Harmonizing land management strategies with dust transport and water conservation to target of Land Degradation Neutrality in Northern China

Abstract

Large-scale afforestation has increased vegetation cover in dryland regions, yet ecological, hydrological, and socioeconomic constraints pose critical barriers to advancing restoration. Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) offers a global framework for sustainable land management, but its feasibility in dryland ecosystems remains to be demonstrated. Here, we develop an integrated approach to achieving LDN by combining land management strategies with water-saving measures to identify optimal areas for ecological restoration. This strategy extends restoration benefits to over 62 million people, reaching an additional 58.1 % of densely populated areas. Moreover, the optimized land management reduces the increase in ecological water demand while simultaneously enhancing dust mitigation. Priority restoration areas, concentrated around key dust source areas such as the Gobi Desert, demonstrate improved water availability and amplified effects on reducing dust emissions in metropolitan regions. Our findings reveal substantial untapped potential within current restoration areas for further improvement. The in-depth understandings revealed by this case, including the LDN assessment of the dryland with ecological restoration, the land and water cost of the social benefit and the multi-path synergy in the management of the restored landscape, are critical for the progress toward LDN targets globally.