Home Eskişehir, Turkey Desertification risk assessment maps

Desertification risk assessment maps Print

Source: extracted from Karavitis, C., Kosmas, C. et al. (submitted article) An expert system towards assessing desertification risk using indicators. Environmental Management 

 

In the Eskişehir study site, the main processes or causes of desertification were
  • water erosion in forests,
  • water erosion in agricultural areas and
  • water erosion in pastures & shrubs.

 

For these processes, the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool processed 207 indicators in 13 map units. The indicator values were obtained from the WOCAT database and used as input to the Assessment Tool. The procedure was applied for all the map units of the Eskişehir study site and the DRI values calculated are shown in Table 1.

 
Table 1. Description of desertification risk

 

The DRI values were mapped for each of the 13 polygons (Map 1).

 

Map 1: Desertification risk index (DRI) Map 2: Degree of land degradation (as assessed using the WOCAT mapping method)

 

The DRI map was compared with WOCAT QM of the study site (Map 2). It was noted that the degree of degradation and the effectiveness of the conservation measures on the WOCAT map corresponded closely enough to the DRI values for the same areas. The highest degree of degradation and the lowest effectiveness of the conservation measures matchedthe highest values of DRI.

 

More details ... about the use of the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool to calculate the Desertification Risk Index (DRI)
»Using the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool

 

 
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Acknowledgement

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The DESIRE project was 
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European Commission,
Global Change and
Ecosystem.
DESIRE brought together the expertise of
26 international research institutes
and non-governmental organisations.
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