Handbook For The Field Assessment Of Land Degradation

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

With the increasing concern over rural livelihoods and the food security of poor communities in developing countries, it is vital that land quality is maintained. Yet, land degradation is widespread and is lowering the productive capacity of the land in these countries. This practical handbook presents simple, non-technical indicators for assessing land degradation in the field. Based on the perspective of the farmer, the methods selected lend meaning to real farming situations, helping the field professional to understand not only the impact of degradation but also the benefits to be gained from reversing it. The handbook shows how to calculate indicators such as those of soil loss, explains the interpretation of results and in particular how combinations of different indicators can give conclusive evidence of the severity of land degradation. The focus of the book is firmly on understanding the farmer?s interaction with the land, and how environmental protection, food security and the well-being of rural land users may be assured. With detailed figures, photographs, worked examples and sample forms based on assessment techniques validated by field professionals in Africa, Asia and Latin America, this will be an essential training manual will be invaluable for field-workers in NGOs and in governmental and educational institutions. It will also be of interest to researchers and academics in development, environment and agriculture.

This volume deals with land degradation, which is occurring in almost all terrestrial biomes and agro-ecologies, in both low and high income countries and is stretching to about 30% of the total global land area. About three billion people reside in these degraded lands. However, the impact of land degradation is especially severe on livelihoods of the poor who heavily depend on natural resources. The annual global cost of land degradation due to land use and cover change (LUCC) and lower cropland and rangeland productivity is estimated to be about 300 billion USD. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for the largest share (22%) of the total global cost of land degradation. Only about 38% of the cost of land degradation due to LUCC - which accounts for 78% of the US$300 billion loss – is borne by land users and the remaining share (62%) is borne by consumers of ecosystem services off the farm. The results in this volume indicate that reversing land degradation trends makes both economic sense, and has multiple social and environmental benefits. On average, one US dollar investment into restoration of degraded land returns five US dollars. The findings of the country case studies call for increased investments into the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded lands, including through such institutional and policy measures as strengthening community participation for sustainable land management, enhancing government effectiveness and rule of law, improving access to markets and rural services, and securing land tenure. The assessment in this volume has been conducted at a time when there is an elevated interest in private land investments and when global efforts to achieve sustainable development objectives have intensified. In this regard, the results of this volume can contribute significantly to the ongoing policy debate and efforts to design strategies for achieving sustainable development goals and related efforts to address land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Despite almost a century of research and extension efforts, soil erosion by water, wind and tillage continues to be the greatest threat to soil health and soil ecosystem services in many regions of the world. Our understanding of the physical processes of erosion and the controls on those processes has been firmly established. Nevertheless, some elements remain controversial. It is often these controversial questions that hamper efforts to implement sound erosion control measures in many areas of the world. This book, released in the framework of the Global Symposium on Soil Erosion (15-17 May 2019) reviews the state-of-the-art information related to all topics related to soil erosion.

This book contains selected contributions from the Sixth Meeting of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification, held in Perth, Australia, in September 1999. Collectively, these contributions explicitly seek to understand not only the mechanisms responsible for the problem of land degradation but their social and economic implications, the means of overcoming the problems, and the policy instruments whereby remedial measures may be implemented. This breadth of approach is both distinctive and essential if the problems are to be tackled effectively. The authorship comprises of specialists (mostly geographers) from universities, research organizations, and government agencies, who provide a truly international perspective with contributions from Iceland to Australia and from the USA to Japan. Audience: The book presents current research findings which will be of particular benefit to professionals and practitioners, as well as researchers and tertiary-level educationalists who are involved with land degradation.

This book provides diverse information and critical know-how to implement appropriate methodology and cost-efficient monitoring and evaluation systems better suited to assess the impacts of soil conservation and wastershed multi-sectoral development activities. It draws on a worldwide experience of specialists and a large array of ground-truthing projects and programmes. This book will meet its objective if it contributes to convince financing institutions and project managers that integrated watershed management activities have the potential to generate highly desirable impacts for the society at large, which have to be accurately measured by adequate M&E systems.