A synthesis dataset describing dryland agricultural restoration practices

In January 2020, Scopus and Web of Science were queried using the following terms: [restoration* desert* vegetation*] OR [restoration* grassland* desert*] OR [restoration desert* plant*] OR [restoration "agricultural lands"] OR ["restoration techniques" desert*] OR ["passive restoration" desert* plant*] OR ["active restoration" desert* plant*] OR [revegetation abandoned desert*] OR [restoration "agricult*land*" desert* plant*] OR [restoration dryland* vegetation] OR [restoration semiarid* plant*] OR [restoration arid* plant*].<br>After review for data and related evidence associated with dryland restoration of agricultural lands, a total of 42 articles and 1,427 independent observations are listed here.<br>The study list is provided.<br>Meta-datawo primary elements from each article were described. (1) The specific restoration practice implemented (e.g. natural recovery of vegetation).(2) the restoration goal (hereafter restoration outcome) pursued by the implementation of that restoration practice (e.g. vegetation restoration).<br>Active restoration practices included those that involved direct human interventions. <br>Passive restoration practices were classified into the following categories based on their primary focus: soil, vegetation, and grazing exclusion (i.e. passive because grazing was removed, and no other interventions were applied).<br>Outcomes for active and passive restoration practices were grouped into the following categories: soil, vegetation, animals, and habitat.<br>The habitat category included measures of both soil and vegetation restoration reported together, or measures of general community structure, such as plant productivity and species evenness. <br>study.ID is a unique identifier for each study and is the key that links data to the study list provided<br>ID is the independent data instance reported<br>exp.length is in days<br>category of study including disturbance to paradigm are terms applied by this research team<br>The hypothesis is as proposed by the primary study authors in each instance.<br>N.sites is the total number of independent study sites spatially, n.t and n.c are the number of sample units at the lowest resolution reported in the study such as plots, mean and error as reported in primary studies or extracted from figures, and lat long as reported by authors. <br>MAP and MAT were provided by authors or derived using the geolocation provided sourced from WorldClim.<br>The aridity.index is the deMartonne estimate of site-level aridity per study.<br>Spatial grain is the spatial extent of study reported in metres.