Assessing land restoration potential in semi-arid lands of Kenya
Drylands cover over 40% of the earth's surface and support over 2 billion people, globally (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). In East Africa alone, over 250 million people depend on drylands for their livelihoods (De Leeuw et al., 2014) and in Kenya, 70% of the total land area is classified as arid- and semi-arid (Batjes, 2004). Over the last several decades, an increasing and more sedentary human population has resulted in more pressure on these lands, and an expansion of agricultural production into marginal dryland areas that were traditionally rangelands.