness, particularly for smallholders.[11]

## See also

* Organization:Agenda 21 - United Nations action plan, 1992
* Carbon farming
* Earth:Conservation grazing - Use of animals to graze areas like nature reserves to maintain habitats
* Earth:Economics of Land Degradation Initiative - Global initiative for sustainable land management
* Land degradation
* United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Dagnachew, Melku; Gebrehiwot, Solomon Gebreyohanis; Bewket, Woldeamlak; Alamirew, Tena; Charles, Katrina; Zeleke, Gete (2024). "Ensuring sustainable water security through sustainable land management: Research evidences for policy" (in en). World Water Policy. doi:10.1002/wwp2.12209. ISSN 2639-541X. 50x50px Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
2. ↑ Foley, J. A.; Defries, R.; Asner, G. P.; Barford, C.; Bonan, G.; Carpenter, S. R.; Chapin, F. S.; Coe, M. T. et al. (2005). "Global Consequences of Land Use". Science 309 (5734): 570–574. doi:10.1126/science.1111772. PMID 16040698. Bibcode: 2005Sci...309..570F. http://rcin.org.pl/Content/31092.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 IPCC, 2022: Annex II: Glossary [Möller, V., R. van Diemen, J.B.R. Matthews, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, J.S. Fuglestvedt, A. Reisinger (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, US, pp. 2897–2930, doi:10.1017/9781009325844.029.
4. ↑ "Land Administration Guideline. With Special Reference to Countries in Transition". UN Economic Commission for Europe, Geneva, ECE/HBP/96. 1996. http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/hlm/documents/Publications/land.administration.guidelines.e.pdf.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 IPCC, 2019: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmotte, H.- O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, P. Zhai, R. Slade, S. Connors, R. van Diemen, M. Ferrat, E. Haughey, S. Luz, S. Neogi, M. Pathak, J. Petzold, J. Portugal Pereira, P. Vyas, E. Huntley, K. Kissick, M. Belkacemi, J. Malley, (eds.)]. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157988.001
6. ↑ "Sustainable Land Management". 2025. https://www.fao.org/land-water/land/sustainable-land-management/en.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Anderson, Jonathan; Blackie, Malcolm J.; Burcroff, Richard; Ceesay, Mustapha M.; Esikuri, Enos E.; Fernandes, Erick C.M.; Gillison, Andrew Napier; Sanginga, Emmanuel Nteranya; Smaling, Eric; Styger, Erika Dorothea (2006) Sustainable land management : challenges, opportunities, and trade-offs. Agriculture and rural development Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group.
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality. A Report of the Science-Policy Interface. Bonn, Germany: UNCCD. 2017. https://www.unccd.int/resources/reports/scientific-conceptual-framework-land-degradation-neutrality-report-science-policy.
9. ↑ "﻿Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems (SRCCL)﻿". IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
10. ↑ REACH (2023) Improving water security through Sustainable Land Management Story of change: Key findings & emerging impacts
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 FAO (2025) (in English). The State of Food and Agriculture 2025. FAO. doi:10.4060/cd7067en. ISBN 978-92-5-140142-2. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cd7067en.

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