Marginal lands: a review of papers from the Scopus database published in English for the period of 1979–2022

Abstract

A marginal land de fi nition is a contemporary scienti fi c term that is constantly changing and un-stoppable. There are many ways in which marginal lands are referred to, unproductive lands, including waste lands, unutilized lands, idle lands, abandoned lands, or degraded land. In the present research, we tried to collect all Scopus-based publications in English from 1979 to 2022 years using crucial keywords: Marginal lands, Land degradation, and Agricultural land. We analyzed the most popular journals, top authors, top-cited papers, top countries, top-cited years, etc. A common way to identify ML is to use biophysical constraints related to agricultural productivity or bioenergy. For instance, using a multi-criteria decision approach based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing, combined data on land use/land cover (LULC), slope, soil depth, erosion, moisture, water holding capacity, texture, and availability of nutrient to study the land suitability for agriculture in hilly zones. There is a high potential for applying remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS) for the mapping and monitoring of marginal lands. In addition, the role of remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS) in other disciplines around the world is signi fi cantly high. In contrast, in this research work, we fi nd out that the usage scale of RS and GIS technologies is not common all around the world on the given marginal land issues.