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Landsat images acquired in 1987, 1999 and 2008 were selected to evaluate land use and land cover changes in three different ecological zones in the Republic of the Sudan: savannah (North Kordofan), semi-desert (River Nile) and desert (Northern State). Maps of soil, vegetation and non-photosynthetic material were built by spectral mixture analysis using endmembers spectra derived from images. Multitemporal comparison techniques were then applied to vegetation and soil maps to estimate the long-term land degradation/re-growth dynamics and to emphasize land cover variation over time and in space. Multitemporal comparisons have shown that site-specific interactions between natural processes, climate variation and human activity played a pivotal role in land use and land cover change. In savannah, human activities strongly affected degradation phenomena. Expansion of villages triggered a change in land use and mismanagement of the natural resources, mainly caused by deforestation to supply wood for domestic uses. The degradation then promoted sand encroachment and dune migration. On average, 48% of the total area was subjected to medium (25-50%) and high (50-75%) land degradation. Differently, climatic constraints drove increasing degradation processes in semi-desert and desert zones. The phenomenon was particularly severe in the desert zone. In each site, an inversion of the general trend was due to a land use change where forestry or agricultural projects were established, partly sustained in savannah by the positive rainfall trend of the last two decades. Site-specific strategies that take into account the interactions of the driving factors at local scale are thus necessary to combat land degradation. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.