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Sustainable food production for a rapidly growing global population is a major challenge of this century. In order to meet the demand for food production, an additional land area of 2.7-4.9 Mha year-1 will be required for agriculture. However, one-third of arable lands are already contaminated; therefore, the use of polluted lands will have to feature highly in modern agriculture. The use of such lands comes, however, with additional challenges, and suitable agrotechnological interventions are essential for ensuring the safety and sustainability of relevant production system. There are also other issues to consider, such as cost-benefit analysis, the possible entry of pollutants into the phytoproducts, certification and marketing of such products, in order to achieve the large-scale exploitation of polluted lands. The present article addresses the sustainability challenges of crop production from polluted lands and briefly outlines the plausible strategies for using polluted lands for sustainable agricultural extensification.

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Restoration of marginal and degraded lands is essential for regaining biodiversity and ecosystems services, and thereby attaining UN-Sustainable Development Goals. During the last few decades, many fast growing and hardy trees have been introduced worldwide to restore the marginal and degraded lands for ecosystem stability. Unfortunately, most of these introduced species have become invasive and invaded the nearby productive systems, leading to significant biodiversity loss and land degradation. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct a sustainability analysis of the introduced species for necessary course correction and also for preventing the future utilisation of such species for land restoration. With this backdrop, the present study was conducted to analyse the socio-ecological impacts of a widely used species, i.e., Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC based restoration of degraded land of Lucknow, North India. For this, ecological (soil quality and plant biodiversity) and social (livelihood) indicators have been studied over a period of two years (2015–16) through direct field sampling and questionnaire-based surveys. While there was a positive difference (p < 0.01) in the key physico-chemical properties of the P. juliflora-invaded soil than the non-invaded site, the belowground microbial load was significantly lower (19.46 × 106 g−1 of soil) in invaded land as compared to the non-invaded one (31.01 × 106 g−1). Additionally, the invasion of P. juliflora had significantly reduced the biodiversity by displacing the local flora such as Achyranthes aspera L., Amaranthus spinosus L., Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers, Euphorbia hirta L., etc. The invaded area had only eight plant species having an effective number of species (ENS) of 7.2, whereas the non-invaded area had the presence of 26 plant species with an ENS of 23.8. Although the local people utilised P. juliflora as fuelwood mostly during summer and winter seasons, the invasion resulted in a fodder deficit of 419.97 kg household−1 y−1 leading to resource scarcity in the invaded area in comparison to the non-invaded area. Ecodistribution mapping clearly showed that P. juliflora is already found in most of the tropical and subtropical countries (~103) including in India and has become invasive in many countries. Therefore, we recommend that P. juliflora must be wisely used for the land restoration programs targeted during the United Nations Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) as this species has invasive traits and thereby reduces the ecosystem sustainability of the invaded areas.

Restoration of degraded land is imperative for addressing climate change, deriving additional benefits such as biomass and biofuel for supporting a biobased economy and also for meeting various targets of the Bonn Challenge and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). In this context, the present research aimed to evaluate the performance of mixed biomass plantations on the saline land of western India over a period of 4 years. The impact of plantations on soil quality over the study period (2015)(2016)(2017)(2018) was analysed by the Saline Soil Reclamation Index (SSRI), developed through principal component analysis. The study found a strong correlation between plant growth attributes and soil quality (p < .01). Soil porosity, texture, pH balance, electrical conductivity (EC), available potassium (AK) and available nitrogen (AN) levels are found to be the key indicators regulating the plant growth. The EC, AK and AN levels were seen to change significantly during the initial stage (2014) from 25 dS m −1 , 10 mg kg −1 and 23 mg kg −1 to 1 dS m −1 , 24 mg kg −1 and 39 mg kg −1 , respectively, towards the end of the study period (2018). Among the various test plants, six species (Albizia lebbeck, Casuarina equisetifolia, Cordia dichotoma, Pithecellobium dulce, Pongamia pinnata, Terminalia arjuna) were found with high SSRI (>0.50); while the rest displayed moderate SSRI (0.30-0.49), except for Azadirachta indica, which shown low SSRI (<0.30). The trees having high SSRI are most suitable for the reclamation of saline soil and therefore, SSRI can be used as a tool for assessing the progress of saline land restoration.

The United Nations has declared 2021–2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to gear up the restoration of degraded ecosystems worldwide and thereby facilitating the timely realization of the UN‐SDGs and post‐2020 biodiversity targets. The UN Decade will also further the targets of the Bonn Challenge and several other ongoing restoration initiatives. While restoration is often viewed as a branch of applied ecology, transdisciplinarity is essential for implementing restoration on the ground successfully. The present article is therefore aimed to propose a transdisciplinary framework consisting of three defined phases ‐such as (1) the problem identification phase, (2) its analysis, and (3) finally the integration and application of transdisciplinary approaches for effective land restoration. This integrated framework would help in drawing strategic measures by crossing various disciplinary boundaries to accelerate land restoration efforts globally while deriving co‐benefits during restoration for maintaining the continuity of the restoration drive. We conclude that the implementation of the proposed framework along with due consideration of the regional and location‐specific attributes, management strategies as well as the successful involvement of various stakeholders will lead to a successful restoration Decade.