Study site description: Guadalentín Basin, Spain

Table of Contents

1. Responsible partner
2. General Information
3. Biophysical description
   1. Climate, geology and geomorphology
   2. Soil, vegetation and land use
   3. Land use change
   4. Groundwater, water transfers, and irrigation
4. Socio-economic description
   1. Demography and education
   2. Livelihood, migration, land conversion and land degradation
5. Institutional and political setting
6. Relevant stakeholders
7. Past and ongoing projects in the Guadalentín
   1. Previous assessments of erosion rates and land degradation
   2. Conceptual frameworks and model applications
8. References

Relevant stakeholders

Land degradation in the Guadalentín affects the whole society either directly or indirectly at local, regional and even national level. Selection of the most relevant stakeholders therefore is a difficult task, but during the various research projects in the last decades it has been possible to identify the most relevant stakeholders regarding land degradation issues. Given the main objective of DESIRE to identify and evaluate existing and potential conservation measures to mitigate land degradation, stakeholders that actually make decisions on land use, either at the farm or the political level, as well as scientists, are considered the most relevant stakeholders within this project. The selection of stakeholders, in random order, includes the following groups:

• Individual farmers (both with dryland and irrigated land and both large and small properties)
• Agricultural cooperation's (e.g. COATO, http://www.coato.com/; COAG-IR, http://www.arrakis.es/~coag-irm/)
• Irrigation communities
• Representatives of the ministry of environment and agriculture at level of municipality, region and national.
• Agricultural Extension Services (Oficina Comarcal Agraria:
• http://www.carm.es/neweb2/servlet/integra.servlets.ControlPublico?IDCONTENIDO=1287&IDTIPO=100&RASTRO=c489$m)
• National focal point of the UNCCD.
• Tourist administration
• Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura (Segura basin water authority: http://www.chsegura.es/chs)
• NGO's (Ecologistas en acción, ANSE, etc.)
• Forest engineer private companies (e.g. Tracsa, Generala)
• Forester associations (e.g. Asociación de Propietarios Forestales de la Región de Murcia).
• Scientists (ecologist/geographer/sociologist/soil scientist)
• Fundación Instituto Euromediterráneo de Hidrotecnia, http://www.f-ieh.com/
• Instituto Universitario del Agua y del Medio Ambiente, http://www.um.es/inuama/

The abovementioned groups will be involved and consulted as much as possible during the duration of the project through questionnaires and in various workshops.