A review of literature on global evaluations of land degradation shows a significant development in methods and approaches to mitigate it. Earlier evaluations based their assessments on expert opinion and concentrated on only a few types of land degradation—namely soil erosion and deforestation. Recent studies have expanded the types of land degradation assessed to include other major indicators of terrestrial ecosystem services—made possible, in part, by rapid technological development. Specifically, satellite imagery has been used to assess vegetation land cover using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), which is a measure of plant growth vigor, vegetation cover, and biomass. The time series NDVI data are appealing because they are readily available, however, there has been criticism on use of NDVI as an indicator of land degradation or improvement.