Q: What does "Under Review" mean for the "Journal of Land Degradation and Development"?

Since your manuscript changed the status to “Under Review” within one day of submission, it means that it is under initial assessment by the journal editor. The editor will evaluate whether or not your manuscript can be sent to external peer-reviewers for a thorough review and critique of your manuscript. If your manuscript has qualified the initial screening, it will be sent to anonymous external referees and the status might change to "Reviewers assigned." Once the external reviewers accept your manuscript for reviewing, the status might again change to “Under Review” or something similar.

Journals have their own way of making the actual status known to the authors and the words will change according to the time lapsed from submission to decision. If you are skeptical, you can always write an e-mail to the journal editor to inquire about the current status of your manuscript.

Related reading:

• What does a change from "awaiting editorial decision" back to "under review" mean?
• What does a status change from "Required reviews completed" back to "Under review" mean?
• Why does the status change back to "Reviewers assigned" after 3 days of "Under review"?