Current Mitigation and Adaptation Progress: Gaps and Challenges in Arid Lands Agriculture

Despite significant progress, adaptationAdaptationgapsGaps exist between current levels of adaptation and levels needed to respond to impacts and reduce climate risks. Land restoration contributes to climate changeClimate changemitigationMitigationand adaptationAdaptation with synergies via enhanced ecosystem servicesEcosystem services and crops intensification for food securityFood security. Most observed adaptation practices are fragmented, small in scale, sector-specific, and focused more on planning rather than implementation. The challenges and barriers in the implementation of mitigationMitigationand adaptationAdaptation include insufficient institutional and financial support, weak governance, insecure land ownership, low incomes and the risk of reversal. Some land-related adaptations have mitigation co-benefits, and these should be focused on. TheAridarid landsArid lands in specific are affected by climate changeClimate change, mainly due to rise in temperatureTemperature, prolonged droughtsDrought, low and infrequent rainfall, and water scarcityWater scarcity. Climate-driven food insecurity and supply instability is likely to increase with rising temperatureRising temperature, competition for land between urban expansion and food production. In order to cope with the climate change impact, international scientific community and the organizations are making significant efforts to mitigate the climate change impact and adaptationAdaptation efforts to deal the climate change holistically. The current efforts in dealing with climate change are significant but not sufficient to fully cope or reverse the impact of climate changeClimate change, resultantly, the global surface temperature is rising. Therefore, there is a need to compile objective oriented andArid arid land specific tailor-made effective adaptationAdaptation including but not necessarily limited to cultivar improvements (salt-tolerant, improved varieties), on-farm water managementWater management and storage, soil moisture conservation, diagnostics base reclamation of salt-affected soils, irrigation management, effective land use regulation and high adaptive capacity, farmers-based adaptation, farm level crops diversification, soil problems diagnostics based land management, and use of soil regenerativeRegenerativepracticesRegenerative practices that work with the nature. Many agriculture and other land use options provide adaptation and mitigationMitigation benefits that could be up-scaled inArid arid lands.