Land Use Planning for Land Degradation Neutrality
LUP4LDN is a geoinformatics and participatory land-use-planning tool that helps national and local planners assess land-use and land-management transition scenarios, identify restoration priorities, and evaluate the suitability of sustainable land-management interventions in support of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN, SDG Indicator 15.3.1).
🌐 Live tool: https://www.landusetool.org/
LUP4LDN won the GEO-LDN International Technology Innovation Competition in 2021 (UNCCD announcement), developed by a multi-institutional team led by SCiO, with contributions from ICARDA, Prof. Claudio Zucca, WOCAT and the ELD Initiative. SCiO has continuously maintained and operationally supported LUP4LDN since the award.
The tool's methodology is documented in a peer-reviewed publication:
Zucca, C., Le, Q.B., Karampiperis, P., Lemann, T., Thomas, R., Thiombiano, B.A., Hermassi, T., Bonaiuti, E., Zervas, P. (2024). Toward an operational tool to integrate land degradation neutrality into land use planning: LUP4LDN. Land Degradation & Development, 35(7), 2489–2507. https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.5075
This is an umbrella/index repository. The application code lives in two component repositories:
| Component | Repository | Stack |
|---|---|---|
| Backend API | SCiO-systems/landusetool-backend |
Laravel (PHP) |
| Frontend dashboard | SCiO-systems/landusetool-frontend |
React (Diamond-React) |
Each component repository has its own README with setup and deployment
instructions. To run LUP4LDN locally, start the backend first (it exposes
the API the frontend consumes), then the frontend with its
REACT_APP_API_BASE_URL pointed at your local backend.
| Version | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| v1.0 | 28 March 2022 | Official launch, following the Tunisia and Burkina Faso pilots. |
| v1.1 | 9 May 2022 | Incorporated further team feedback ahead of the tool's presentation at UNCCD COP15 (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire). |
v1.1 reflects the code currently deployed at landusetool.org.
LUP4LDN is open-source software, licensed under the
GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE in each repository.
The code in this repository is licensed under GPL-3.0 (see LICENSE). That
licence covers the code only.
"LUP4LDN" and the LUP4LDN logo are trademarks of SCiO P.C. and are not licensed under the GPL. If you fork or redistribute a modified version, you must give it a different name and must not use the LUP4LDN name or logo.
See TRADEMARK.md for details.
- Featured in the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface report on Integrated Land Use Planning (Box 5.1).
- Referenced in the GEF-funded Tools4LDN project.
- Selected by the FAO Investment Centre (2026) among tools reviewed for ecosystem-service valuation in agricultural investment design.
- Co-developed and piloted with INRGREF (Tunisia) and IDR-UNB (Burkina Faso); in active use across nineteen municipalities in Senegal (2026).
See CONTRIBUTING.md in each component repository. Please report security
issues privately per SECURITY.md rather than opening a public issue.
lup4ldn@scio.systems · maintained by SCiO