An assessment

Land degradation refers to the long-term decline in the quality and productivity of land resources due to various factors, including human activities and natural. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) defines desertification as land degradation that occurs in drylands. Land degradation is driven by a range of factors and is widespread across the EU. Among the recommendations of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) Special Report 33/2018 was the need to establish a methodology and relevant indicators to assess the extent of desertification and land degradation in the European Union (EU). To achieve this goal, the ECA report recommended that the Commission should collate and analyse relevant data on land degradation while building on the existing UNCCD indicator framework for SDG 15.3.1 “proportion of land that is degraded over total land area” (this is also referred as the Strategic Objective 1 in the UNCCD Strategic Framework 2018-2030). The outcome of the methodology should be regularly presented in a clear and user-friendly way for public use in the form of interactive maps. The ECA report made no recommendation regarding formal reporting obligations. The resulting methodology, described in detail in JRC140897 “A methodology to characterise land degradation and desertification in the European Union”, consists of an improvement of the baseline assessment provided by the UNCCD SDG 15.3.1 framework through: • better characterisation of land cover change, through a more relevant nomenclature for the EU, increased spatial resolution and a revised transition matrix that assess the impact of change based on biophysical changes in vegetation cover; • an optimised characterisation of land productivity for the EU; • replacement of the changes in soil organic carbon stock indicator with a more comprehensive and representative soil degradation indicator; • application of an aridity threshold to define desertification, as highlighted in the ECA report; • identification of areas vulnerable to desertification based on future scenarios of the Aridity Index. Importantly, the methodology foresees that the spatial extent of the soil degradation layer can be updated through periodic data collection and derived assessments through the Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive (entry into force on 16/12/2025). This document describes the application of the methodology to continental EU, using elements from the EU Soil Observatory Soil Degradation Dashboard as a proxy for soil degradation. Applying the methodology results in drylands currently covering 15% of the EU (611 000 km2), an area twice the size of Italy. As expected, southwestern, southern and southeastern Member States are most affected. Consequently, desertification affects 530 000 km2 (86.56%) of this area (equivalent to around 12% of the EU territory) with implications for around 42 million people. The highest percentage of land under desertification conditions was observed in Spain (53%), Cyprus (45%) and Greece (36%). A further 1 004 608 km2 of the EU is flagged as being at elevated risk of desertification based on future scenarios for the Aridity Index (2021-2040). Many of these areas are outside the region currently considered as drylands. Among the Member States (MS) land with at least one aspect of degradation accounted for the largest share of area in all cases, ranging from 72.74% 11% in Spain, 73.31 in Slovenia, to 6.16% in Hungary.

SCHILLACI Calogero;  BROOTHAERTS Nils;  YUNTA Felipe;  PANAGOS Panos;  SCARPA Simone;  JONES Arwyn; 

2026-08-03

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC146546

978-92-68-41179-7 (online),   

1831-9424 (online),   

EUR 40776,    OP KJ-01-26-287-EN-N (online),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC146546,   

10.2760/9712967 (online),