Evaluation of land management practices and techniques using indicators

Table of Contents

1. List of contributors
2. Introduction
3. Analysis of data
4. The derived methodology on assessing land desertification risk
5. Assessment and validation of the derived methodology
6. Desertification Risk Assessment Tool
7. Conclusions
8. References

Introduction

Desertification is one of the most serious environmental issues at global, national, regional and local scales (UNEP, 1992). Effective land desertification measures require both appropriate land management practices and macro policy approaches that promote sustainability of ecosystem services. It is advisable to focus on protection or prevention and anticipatory planning rather than on rehabilitation of desertified areas since areas affected by desertification are usually at high stage of land degradation and the expected results may be ambiguous. WOCAT project has also stressed the importance on prevention than on rehabilitation which is much more costly and might not be able to achieve full results. Land management practices and techniques are proposed in this project for protection of productive land from degradation and desertification. The functions of a rehabilitated land would remain below original functions before degradation since the resilience of the system is expected at lower level before degradation.

National Action Programmes, stipulated by the UNCCD, have identified the main processes of land degradation contributing to desertification and proposed the necessary measures to prevent and mitigate their impacts. Important identified processes or causes of land degradation and desertification are soil erosion, soil salinization, loss in organic matter content, soil sealing, forest fires, and overgrazing. Based on these processes, appropriate land management practices and techniques have been proposed for protecting land degradation and desertification. The proposed actions in National Action Plans for combating desertification have been defined separately for the various economical sectors such as agriculture, husbandry, forests, and water resources. The proposed actions included management practices for protecting soil and water resources such as: traditional water-harvesting techniques, water storage, diverse soil and water conservation measures, improving groundwater recharge through soil-water conservation, protection of vegetative cover of soils, minimum tillage, etc. Maintaining adequate vegetative cover to protect soil from wind and water erosion has been characterized is a key preventive measure against desertification.

The regional action plans formulated by the Northern Mediterranean countries (Annex IV) have highlighted the need for: (a) developing efficient communication with the scientific community, (b) sensitizing all stakeholders in affected areas through education and training, (c) discussing political, social and economic factors and their relation with desertification. The success of rehabilitation management practices have depended on the availability of human resources, capital for operation and maintenance, infrastructure development, degree of dependence on external sources of technology, and cultural perceptions. Using indicators for analysing complex processes of degradation has been characterized as a valuable tool assessing land capability to withstand further degradation and to select appropriate land management practices for combating desertification. The objective of this work package is to derive a methodology to simulate and evaluate the various land management practices and techniques in terms of land degradation and economic feasibility for combating desertification using the appropriate indicators.