Drylands are often overlooked in broad conservation frameworks and development priorities and face increasing threats from human activities. Here we evaluated the formal degree of protection of global drylands, their land vertebrate biodiversity and current threats, and projected human-induced land-use changes to drylands under different future climate change and socioeconomic scenarios. Overall, drylands have lower protected-area coverage (12%) compared to non-drylands (21%). Consequently, most dryland vertebrates including many endemic and narrow-ranging species are inadequately protected (0–2% range coverage). Dryland vertebrates are threatened by varied anthropogenic factors—including agricultural and infrastructure development (that is, artificial structures, surfaces, roads and industrial sites). Alarmingly, by 2100 drylands are projected to experience some degree of land conversion in 95–100% of their current natural habitat due to urban, agricultural and alternative energy expansion. This loss of undisturbed dryland regions is expected across different socioeconomic pathways, even under optimistic scenarios characterized by progressive climate policies and moderate socioeconomic trends.

旱地经常在广泛的保护框架和发展优先事项中被忽视，并面临着人类活动日益严重的威胁。在这里，我们评估了全球旱地的正式保护程度、陆地脊椎动物生物多样性和当前威胁，并预测了未来不同气候变化和社会经济情景下人类引起的旱地土地利用变化。总体而言，与非旱地 (21%) 相比，旱地的保护区覆盖率 (12%) 较低。因此，大多数旱地脊椎动物，包括许多特有和分布范围狭窄的物种，都没有得到充分的保护（范围覆盖率为 0-2%）。旱地脊椎动物受到各种人为因素的威胁，包括农业和基础设施开发（即人工结构、地面、道路和工业场地）。令人担忧的是，由于城市、农业和替代能源的扩张，预计到 2100 年，旱地 95-100% 的现有自然栖息地将经历某种程度的土地转化。即使在以渐进的气候政策和温和的社会经济趋势为特征的乐观情景下，不同的社会经济途径预计都会出现未受干扰的旱地区域的丧失。