"LEDDRA aims to advance the comprehensive study of the socio-environmental fit of responses to land and ecosystem degradation and desertification (LEDD) in various contexts. It adopts the ecosystem approach and an integrated methodology with continuous feedbacks between theory, methods and applications. It focuses on response assemblages (combinations of response types and prevailing environmental, socio-economic and institutional conditions that contribute to or detract from sustainable land management and societal welfare), the associated costs and benefits to diverse stakeholders, barriers to and opportunities for adoption, and knowledge transfer processes. Optimal response assemblages comprise coordinated, mutually supportive and complementary measures that preserve the ecological and the community resilience of affected areas. LEDDRA develops the theory of responses to LEDD, in general, and in cropland, grazing land and forests/shrubland, in particular, and the study of knowledge transfer for diverse stakeholder types. It negotiates the links between land degradation, ecosystem services decline and biodiversity change, the links between biophysical and human determinants, welfare impacts, and responses to drought (drought preparedness). It improves existing and develops new integrated methodologies for assessing the impacts and fit of various types of responses to LEDD and the socio-ecological vulnerability of affected regions, and for identifying response assemblages in different European and other cultural-institutional contexts drawing on applications in selected sites in EU and ICPC countries. It analyzes the policy context to offer recommendations for policy and land management actions at the international, EU and national levels. To better organize, show case, disseminate and add value to project results, a web-based information system will be developed to make findings accessible to a wide range of stakeholders with different levels of expertise."