**2.2. Land degradation assessment in drylands (LADA)**

The LADA approach was developed based on the assumption that human activities on the land are the main drivers causing land degradation [21]. Therefore, defining and mapping of different land use systems are very crucial activities for underpinning the assessment and its implementation. The entire LADA approach gives consideration to the relationships between the causes and effects that lead to degradation. The LADA project operates by using a variety of technologies, from satellite images to digital databases, to soil and vegetation sampling, and the examination of the linkages between both biophysical and socio‐economic issues. Global assessment efforts list net primary productivity (NPP), rainfall use efficiency (RUE), aridity index (AI), rainfall variability (RV), and erosion risk (ER) as the leading indicators of land degradation [20].

The global land degradation assessment (GLADA) was the global component of LADA. GLADA aims at providing a baseline for the assessment of global trends in land degradation using a range of scale‐appropriate indicators, many of which are collected through satellite sensors and processing satellite data and existing global databases.
