Promoting sustainable land management: An innovative approach to land-take decision-making

Land degradation presents significant global challenges, threatening natural resources, biodiversity, and food security. Addressing this issue requires more effective land-take decision-making processes, particularly in data- deficient cities where comprehensive land assessment methods are challenging to implement. This study introduces a streamlined land-take decision-making framework designed to promote sustainable land management practices. The framework consists of two key components: the Sustainable Development Index (SDI) for assessing current land-take decisions and the Decision-Making Rubric (DMR) for proposing mitigated solutions. Applied to a pilot case city in India, the framework demonstrated its practical utility by showing that land-take decisions between 2001 and 2021 resulted in a 69 % reduction of natural land cover. If these trends continue, the assessment of the 2031 master plan using SDI indicates that an additional 56 % of the remaining ecosystem-rich areas, which include regions with high biodiversity and ecological value, could be lost by 2031. However, the framework's application could potentially mitigate these impacts, reducing the projected 56 % loss to 14 %, thereby promoting more sustainable and equitable land management practices. The study's aim is to provide decision-makers with a practical tool to improve land identification methods and enhance the sustainability of land-take decisions. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by addressing the gap in practical, easily applicable tools for sustainable land management in data-deficient urban contexts.