Institute full name:	Moscow State University of Environmental Engineering
Institute acronym:	MSUEE
Institute profile:	Moscow State University of Environmental Engineering (MSUEE) is the oldest University of its kind in Russia comprising of the 39 departments. The University is temporary home for 4,000 students and about 300 of PhD and MSc students who, together with almost 400 staff form an academic forum. The MSUEE is focused not only on education but also on research and science, combining expertise on land and water resources management and their sustainable using, including aspects of land degradation, soil conservation, soil erosion, land reclamation, climate change, human impact on environment, and other fields in the natural resources management as well as modelling of processes in the environment of soil-atmosphere-plant at different spacio-temporal scaling. The Geo- and Hydroinformation Centre is part of MSUEE is equipped by computing facilities and software for numerical hydraulic/hydrological modelling of open (Mike 11, Mike BASIN, HEC-RAS GIS) and subsurface (SWAP, ZAQUA, MODEFLOW, SUTRA) water flow as well as for Geographical Information Systems (ArcGIS 9.1) and Remote Sensing (ERDAS IMAGINE 7.2) applications for land/soil monitoring. The research activity of the Centre is ranging from basic research to applied. The Centre is co-ordinator and participant of national/international research and academic projects (Tempus, INTAS, NATO, RBRF, INCO) in the field of water and soil resources management.
Website	www.msuee.ru www.hydro-center.by.ru (link expired)
Address	127550, Moscow, Russia Prjanishnikova street 19 Tel. +7 (495) 976-4907 Fax. +7 (495) 976-4907
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Involved personnel

Name	Contact details	Key qualifications	Photo
Prof. Anatoly M. Zeiliguer	127550, Moscow, Russia, Prjanishnikova str. 19, Moscow State University of Environmentla engineering, Phone/Fax number: +7495 9764907 azeiliguer@mail.ru	Coordinating international academic/research projects; soil physicist, parameterization of soil porous media, modeling of water and solute transport, GIS application for soil hydrology
Dr Marina L. Sizemskaya		Physical geographer in the field of soil, expert in monitoring of the dynamic of soil degradation and desertification, designing and executing field experimental work
Dr Nikolay B. Khitrov		Soil scientist, soil surveying and soil conservation specialist with special interest in the interaction between landscape and soil properties, and effects of soil erosion and desertification
Dr Vladimir A. Romanenkov		Soil scientist, with expertise in GIS application for land/soil description at regional scale, and development of decision support systems
Prof. N. Pronko		Prof. Pronko is an irrigation and agriculture scientist and an expert in agroecology. She interested in forecasting of soil fertility changes of irrigated lands with different irrigation and farming systems, creation of geoinformation system of irrigated agricultural landscape monitoring, studying of water and salt regimes irrigated soils. She has 122 publications including 2 monograph
Dr. S. Zatinatsky		Dr Zatanatsky is an irrigation scientist and an expert on water regime of irrigated soils. He has 56 publications. His recent investigations focus on the problems of simulation of root water uptake and water exchange in agro-ecosystems as well as water supply management in the field. He has been SSAU team leader for INTAS, TEMPUS and FP6 projects.
Dr. Mamaj Sapanov	Tel.: +7 495 4176623 E-mail: sapanovm@mail.ru	Biologist; specialist in forest science, land use and protective afforestation, desertification control.
MSc K. Timochkov	127550, Moscow, Russia, Prjanishnikova str. 19, Moscow State University of Environmental engineering, Phone/Fax number: +7495 9764907 Konstan.tim@gmail.com tkvlad@mail.ru	Environmental resources manager, project manager
MSc. O. Ermolaeva	127550, Moscow, Russia, Prjanishnikova str. 19, Moscow State University of Environmental engineering, Phone/Fax number: +7495 9764907	Environmental resources manager, GIS application for soil surveying and monitoring, model execution of scenario analysis.

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Dzhanybek is located in the southeast of European Russia and is a hazard-prone zones which manifests both climatic and anthropogenic-induced desertification due to regional-scale degradation of the natural, agricultural and irrigated lands. Desertification control, soil conservation and reclamation are the urgent ecological tasks for the Caspian region of Russia. 55-years successful scientific experience of Dzhanibek Research Station allows recommending for dissemination a wide range of desertification control and management options for prevention land degradation based on agroforestry amelioration methods and silvicultural amelioration of croplands.

The Dzhanibek Research Station with nearby monitoring points includes (1) a virgin 55-years reserved site, (2) agroforestry protective systems (for arable and pasture protection), (3) the currently used and abandoned pastures and irrigated sites. This wide range of landscapes allows defining sustainability of the ecosystems to anthropogenic pressure. The research station staff includes 3 Doctors of Science and 10 Ph.D. researchers. The station’s database contains results of local monitoring during 55 years of weather conditions, soil and plant parameters dynamics on different sites.

Realization of the DESIRE project will allow offering for wide dissemination ecologically adaptive agroforestry technology of nature management and desertification control and land degradation.

More details ... read the full study site description and an overview of all sites
	Read the full study site description
»Comparative overview of all study sites

• Poor vegetation cover
• Overuse of natural resources
• Overgrazing

Study site stakeholder workshops

• Extension service providers
• GO-line agencies
• NGOs
• Traders

Added value of DESIRE for stakeholders
Stakeholders in the Dzanybek are interested and eager to cooperate and try new technologies. Stakeholders deeply trust the Volkzy research institute.

Alternative technologies:
1)    green manure
2)    drainage
3)    drip irrigation
4)    licorice cultivation

Limitations for spontaneous implementation of soil and water conservation practices
Drip irrigation is not yet applied because of investment costs.

Stakeholder groups

• Administration of Pallasovsky region.
• Administration of Romashki village
• Department of Hydrogeology and Land Reclamation
• Farm «Romashkovskii». Large farm, leading in sheep breeding, growing of cereals, vegetables and forage. The activities of this farm are influencing the soil and water resources of the area. Overgrazing has become a big problem for the surrounding areas; however, it is a provider of employment for the local people.
• Small farmholders.
• Holders of small vegetable gardens. Almost each family in the village is growing at their garden vegetables for own use.

Sustainability goals

The proposed goals can be used as a starting point for a community to develop their own vision and goals for sustainable agriculture management. The list of sustainable agricultural management goals that were developed by other communities and organizations has been useful for this work package. The table shows the sustainability goals that were identified for both the Dzhanybek and Novy study sites.

Source: expert estimate, study site leader and stakeholder workshop.

More details ...

»Stakeholders & their sustainability goals - overview

To help understand this complex picture it can be helpful to think in terms the dominant socio-economic and environmental forces that are driving the process of land degradation. These place pressures on the land which have particular impacts. Human society may have already made responses to those impacts, or may have knowledge about how they could respond. Decisions about which responses to make may also be governed by a range of international, national or local policy regulations and agreements.

In the Dzhanibek study site, the same stakeholder workshop and questionnaires that were used to identify existing and potential response strategies (»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder workshop 1) also discussed and identified these driving forces; pressures; impacts; and the policy and regulation environment. This information was then used to inform the choice of »Field experiments and the scenarios used in »Simulated biophysical impact of remediation strategies and their financial viability.

Select map type

Land use: type Land use: trends Land use: intensity trend Degradation: type Degradation: extent Degradation: degree Degradation: rate Land conservation: groups Land conservation: extent Land conservation: measures Land conservation: effectiveness Expert recommendations

Comments

Map version: 12Jan12

	The main desertification processes in the Dzhanibek study site are:   overgrazing, water stress, soil salinization and water erosion in pastures & shrubs
Table 1: Desertification risk calculation per map unit

For these processes the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool required the input of data to calculate 130 indicators in 9 map units. This data was obtained from the WOCAT database. The procedure was applied to all the map units in the Dzhanibek study site and the DRI values calculated are shown in Table 1.

The DRI values were mapped for each of the 9 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 the WOCAT QM of the same area (Map 2). It can be seen that the rate of degradation and the measures' effectiveness seen in the WOCAT map correspond closely to the DRI values, with the highest rate of degradation and the lowest measures effectiveness matching up to the highest values of DRI.

Introduction
The Dzhanibek study area is situated on the territory of Pallasovsky District, Volgograd Region, which is a dry steppe area situated at the left bank of lower part of Volga River valley. The climate of has a number of negative characteristics (drought, dry hot winds, dust whirls etc.) but also positive factors as warm summers and high radiation allows the valuable agricultural cultivation. The irrigation of crops in this region (situated at about 100 km from Volga River and very scarce local resources of fresh water) was stopped in early 2000 due to increasing of costs for water delivering strongly linked to high price for energy. Working equipment was sold, the old units finally broke down. Water storage capacities at the territory were absolutely dry for already 4 years from beginning of project activities. Before, they were used to be filled with snowmelt water. Unprofessional vegetable farming for domestic use is also under threat. High evaporation and shallow groundwater lead to salinization of the soil. Nowadays the main income of the stakeholders is agricultural production from their garden plots (fruits and vegetables), growing cattle (sheep and cows). There is a big agricultural conglomeration – farm “Romashkovsky”. The young generation is leaving rural areas due to level of life and possibilities to find more income in the urban area. Lack of information about sustainable land management, climate instabilities and weak institutional support with low financial support from the government makes the life of people in this region difficult. The experiment focusses on testing drip irrigation as a water conservation practice while generating a viable crop yield.

Desertification indices
The main desertification process is salinization. The risk is calculated as very high (4.56) because the annual precipitation is low (400 mm) the evaporation is much higher and irrigation water is from partly saline groundwater. When drip irrigation is simulated with partly fresh water and assumed this causes a reduction of overexploitation of groundwater to local pockets, the salinization risk drops to moderate (3.41). This depends also on the drainage of the soil, in places which are well drained the risk is moderate (3.29) and very poorly drained soils still have a high risk (3.70).  

Conclusions
The desertification risk assessment tool deals relatively well with the actual situation and the proposed technology (drip irrigation with fresh water), because this can be translated in variables that occur in the system.

Authors and moderators: Anatoly Zeiliguer, Vyacheslav Semenov

Workshop objectives: 1. Mutual learning 2. Identification of relevant land degradation problems in the Dzhanibek 3. Identification of existing and new soil conservation strategies 4. Selection of 3-5 promising solutions for land degradation for further evaluation and study after the workshop

Background

Predominant types of land use in this area are breeding, and cropping. The main desertification processes that affect the land are weak manifestation of water erosion (26% of agricultural lands) and deflation (1% of agricultural lands on light sediments), moderate and strong soil salinization (17% of agricultural lands).

Main causes and effects of land degradation identified in the workshop

Affecting the water cycle
Affecting the biomass cycle
Solutions already applied at the local level	green manure and drainage system

Draft outline of strategy for sustainable land management in this region

More details ... download the full report and see results and general conclusions from other study sites
	WP3.1 Stakeholder Workshop 1: Dzhanibek (report) 1.3 MB
»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1 methodology and summary results from all study sites

Stakeholder Workshop 1 identified a number of existing or potential strategies to combat desertification and land degradation in the Dzanibek study site. In the months following the workshop these strategies (technologies or approaches) were documented and evaluated in a structured and standardised way and their descriptions were entered in the WOCAT Technologies and Approaches databases in order to share the information with other DESIRE sites as well as globally.

For details of all Technologies and Approaches documented in the WOCAT Database (from the DESIRE study sites and from other sites worldwide), see

• WOCAT Technologies Database
• WOCAT Approaches Database

For those relating to this study site, click on the Name of technology or Name of approach to go directly to the descriptions in the database.

WOCAT Technologies Database

WOCAT Approaches Database