Land Degradation Newsletter of the International Task Force On Land Degradation

August 1998, No. 3

Contents

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 2

LEAD PAPER 4

IN A LIGHTER VEIN 9

TASK FORCE ON LAND DEGRADATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF SOIL SCIENCE 9

SECRETARY'S REPORT 10

NEW OR ONGOING INITIATIVES 11

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL REPORTS 12

Asia's ecological crisis 12

Potential CO₂-Production In Some Soils of The S.E. Anatolian Project Area - Gap 14

Recent Carbon Deposition Along The Anatolian Shelves 16

BOOK REVIEWS 17

LETTER TO THE EDITOR 23

ANNOUNCEMENTS 24

5th International Meeting on Mediterranean Soils 24

10TH International Soil Conservation Organisation Conference 24

2nd International Conference On Land Degradation 25

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Vanishing Knowledge

A colleague recently showed me an essay by Prof. David Ehrenfield of Rutgers University (Published in Harper's Magazine, March 1996, 15-17) which seemed to reflect some of observations in the last few years. Let me first excerpt his sentiments. "I think our concept of progress prevents us from realising that skills and knowledge can simply vanish from the world. ……….There is no store of learning in greater danger or disappearing than our long-accumulated knowledge of the natural world. We are on the verge of losing our ability to tell one plant or animal from another and of forgetting how species interact with one another and with their environment. In our universities, certain subjects no longer have anyone to teach them, or people teach them on a piecemeal basis from the periphery of the University or outside altogether. …Make no mistake, I am not talking about the preservation of trivia but the safe transmission of existing knowledge. A worrisome example: Agriculture depends on soil. Soil fertility depends on earthworms and different species play different roles -. In North America, European and Asian species are displacing native species. However, there is no one working on this. There are no graduate students on earthworm taxonomy in US or Canada. ….I fear for us when there is no one left in our places of learning who can tell one month from another. …And no one even to know that this knowledge is needed and gone".

The situation is probably more serious in the agriculture field and specifically in soils. A major culprit is 'down-sizing' of universities, aging of staff, peer-pressure forcing teaching and research to be on the cutting edge with few possibilities for developing the fundamentals and dealing with the mundane. I met a student recently working on 'fluxes of polar liquids in soils' who neither had the information nor the knowledge about the soils he was working on –it could have been glass beads. In the last issue of this Newsletter, I lamented about distinguished scientists, who knew all the theory of soil degradation, but were totally unable to make a decision in the field. In one of the widely used soil – crop – climate simulation models, an algorithm based on measured clay is used to estimate available water – totally oblivious to the role of mineral-chemical composition of soils.

In our field of work, decisions on land degradation are made with no information on rates, kinds, and locations of degradation. The are many 'false prophets' who generally have all the answers on generalities; but confront them with a piece of real estate on this earth and the truth will emerge. The Desertification Convention and the donors who fund it would rather invest funds to implement programs that are geo-politically appealing rather than some basic data gathering and knowledge development. It is time to get our decision-makers to become proactive and return to fundamentals. Providing the next generation of scientists a broad-based education in soils is as important as trying to address land degradation today.

1998 on Planet Earth

Last November, I was flying in to Kuala Lumpur and as usual I was in my window seat. I gazed out of the window as the plane was on its final approach to land and all I saw was the haze. As I drove into the city, the world's tallest twin-towers were shrouded in haze and the outline of the city had a mystical appearance. My mother said that they were rationing water. The newspaper headlines blared about the smoke from the uncontrolled forest fires on the coastal swamps of Sumatra, Indonesia. At the end of May, a similar event sent smoke from the forest fires of Chiapas, Mexico almost to Washington DC. During the same period, the Indian sub-continent was dominating the news with their tests on nuclear bombs; the Southeast Asian countries were being hit by financial crises and Indonesia erupted in civilian strife. In the US, there was an unusual surge of tornado and storm activities resulting in a few hundred million dollars worth of damage. The winter in North America was warm and the spring wet and this was blamed on El Niño. Tourists visiting the Glacier National Park in Montana were disappointed that there were none to see. Scientists, working in the Arctic report that much of the large ice-flows were thinner and smaller.

What has any of this got to do with land degradation? It may be difficult to establish cause and effect relationships that stand the test of scientific scrutiny. But it does point to fact that human interactions with the land have created dis-equilibriums in the global ecosystem. One does not have to search far to determine that many lands are stressed. Our large mono-clonal farms, the network of roads and concrete buildings which seal the soil surface, the large-scale irrigation systems that alter the hydrology of the catchment, the drainage of swamps, and the emission of green house gases by industries and their products, have cumulatively made this a different world. A healthy, functioning society requires all of these; the difference is that human society has proceeded recklessly and without an understanding of environmental impacts.

Even today, a decade after the Brundland Commission Report, few countries really implement what was agreed at the UNCED Conference in Rio. The United Nations and countries have spent millions of dollars to agree to the various Conventions –Biodiversity, Desertification, Global Climate—but in the countries where it matters, there is no iota of change. My friend and I once wrote, "Unsustainable crop yields, unacceptably high rates of soil erosion, deforestation, loss of germplasm diversity, and bewildered farmers who do not know what to do next to eke out a reasonable standard of living still remain the facts of life in the semi-arid and arid regions of Asia". I can generalise this for the developing countries of the world and the statement is still true.

Land degradation is at the root all biophysical and socioeconomic problems of countries and the sooner countries accept this and attend to it, the better it will be for the world as a whole

Water Quality

Though our function is to discuss land degradation, we should not forget the water, which is so intrinsically linked to land. In fact some water quality indicators may be more sensitive and reliable than many land quality indicators due to the fact that hey integrate the results of land based processes spatially and temporally. In the section on "New and Ongoing Initiatives" we have an excerpt from the European Union Website that is useful to us. What is being done on water quality in your country? Drop us a line.

The Task Force

The University of Çukurova and friends of this Task Force, such as the British Council, have invested in this Newsletter. We are hoping that the organisations dealing with global land degradation problems, such as the World Bank, UNEP, FAO, USAID, and other international donors will support us in the future. UNEP recently published its Second Edition of "World Atlas of Desertification". Although it is based on expert opinion and with no ground truth, it is a good effort and gives an estimate of the magnitude of the problem. Julian Morris (see Book Review section), partly disillusioned by the claims of UNEP, refers to the "Desertification Myth" stemming from "dubious statistics". One of the reasons for creating the International Task Force on Land Degradation by the International Society of Soil Science is to rally the scientific community to develop Guidelines for Land Degradation Assessment and Monitoring. In the absence of funding support, such an international effort may be futile.

In this issue we have an interesting paper from Dr. Harold Dregne who has worked on land degradation and desertification for several decades. He concludes by stating that, "The International Task Force on Land Degradation has a great opportunity to assess the severity and cost of land degradation worldwide and to simulate cooperation among scientists in understanding and solving the degradation problem". We will do our best to live up to this and other expectations. There is also an interesting short article --on Asia's ecological crises-- from the International Board for Soil Research and Management (Thailand), stressing the short- and long term- impact of land degradation in south-east Asia.

Finally, a word or two on what you, as an individual, can do to help this cause:

• Contribute to the Newsletter
• Play an active role in your countries for protecting the soil resource base;
• Try to get your colleagues to generate reliable data on soil degradation;
• Get your soil survey organisation to start monitoring soil quality;
• Get your politicians involved.

Lead Paper

Land Degradation: Assessment and Monitoring

Harold Dregne

Land Degradation is an old and long-recognised problem. Terracing to control water erosion is an example of a land management practice that has been used for thousands of years in societies as far removed from one another as the Incas in South America and the farmers of Afghanistan in Asia. Lowdermilk's classic report on the association of land degradation with the decline of several civilisations chronicled the damage done over thousands of years (Lowdermilk, 1953) . Water erosion is, by far, the land degradation process that attracts most attention although Lowdermilk also referred top overgrazing, tree cutting, and wind erosion. Eckholm authored an excellent book on global land degradation that is both well written and factual (Eckholm, 1976).

This article will 1) give a brief definition of land degradation and note the principal degradation processes, 2) comment on several aspects of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, 3) discuss country and global assessments of land degradation, and 4) describe monitoring methods.

Definitions and Processes

Land Degradation is something that everybody agrees is bad. Producing a generally acceptable definition of the term is another matter. Just as there seem to be endless definitions of "desertification" and "sustainability", there probably are many ideas of the details of the land degradation process and what it means to humanity. As used here, land degradation consists of deterioration of the biological potential of the land due to human activities. The word "land" refers to all the components of the landscape. That includes vegetative cover, soils, slope, geomorphic surfaces, hydrological systems, and animal life.

The principal global land degradation processes are vegetation degradation, water erosion, wind erosion, salinisation, soil fertility loss, and soil compaction and crusting. More localised, but no less important, processes include soil acidification, heavy metal contamination , water-logging, and organic chemical pollution. One of the most important considerations in understanding the significance of land degradation is the reversibility of the process. There is a concise statement on reversibility in the Land Degradation Page of World Soil Resources home page on the Internet (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/worldsoils). Of the major land degradation processes, vegetation degradation, salinisation of irrigated land, soil nutrient loss, and compaction and crusting are reversible, in the main. However, reversibility of vegetation degradation is highly dependent on the climate in the degraded area. Vegetation recovery to its pre-human intervention status may never be able to occur in hyper-arid and arid climatic zones and may require decades in the semiarid climatic zone. Conversely, recovery may be very rapid in the humid tropics on good soils.

Water and wind erosion are, in principal, irreversible because soil development virtually always is slower than accelerated erosion. To all intents and purposes, though, water erosion may cause little or no reduction in soil productivity if the soils are deep and fairly uniform. That is true, most extensively, on the Loess Plateau of China. Wind erosion, similarly, may cause no measurable on-site damage on deep sandy soils of the Sahel region of Africa. Ultimately, of course, unchecked erosion will produce a shallow soil that will affect plant growth. An exception to the irreversibility of water erosion damage to soil productivity is described by Langdale et al. (1992) for an Ultisol in the state of Georgia in the United States. A particular system of conservation tillage appeared to restore and sustain yields on that soil.

Convention to Combat Desertification

In 1977, a United Nations Conference on Desertification was convened in Nairobi, Kenya. The impetus for convening that conference was a severe drought in sub-Saharan Africa. This was probably the first global conference on land degradation that had ever been held anywhere. Although it was called a conference on desertification, for political reasons, land degradation and its control was the sole subject. In 1990, at a meeting in Nairobi called by the United Nations Environment Program, desertification was formally defined as land degradation in the dry-lands. At the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, participating governments approved a resolution to establish an international agreement to combat desertification. The title of the formal agreement is the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly Africa. The short title of the ratified agreement is the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD). A United Nations convention is a legal document under international law. Other UN conventions include those related to biological diversity and climate change. The secretariat for the CCD will be in Bonn, Germany.

It has been depressing to see the low interest displayed by government representatives who prepared the CCD in assessment of the status and trend of land degradation in their countries. Logic would seem to demand that before endorsing an International program to spend large amounts of money to control land degradation, governments would want to know how serious the problem is in their countries. Amazingly, no country representatives appear to have even brought up the subject. There is absolutely no reference in the CCD document (CCD, 1995) to the availability of information on the extent and severity of land degradation in any of the 100 countries that participated in planning the convention. There is also no indication that any government cared about the omission. The high proportion of dry areas, poverty, number of countries involved, weak governmental infrastructure, and difficult socioeconomic conditions justify the special position of Africa in the convention, not by the severity of land degradation.

In the entire CCD document (71 pages), there is just one statement on land degradation assessment. Under a paragraph dealing with a global information network, a subsection advises governments to "use and disseminate modern technology for data collection, transmission and assessment of land degradation" on page 18. Obviously, continued ignorance of the magnitude and costs of land degradation is of little importance. The observations by Mermut and Eswaran (1997) in their reprinted article in the Land Degradation Newsletter about reductions in research funds for science certainly apply to land degradation. The rationale for financial support will have to be made by soil scientists, range scientists, ecologists, and others if there is to be a change.

Land Degradation Assessment

The narrow funding base for assessing global and regional land and soil degradation is demonstrated by two global studies. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) financed both the soil degradation assessment by Oldeman et al. (1990) and the land degradation assessment in dry-lands by Dregne and Chou (1992). The product of the soil degradation exercise called GLASOD was a map of the entire world, whereas the land degradation evaluation was a country-by-country assessment of the world's dryland (arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid climatic zones). Both analyses depended upon the informed of opinion knowledgeable scientists. That method had to be used because there is an abysmal scarcity of good data on land or soil degradation. For both studies, again, the evaluation of degradation was the loss in potential productivity due to human activities (Table 1).

Unfortunately, the results of the two studies are not comparable. First and foremost, one evaluated worldwide soil degradation while the other assessed land (soil and vegetation) degradation in dry-lands. Second, one was a map, the other was a country-by-country listing of the total affected areas. Third, potential biological productivity was measured differently. Qualitative criteria of productivity were used in the GLASOD project; quantitative criteria were employed in the land degradation. Fourth, the GLASOD maps show four kinds of soil degradation: water erosion, wind erosion, chemical deterioration, and physical deterioration. In the Dregne and Chou assessment, only the sum of the impact of the various land degradation processes is shown (light, moderate, severe, and very severe). For the latter assessment, evaluations of water erosion, wind erosion, vegetation degradation, and salinisation were made for each country and each land use, but only the summation is given. That was a mistake. The GLASOD method was better because it is more informative to know the severity of the individual processes than of the total impact of all processes.

Structured Informed Opinion

The only way to conduct a rapid assessment of the global status of a natural resource, distribution of diseases, size of oil reserves, and other matters of broad concern is to have knowledgeable people review whatever they can find and then use their personal experiences to make numerical estimates. The basis for the decisions is informed opinion. And the way to obtain the best results is to structure the informed opinion analysis so that all participants follow the same path for reaching conclusions. The method should combine the expert system approach with group assessments dynamics to assure that the "experts" insofar as possible, interpret the criteria similarly.

The principal justification for using the structured informed opinion method of qualitative analysis is that it represents the best way we know to get answers (how bad is land degradation in my country?) to a problem that requires immediate attention. Whether the method does or does not work depends upon how well questions are structured and the experience of the people involved. It is worse than useless to accept guesses by uninformed persons.

Data Availability

If every country had good experimental data on the effect of degradation on soil and vegetation productivity, assessing land degradation would be easy. Unfortunately, reliable data on the extent and severity of land degradation and its impact on biological productivity are nearly non-existent for much of the world. Stocking (1985) found that here had been only about 200 controlled experiments conducted anywhere in the world on the effect of water erosion on soil productivity. Many more have been run in recent years but the number is still small and concentrated in a few countries. Lal (1994) deplored the meagerness of data on the productivity, economic, and environmental consequences of water and wind erosion and, even, on the dimensions (extent, magnitude, rate) of the problem.

Poor though the situation is on the water erosion-productivity relation, it is even worse when it comes to finding field experiments on how wind erosion, brush invasion, soil salinity, and soil compaction affect productivity. About the only type of land degradation for which there is a lot of data is nutrient deficiencies. Water erosion data are widely available but its relation to potential land productivity is rarely measured. There is little information on wind erosion damage and virtually nothing on the extent of soil compaction although it undoubtedly is widespread.

A mathematical model of the erosion-productivity relation has been developed in the United States to meet the need for information on the costs of soil erosion (Williams et al., 1983). The model is called EPIC and is being used in the five year assessment in the US of the status of soil, water, and related resources. Other models have been constructed (Piece et al., 1984). But their development is constrained by the small number of erosion-productivity experiments reported in the literature. Much remains to be done in modelling the effect of erosion (and other land degradation processes) on potential land productivity.

A consultant report to the World Bank (Christoffersen, 1994) on information needs on land degradation in Africa placed the highest priority on a more solid information base. The consultant recommended that African leaders could establish a continental information base on land degradation that could lead to an international effort. He noted the need for a cooperative effort to avoid collecting data that are not comparable across national borders. Without a cooperative approach, a lot of numbers will be collected that are difficult or impossible for people from other countries to understand and interpret. Christoffersen believed that both the dry-lands and the humid regions need that kind of information. He also believe in starting small to test assessment and monitoring methods before wholesale adoption throughout the continent.

Monitoring Land Degradation

Assessment of the status of the land degradation should proceed before monitoring begins, in order to provide a base condition against which to compare later changes and to establish trends. The major question in monitoring is what to monitor and the time interval for the monitoring. Salinisation monitoring probably should be done every year or two if there is reason to believe that a salt problem can or does exist. Five years may be frequent enough to determine changes in sheet erosion but monitoring active gully formation will require a greater frequency.

What to monitor and how to do it is more difficult to decide. Monitoring land degradation over large areas using the informed opinion technique is almost certainly unacceptable. There is too much difference of opinion to have confidence that five-year evaluations based on opinions would be sufficiently accurate to identify small changes in land conditions and their effect on productivity. Effective monitoring probably would have to be confined to repeated field measurements on test areas. Gully changes in a representative area could be measured using ground methods or low-level aerial photographs or a combination. The same would be possible for wind erosion. Soil salinity would have to be based on field or laboratory testing. Vegetation degradation "again on test area" can be monitored using well known transect or quadrant methods. Some time in the future, satellite imagery should be improved to the point where large-area monitoring is possible. At present, it cannot be done for any of the major land degradation processes. Ground-truth collection is simply too expensive to make global satellite monitoring feasible.

The key to land degradation monitoring is to identify indicators that are quantitative, sensitive to small changes, easy to measure, small in number, and reasonably unambiguous. Crop yield variation from place to place and year to year are not acceptable indicators unless there is good control of test conditions. Yields can vary too much due to conditions that have nothing to do with land degradation. Pest attacks, delayed planting, hail, a wet or dry spring, locust invasions and other conditions complicate interpretations of cause-and-effect relations. Selecting and using land degradation indicators is not a simple task.

Physical and biological indicators of land degradation are relatively simple to identify compared to socioeconomic indicators. Various attempts to select socioeconomic indicators have been made, beginning with a workshop that was held at the 1977 United Nations Conference on Desertification (Reining, 1978). The problem with socioeconomic indicators is that few, if any, can be related unambiguously to land degradation. Poverty, for example, can be caused by many things including poor, but not necessarily degraded, soils, as well as unfavourable climates, antagonistic government policies, insect and disease infestations, small plots of land etc. Even high population density, which commonly is given as the reason for land degradation, may be beneficial, not destructive (Mortimore et al.. 1993). Coming up with useful socioeconomic indicators will be difficult.

Discussion

If there is to be effective international cooperation on controlling land degradation in the future, establishment of a network to exchange information and to establish cooperative efforts is essential. The International Task Force on Land Degradation offers the best opportunity to bring together like-minded soil scientists, ecologists, action agencies, and others to attack a problem that is crucial to human well-being. The original GLASOD project and the recently completed Southeast Asia project are a momentous beginning. UNEP is to be applauded for having the foresight to fund these activities. The pending European project will, through the European Union, provide those countries with practical information on soil quality and how to achieve sustainable use of soils. The GLASOD procedures could easily be adapted to collecting information on vegetation health as well as soil health.

My preference is a country-by-country assessment of land degradation by country professionals, with results presented in maps (to show where the problem areas are) and numerical tables of estimates of land area, by land use, in various land degradation classes. Degradation area numbers should be estimated directly, not taken from measurements of areas in different mapping units. Errors can be very high if maps are the sources of numbers, and the smaller the map scale, the greater is the potential error. Country numbers can be aggregated to produce regional and global figures.

If a country assessment approach is taken, debates about the accuracy of the estimations can begin among experienced professionals. With repeated small improvements in the data base estimates, a consensus may be reached that truly reflects the best information available. Such an approach is impossible with global numbers because no individuals understand what the degradation condition is everywhere. Debating global numbers, only, is fruitless.

Conclusions

Interest in assessment and monitoring of soil degradation is increasing in several countries and one international body, the United Nations Environment Program. The European Union has had projects underway on land degradation (Medallus I, II and III) for several years. The first effort to assess part of that problem will begin when the International Soil Reference and Information Center (ISRIC) undertakes a GLASOD-like soil degradation study for a part of Europe. The state of New South Wales in Australia has already produced an excellent publication on land degradation there. The biggest disappointment is the failure of the newly ratified Convention to Combat Desertification to put a high priority on finding out the extent and magnitude of land degradation in member countries.

The International Task Force on Land Degradation has a great opportunity to assess the severity and cost of land degradation worldwide and to stimulate cooperation among scientists in understanding and solving the degradation problem.

References

Christoffersen, Leif E. 1994. Information needs on land degradation in subSaharan Africa. Africa Region, World Bank, Washington, DC. 12pp.

Dregne, H. E. and N. T. Chou. 1992. Global desertification dimensions and costs. In H. E. Dregne (ed.), Degradation and Restoration of Raid Lads, Texas Tech University, Lubbock. p.249-281.

Eckholm, E. P. 1976. Losing ground. Worldwatch Institute, Washington, DC. 223 pp.

Interim Secretariat, CCD. 1995. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa. UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya. 71pp.

Lal, R. 1994. Soil erosion by wind and Water: Problems and Prospects. In R. Lal (ed.), Soil Erosion Research Methods, Soil and Water Conservation Society, Ankeny, Iowa, p.1-9.

Langdale, G.W., L.T. West, R.R. Bruce, W.P. Miller, and A.W. Thomas. 1992. Restoration of eroded soil with conservation tillage. Soil Technology 5:81-90.

Lowdermilk, W.C. 1953. Conquest of the land through seven thousand years. Agricultural Information Bulletin No. 99, U.S. Soil Conservation Service. 30 pp.

Mermut, A.R. and H. Eswaran. 1997. Opportunities for soil science in a milieu of reduced funds. Canadian Journal of Soil Science 77:1-7.

Mortimore, M. M. Tiffen and F. Gichuki. 1993. Sustainable growth in Machakos. ILEIA Newsletter Vol. 9(4):6-10.

Oldeman, L.R., R.T.A. Hakkeling, and W.G. Sombroek. 1990. World map of the status of human-induced soil degradation. ISRIC Wageningen, The Netherlands, 21 pp. +3 maps.

Pierce, F.J., R.H. Dowdy, W.E. Larson, and W.A.P. Graham. 1984. Soil productivity in the Corn Belt: An assessment of erosion long-term effects. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 39: 131-136.

Reining, P. (ed.). 1978. Handbook on Desertification Indicators. Publication 78-7, American Association for the Advancement of Science. 141 pp.

Stocking, M. 1985. Erosion-induced loss in soil productivity: Trends in research and international cooperation. University of East Anglia. Norwich, U.K. 52 pp.

Walker, B. and W. Steffen (eds). 1977. IGBPS Science No. 1, The terrestrial biosphere and global change: Implications for natural and managed ecosystems. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm. 32 pp.

Williams, J.R., C.A. Jones, and P.T. Dyke. 1983. A modelling approach to determining the relationship between erosion and soil productivity. Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers 27(1): 129-144.

From Those Before Us (1)

• Plato: Attica (Athens) was no longer cultivated by true herdsmen, who made husbandry their business, and were lovers of honor, and of a noble nature. As a result Attica had become deforested, the soils depleted, and there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body –all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away.
• David Livingstone (1857): suggested that desert-like conditions he observed in East Africa might be the result of a gradual drying-up, a 1progressive desiccation'.
• Earl of Athlone (1938), President of the Royal African Society: That this council views with the gravest concern the widespread destruction of the African soil by erosion consequent on wasteful methods of husbandry which strike at the basis of rural economy and native welfare. We are of the opinion that immediate steps should be taken for the adoption of a common policy and energetic measures throughout British Africa in order to put an effective check upon this growing menace to the true fertility of the land and to the health of the inhabitants.

In a Lighter Vein

Return to Earth

Captain's log: Earthdate 2025. IUSSS Starship "PEDOPRISE" returns to earth after a 30-year journey in outer space. In command is Captain Hari. As they approach earth Captain Hari barks to navigator Selim "Put it on the screen and zoom in. Science Officer Ahmet, what do you make of this. Stop dreaming about Adana kebab and Ayran. There seems to be less cloud cover, there are fewer green areas and those present are in wrong places, it appears desolate." Ahmet, "well sir, this is the culmination of a number of human induced activities. Population pressures, ignoring the land, contaminating the waters with persistent organic pesticides, polluting the atmosphere with gas emissions, conversion of good agricultural lands to concrete urban jungle and degrading the remaining land with urban waste, ….You name it, we did it". Navigator Selim, who moonlights in archaeology, indicates, "humans never learnt from past experiences. The limits of the land were known by Roman, Greek, Indian, Arab, and other civilisations and religion and social laws enabled them to manage their resources in a sustainable manner. However, towards the end of the last Century, due to spectacular advances in science and technology, these indigenous knowledge-bases were ignored and even ridiculed and we the consequences". Captain Hari turns round to Doc Chayasit behind him, "What do you make of it? I thought that in the nineties, the nations of the world signed a whole bunch of conventions to protect the environment –biodiversity, desertification, global climate, oceans etc. What happened? " Doc Chayasit, hoping to return home and feast on Thom Yam Goong and Larb Kai, looked at the Captain with a sad face and said, "These Conventions did play a role, but too insignificant to have any global or long-lasting effect. Few countries perceived this as a common threat and so no one really wanted to invest the money. On the Inter-galactic Net there was a report on how major fresh water sources were contaminated with endocrine suppressants and other organic and inorganic chemicals. The 'teeny-weeny' syndrome in alligators was already known 30 years ago. Countries continued to dump their toxic and even nuclear wastes on the land and eventually these found their way to aquatic systems. Sperm counts of males have declined and many forms of human cancer have increased. Global warming has wrecked havoc on farming systems and quality of land". The Captain sat silently and gazed forlornly at the screen. His mind, like those of his crew, was on the good things of life that they had experienced when growing up – re-engineering, budget cuts, affirmative action programs, paradigm shifts in science, financial scams, political fiascos, Viagra etc. Suddenly he looked up and noticed everybody staring at him, as though asking. "What do we do now?" Captain Hari, with all his wisdom looked straight into their eager faces and said, "Let's get the hell out of this place. Let us go to Planet IUSSS 012841 and begin life anew.

Science, fantasy, fiction, or fact? You decide. What is probably true is that all is not going well on planet earth. Maybe we are reaching a new equilibrium that might make this a better place to live. Drop us a line and give us your opinion.

Task Force On Land Degradation of the International Society of Soil Science

AGENDA 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development emphasizes the need and proposes a wide range of activities to address land degradation in general and desertification in particular. As a response to this challenge, more than 100 countries have signed the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) in 1997. A key point of the CCD deals with scientific and technical cooperation on investigation, collection, evaluation of the processes and factors involved in land degradation leading to desertification. At the conclusion of the Conference on Land Degradation at Adana, an International Task Force on Land Degradation, to be formed under the auspices of the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS), was proposed and unanimously adopted.

The Soil Science Department of the University of Çukurova, Adana, has agreed to provide an interim Secretariat. An interim Committee to coordinate the work of the Task Force was formed with the following members:

Dr. Hari Eswaran
Chairman, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Washington DC, USA

Dr. Selim Kapur
Secretary, Çukurova University
Adana, Turkey

Dr. Ahmet R. Mermut
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Canada

Dr. Chaiyasit Anecksamphant
Department of Land Development
Bangkok, Thailand

Charges to the Task Force

1. Develop a science-based procedure for the identification and documentation of land degradation;
2. Develop manuals and/or guidelines for standardizing approaches, methods of assessment and monitoring, and interpretation of data;
3. Initiate efforts to develop appropriate Decision Support Systems to evaluate degree and extent of land degradation, assess potential impacts of land management practices, and research leading to mitigating technologies;
4. Initiate efforts to develop global, regional, and national databases and GIS maps depicting land degradation; and
5. Catalyze efforts to enhance the science of land degradation and the utilization of resource information for the assessment, monitoring, and prediction of land degradation at regional and local levels.

Desired products/outputs of Task Force

6. Basic concepts and definitions of land degradation; methods, threshold values etc.;
7. Scientific concept papers - approaches to problem solving; reliability and accuracy of assessments; aspects of time and space dimensions;
8. Internationally accepted language for describing processes, states, and tension zones; standards for databases and database management systems, and minimum datasets;
9. Manual on assessment and monitoring of land degradation;
10. Decision Support Systems for evaluation, estimation, and impact of land degradation; and
11. Global, regional, and national maps depicting kinds of stresses, tension zones, potential for degradation etc.

Address of Secretary
Dr. Selim KAPUR
Faculty of Agriculture, Çukurova University
Department of Soil Science
01330 Adana, TURKEY
Fax: ++ 90 322 338 66 43

Address of Chairman
Dr. Hari ESWARAN
World Soil Resources
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
P.O. Box 2890, Washington DC 20013, USA
Fax: ++ 1 202 720 4593

Secretary's Report

The Task Force on Land Degradation has been struggling to identify the conceptual approach for the preparation of the "Guidelines for LD". Several persons have been contacted tp seek advice. Most recently, we were fortunate to have visit in Adana, of Dr. Peter Bullock (sponsored by the British Council) from Silsoe College, Univ. of Cranfield, UK. A draft outline was prepared and is now being reviewed by several persons. Dr. Bullock, former director of the Soil Survey of England, Scotland, and Wales, is eminently qualified to lead this effort. Once we have first draft we would like your assistance to review it to proceed to the next stage. Those interested, please contact Dr. Kapur, Secretary of the Task Force.

Dr. Kapur participated in the "Carbon sequestration" meeting held in Tunis at 13-17 October 1997 presenting an invited paper on the "CARBONATE POOLS IN SOILS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN: A CASE STUDY FROM ANATOLIA" with special reference to identifying and designating carbonate rich surfaces. Similar Quaternary surfaces (calcretes) were observed in Tunisia, occupying an appreciable part of the country, at a very fruitful excursion to the Eastern Erg of the Sahara. Though the meeting was on soil carbon, it was evident that one of the processes contributing to carbon losses is erosion. The rates and magnitude of such losses in the Mediterranean areas is still not established. Monitoring of carbon may provide a default index for land degradation. The work on carbon should also include similar works conducted in large irrigation areas related to potential CO2 productions as well as carbon contents in coastal – continental shelf areas in relation to transported materials from the land.

The post-meeting excursions' of the "M. Yeilsoy International Symposium on Arid Region Soils (YISARS) to Central and Western Anatolia are to be held in September 21-24, 1998. In November 1997, a transect of the tour route was made by Drs. Kapur, and Eswaran. The tour route and sites were selected to show land use, land degradation (including impacts of past civilisations), and current problems associated with productivity. The historical aspects of land management and hence land degradation is an integral part of the state of the soil resources of the country and cannot be ignored in any assessment. One of the purposes of the Post-Symposium tour is to demonstrate this.

In May, Dr. H. Eswaran visited Thailand to meet with the organisers of the 2nd International Conference on Land Degradation. Mr. Chaiyasit and his colleagues have made all preparations for this meeting. Keynote and Session Lead Speakers were selected and a draft program was developed. We encourage as many as persons as possible to attend.

New or Ongoing Initiatives

Guidelines on Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment

Detrimental effects

The aquatic ecosystem may be affected by:

Disturbed habitats and/or the absence of characteristic riverine habitants as a consequence of obstructions/constructions in the river and riverine zone;

• Emissions of toxic substances
• Organic pollution causing oxygen deficiency
• Nutrient enrichment causing eutrophication;
• Human use (like navigation, recreation);
• Deposition of airborne pollution (fossil-fuel combustion) causing acidification;
• Radioactivity by deposition of airborne pollution (e.g. as a consequence of nuclear accidents) and leakages;
• Pollution loads from rivers to receiving waterbodies (e.g. reservoirs and seas).

Operational indicators

The quality of aquatic ecosystem is determined by the state of representative elements mentioned below:

• Concentrations of dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total organic carbon (TOC);
• Concentrations of hazardous substances in water, sediment and organisms;
• Functional variables, e.g. chlorophyll-a, biomass, primary productions;
• Communities, among others diversity of plankton, macrozoobenthos, vegetation, fish, waterbirds, mammals, and more specifically, the presence of reference species, characteristic of an undisturbed river;
• Diseases and morphological deviations in organisms;
• Physical factors (flow, obstructions, channelisation and meandering, structure of sediments, condition of banks and coastal areas).

National and Regional Reports

Asia's ecological crisis

Eric Craswell, Hans Dieter Bechstedt, and Rod Lefroy. International Board for Soil Research and Management (IBSRAM), Bangkok

In Thailand and Indonesia, 2 million and 8 million people, respectively, are expected to lose their jobs by the middle of this year. As a result, a wave of unskilled factory or construction workers and service sector employees are expected to migrate from cities to rural areas. Furthermore, many students will be unable to afford to live and study in the cities, so they will return to the countryside. Many will return to remote marginal and impoverished rural areas that they originally left because of declining yields and land degradation.

The economic crisis will be a serious setback to efforts to alleviate poverty in Asia. Estimates before the crisis indicated that two-thirds of the world's 1.2 billion poor – with a per capita income less than US$1 a day – reside in the Asian region. In Thailand as many as 11 million people live on degraded forest land without ownership title, and 600.000 people are estimated to live in national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and class A1 watersheds, even though no settlement is allowed there to assist preservation.

In South-East Asia, 263 million rural poor live in marginal steep-land areas with acid infertile soils. The scope of the problem globally and the link between poverty and marginal lands is illustrated by estimates from the International Food Policy Research Institute that the steep-land population in the tropics represents 36% of the rural poor and is predicted to grow from 500 to 800 million by 2020.

The economic crisis has dried up off-farm income sources for many subsistence farmers in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. El Nino has affected even Indonesia's intensive rice production systems, with an estimated 400.000 ha of paddy rice seriously affected by drought. In addition, the rising cost of living and soaring prices for agricultural inputs will influence farmers to extend their cultivation onto more marginal lands or forest reserves instead of investing in intensification of their agricultural systems.

Adoption of conservation farming practices to prevent erosion requires a longer-term perspective and is even less attractive. Cutbacks in government spending reduce opportunities for extension support and incentives to introduce soil conservation measures.

Land Degradation

Estimates of rates of land degradation and the economic impacts are difficult and often controversial. In many Asian countries more than 60% of the land surface is classified as hilly or mountainous. Yet food production growth has been derived largely from irrigated lowlands, where paddy rice yields grew significantly over the past 25 years. Concomitantly, the hilly areas were deforested at alarming rates in countries such as the Philippines and Thailand. Population pressure and scarce land and water resources in the region have led to cultivation of lands with slopes as steep as 60%.

In Thailand, the annual average soil erosion rate is 34 tonnes per hectare per year, with more than 30% of the country affected by moderate to severe erosion (Asian Development Bank 1998). Approximately 45% of the land in the Philippines is moderately to severely eroded. About 41% of the area cultivated is on land with slopes greater than 18%. In Indonesia, one-third of the 57 million hectares of upland soils (excluding forest areas) is classified as being in a critical condition because of land degradation.

Some 9200 million tons of sediment wash into the region's oceans every year, represents 70% of global sediment outflows. Large river systems deposit sediment in flood plains, and increasingly in reservoirs, so much of the outflow to the oceans comes from small mountainous rivers (Milliman & Syvidski, 1992). The outflows of sediment constitute a major loss of nutrients and a high economic cost.

The recent El Nino phenomenon has exacerbated the land degradation problems because, apart from the reduced agricultural productivity, drought intensifies fires set to clear land. Loss of biodiversity and global carbon impacts must be added to the list of serious environmental impacts. The impacts of such fires in Indonesia have been widely publicised, but fires in Thailand at the end of the dry season have also caused localised haze affecting air traffic and health. The steep-land and cleared by fire and cultivated is exposed to erosion by the first heavy monsoon rains.

The nexus between poverty, food insecurity and environmental problems is complex and dynamic. We need more research to develop sufficient understanding to help the countries affected to respond to perturbations such as the current economic crisis.

Scientific Research

The ultimate clients for research on these problems are policy-makers and land managers. Policy-makers need to know the scope of the problems and the social, economic, and environmental impacts of their policy decisions (or indecisions). Policy-makers also need to know the potential benefits from investment in by-passed areas, where the marginal rate of return can be significantly greater than in high potential areas of the lowlands.

Poor small-holders on marginal lands need advice about land management practices that are productive, economically viable, socially acceptable and risk-averse, while protecting the land and water resources. Since many farmers are women, the gender implications of land management must also be addressed. Research to help these people requires a participatory approach that utilises both indigenous and scientific knowledge. An International Board for Soil Research and Management (IBSRAM) research network on sustainable management of sloping lands in Asian countries has already contributed significantly to the scientific knowledge base (Craswell et al.1998).

Effective research on these complex issues requires interdisciplinary teams of scientists from the countries concerned. A landscape approach is needed so that both on- and off-site impacts are studied, and all affected communities are involved. Additional support is being marshalled by international centers like IBSRAM through a consortium that draws expertise from advanced institutions in Europe, North America and Australasia. The Australian Center for International Agricultural Research is playing a key role as a donor and broker of research partnerships. Key areas of research include:

• sustainability assessment based on the framework for Evaluating Sustainable Land Management. A prototype Decision Support System has been developed for sloping lands in Asia (Rais et al. 1997)
• impact assessment focused initially on the multifarious on- and off-site impacts of soil erosion (Enters 1998);
• resource management domains analysis on which to base priority setting and technology transfer; and
• research paradigm development that refines the participatory and interdisciplinary approaches through model catchment studies.

Australasian science has much to offer, including;

• direct experience with the management of land in the tropics;
• models such as the Landscape approach for institutionalising rural community interactions with scientists; and
• a raft of scientific expertise in the fields of hydrology, information systems, soil science, rural sociology, integrated catchment management, and multiple objective decision-making.

The scope of the problems in Asia is daunting, but the potential social and environmental benefits from sustainable land management of marginal land are enormous. The short-term setback from the recent economic crisis should be a signal that even greater investments are needed to address these long-term intractable problems. The cost of inaction to the security of the region in the 21st Century is too high a price to pay.

References

Asian Development Bank 1998. Emerging Asia: Changes and Challenges. ADB. Manila, Philippines.

Craswell, E.T., A. Sajjapongse, D.J. Howlett and A.J. Dowling. 1998. Agroforestry systems in the management of sloping lands in Asia and the Pacific. Agroforestry Systems (in press).

Enters, T. 1998. Methods for the economic assessment of the on- and off-site impacts of soil erosion. International Board for Soil Research and Management. Issues in Sustainable Land Management No. 2. IBSRAM, Bangkok.

Millimna, J. D., J.P.M. 1992. Geomorphic/tectonic control of sediment discharge to the ocean: The importance of small mountainous rivers. Journal of Geology 100, 525-544.

Rais, M., E.T. Craswell, S. Gameda and J. Dumanski. 1997. Decision support system for evaluating sustainable land management in sloping lands of Asia. Conference on Geo-information for sustainable land management. 17-21 August 1997, ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands.

Potential CO2-Production In Some Soils of the S.e. Anatolian Project Area - GAP (2)

M. Gök, I. Onaç, A. Co_kan

Çukurova University, Department of Soil Science, Adana, Turkey

The amount of CO2 produced during the process of mineralisation of the organic matter versus time depends on the C content and type of the organic matter, the C/N ratio, soil properties -texture, aeration, pH, salinity, and climatic factors -temperature and moisture- (Ottow, 1997). Correlation analyses were conducted on potential CO2 (field capacity, 30^oC) (Isermeyer, 1952) and organic matter contents (Schlichting and Blume, 1966) of surface horizons of the selected soil series (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995) of the GAP region (Figure 1).

Moderately, low and very low amounts of CO2 productions (20-30mg CO2 100g-1.24h-1) were determined in the Yavuzeli, Araban, Suruç, Birecik, Keysun, Kayac1k, Hilvan, Harran, and Ceylanp1nar plains respectively (Figure 2). Organic matter contents were determined to be low (1-2%) in the major part of the GAP area except in the Harran and Ceylanp1nar soils (³2.0 %) with low CO2 productions in

spite of the higher amounts of organic matter contents than the Yavuzeli and Araban plains with high CO2 productions. The correlation between the organic matter contents of the soils and the CO2 productions were found insignificant. This is most probably due to the slight differences in the ecologies of the plains and the variations in the structural properties (especially C contents and C/N ratios) of the organic matter of the soil series together with the accumulations of high amounts of decomposition resistant lignin (due to monoculture of wheat). The recently introduced rotational practices in the area with irrigation providing highly mineralisable organic matter to the soils will most probably increase the low CO2-productions, thus, increasing the contribution of the soil to the 'C-cycle'. The CO2 production obtained on the present rainfed conditions of the area will serve as valuable results to be compared with changes to occur following irrigation and its associated cultural practices in the future.

References

Ministry of Agriculture, Directorate of Rural Affairs. 1990-1995. Mardin-Ceylanp1nar, ^anl1urfa-Harran, Gaziantep-Kayac1k, ^anl1urfa-Suruç, ^anl1urfa-Birecik, ^anl1urfa-Hilvan, Ad1yaman-Keysun, Gaziantep-Yavuzeli, Gaziantep-Araban Plains Detailed Survey and Soil Mapping Reports. Ankara

Isermeyer, H. 1952. Eine einfache Methode zur Bestimmung der Bodenatmung und der Karbonate im Böden. Z. Pflanzenernaehr. Bodenkund 5. 56-60.

Ottow, J.C.G. 1997. Umweltbiotechnologie. Gustav Fischer-Verlag, Stuttgart, Jena, Lübeck, Ulm.

Schlichting, E., E. Blume., 1966. Bodenkundliches Praktikum. Paul Parey Verlag, Hamburg, Berlin.

Recent Carbon Deposition Along the Anatolian Shelves

V. Ediger

Middle East Technical University, Institute of Marine Sciences, Erdemli, Turkey

Inorganic and organic carbon were determined in the surface grab sediments along the Anatolian shelf areas. Total organic carbon was calculated from the carbonate contents of the sediments.

The Anatolian coastal areas are surrounded by four different types of depositional environments with the Black sea being a unique marine environment ie a land-locked basin. Its waters are in a state of almost complete isolation from the world ocean, as a result of the restricted exchange with the Mediterranean Sea through the Anatolian straight system. Thus, the basin is almost anoxic, containing oxygen in the upper 150m depth and hydrogen sulphide in the deep waters. The depositional environment of the Sea of Marmara is a transitional link between the Black Sea - the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. The two narrow straits of Dardanelles and Bosphorous provided connections between the two adjacent environments. The Aegean Sea is largely affected by the northerly inflow of the Black Sea waters and southerly inflow of the Mediterranean, the former being cooler and brackish and the latter warmer and saline. The waters of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea have a restricted exchange with the Atlantic Ocean through the strait of Gibraltar. Therefore, this silled basin is almost oxic. The depositional environment of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea is largely effected by the currents of Asia Minor meandering along the Anatolian coast.

There is roughly a reverse relation between the amount of the total inorganic carbon (TIC) and total organic carbon (TOC) from the eastern Black Sea to the eastern Mediterranean Sea along the Anatolian coastal zone. The maximum TIC and minimum TOC deposition were detected along the shelf of the carbonate-rocky ( Anamur) ( 5.64%) and deltaic ( Ta_ucu ) ( 5.76%) coastal zones of the less productive Mediterranean Sea. The amount of the TOC deposition is greater than the TIC deposition in the polluted Golden Horn and the highly productive eastern Black Sea basins. The other areas have dominant TIC levels.

There are no similarities between the percentage distribution of the TIC and TOC along the highly energetic shallow( 0-50 m) depositional areas of the Anatolian Seas. The highest TOC content in the second part ( 50-100 m) of the highly productive Black Sea shelf area is decreasing in the Sea of Marmara, Mediterranean and Aegean Seas respectively. There is a reverse abundance between the TIC and TOC along this order of the seas. The highest percentages of the TOC contents are nearly the same in the shelf areas lying between the 100 m and 200 m depth of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. This amount is decreased in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas respectively. The abundance of the TIC between the 100-200 m depth of the shelf areas is the reverse. The highest TOC and TIC contents in the deepest part of the highly productive Black Sea is decreased in the Sea of Marmara, Aegean and the Mediterranean respectively. This expected order also depends on the order of the productivity level of the Anatolian Seas.

The level of pollution, coastal type lithology, the level of the primary production, sea bottom depth morphology, coastal current systems and coastal inputs are the amount of the carbon deposition along the Anatolian shelves.

Book Reviews

Web Resources on Desertification

Compiled and annotated by Katherine Waser. Katherine Waser, Editor, Arid Lands Information Center, is also editor of the ARID LANDS NEWSLETTER.

This list covers World Wide Web resources on:

• Background information on desertification globally
• Information and background on the Convention to Combat Desertification
• Desertification information for the Mediterranean region
• Desertification information for Africa.

The list not intended to be exhaustive; rather, the focus is on sites that house original content and/or data, directory sites with so many good links they simply must be included, and sites that struck me as being particularly in line with the aim and provisions of the CCD.

General information on Global Desertification

Desertification, Myth or Reality
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/desertification-e.htm
This article from the October, 1994 IDIC Express, written as the CCD was first signed into being, surveys the literature on desertification to provide information on what desertification is and why it's important that we care.

Ciesin: Land Degradation and Desertification
http://www.ciesin.org/TG/LU/degrad.html
Excellent overview and background information on desertification and land degradation, with lots of links to further information including several pertinent online articles uploaded by CIESIN

Desertification and Climate Change
http://climatechange.unep.net/
This 1993 fact sheet from UNEP'S Information Unit on Climate Change is interesting because of its focus on links between climate change and desertification.

Desertification, Drought and Their Consequences (Article)
http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/Epdirect/Epan0005.htm
More background information on desertification as a global problem, from FAO's S-DIMENSIONS Web pages.

UNEP/GRID Global Data Sets
http://www.grid.unep.ch/
GRID centers collectively hold thousands of digital maps covering various human and natural environmental themes. The URL above links to GRID's global data sets in all these different categories; the "Climate" and "Soils" categories may be most pertinent to desertification issues, including data sets such as "Global assessment of soil degradation", "Potential evapotranspiration," and "Change in mean annual precipitation."

The Convention to Combat Desertification
http://www.unccd.int/
An indispensable site hosted by the Interim Secretariat for the CCD. This is THE source for information on the CCD, with links to full text of the Convention, fact sheets about the Convention and its various, information on current ratification status, contact information, press releases, and more.

The International Ngo Network On Desertification and Drought (RIOD)
http://www.riodccd.org/index.html
RIOD is a network that was set up in November 1994 by the NGOs involved in the negations towards the CCD. RIOD's view is that through exchange of information, experiences and ideas, NGOs and CBOs (community based organisations) will be more effective in their efforts to contribute to humane and sustainable livelihoods for people living in drylands. This state is an excellent source of information on NGO activities worldwide relating to the CCD.

Desertification : the Scourge of Africa (Article)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/tiempo/issue08/desert.htm
This article, written by Micheal Bernard Kwesi Darkoh, was published in the April 1993 issue of Tiempo and discuss the complex factors underlying the threat to Africa's drylands. The article is included in this section because it dates from the period between the UNCED call for a desertification convention and the actual establishment of the CCD and discuss some of the reasons why the PACD was judged to be unsuccessful

Medalus III
http://www.medalus.demon.co.uk/
MEDALUS III is an international EU project to address desertification in the Mediterranean areas of Europe. The site describes the four programs of Medalus III (including some historical information), gives contacts information for all involved universities, and has a bibliography of publications from the Medalus I project.

Concerted Action On Mediterranean Desertification
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/geog/des.htm
This Concerted Action not only coordinates EU projects on this subject and helps define scientific priorities for future EU projects; it also seeks to apply past and current work in the field to wider issues of Mediterranean environmental management, and will have a watching brief on developments of the CCD.

Desertification Information Network (WCMC)
http://www.wcmc.org.uk/dynamic/desert/
This is the Web site of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre's pilot project for desertification in Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. Currently, one of its main functions is to act as a directory site to information of all kinds relating to the topic

UNSO Office to Combat Desertification & Drought
http://www.undp.org/drylands/
This site from the UN Sudano-Sahelian (UNSO), is under construction but shows good potential for being an excellent information resource. Current site contents include a general information brochure on UNSO in English or Spanish and links to some information notes and partnership building documents concerning the CCD.

Iied Drylands Programme
http://www.iied.org/drylands/index.html
General information about a program of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) that is aimed at effective management and use of resources in arid and semi-arid parts of Africa. The IIED, an independent, nonprofit organisation, has built up a diverse pattern of collaboration with many organisations working in this field an in particular has built links between Francophone and Anglophone African countries.

Climate Prediction Center – Africa
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/african_desk/
This site, sponsored by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), provides maps and text covering several categories of weather and climate data for Africa as a whole.

Africa Data Dissemination Service
http://edcintl.cr.usgs.gov/adds/adds.html
This site, covering the African continent, houses extensive EROS-supplied data relating to USAID'S Famine Early Warning System program. The data are available by geographic area (e.g Western Sahel, Horn of Africa, and Southern Africa), by country, and by theme such as vegetation, cropland use or hydrology, etc.

Spaar Information System (SIS) Database
http://www.worldbank.org/afr/aftsr/
The goal of the Special Program for African Agricultural Research (SPAAR) is to enhance agricultural research in Africa by increasing donor coordination. The SIS searchable database currently contains information on more than 5400 projects (Note: a query on desertification returned a list of 39 separate projects)

SD-Dimensions Data Base
http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/EIdirect/climate/EIsp0002.htm
The FAO Web site's Sustainable Development DIMENSIONS (SD-DIMENSIONS) Data base is a rich source of information on numerous topics of worldwide interest, and as such, merits some careful exploration. However, for those who don't have time to surf, here's a list of some resources on African desertification housed at the site:

• Rainfall Variability and Drought in Subsaharan Africa
• La plainification des stratégies contre les effets de la sécheresse (focusing on the case of Morocco)
• Energy for sustainable Development and Food Security in Africa
• Water resources issues in the Arab States Region (including the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa)

Grassroots Indicators For Desertification: Experience and Perspectives From Eastern and Southern Africa (Book)
http://www.idrc.ca/books/focus/794/794.html
This book, edited by Helen Hambly and Tobias Onweng Angura and published by Canada's IDRC, grew out of a 1995 workshop hosted by Uganda on "MEASURING AND MONITORING DESERTIFICATION IN AFRICA: THE ROLE OF GRASSROOTS INDICATORS." Based on a quick look at the site, it seems that either book, or at least substantial excerpts, have been uploaded.

North Africa and Sahelian Countries

Club du Sahel
http://www.oecd.org/sah/
The Club du Sahel is a forum for reflection and consultation, associating the Sahel countries with the principal development assistance agencies involved in the region. The site is available in English or French. (Note: animated gifts currently make this site slow to download; visit it with images off if this is a consideration.)

Orstom-Senegal
http://www.orstom.sn/index.html
The Senegal office of the Institut françis de Recherche Sientifique pour le Développment en Coopération (ORSTOM) conducts projects and disseminates information pertinent to all Sahelian countries.

The EDEN Foundation
http://www.eden-foundation.org/
The EDEN Foundation is a Scandinavian NGO working on issues of revegetation in arid lands, particularly in the Sahel. They are advocates of direct seeding and provide extensive information on their projects and their results on this web site.

...East Africa

Greater Horn of Africa Project
http://edcintl.cr.usgs.gov/gha/gha.html
Outgrowth of USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) project. The site houses plentiful EROS satellite maps with data indicators for food security in the Horn of Africa. Maps show cropland use, population, soil suitability for agriculture, vegetation indices etc.

GREATER HORN INFORMATION EXCHANGE

http://www.usaid.gov/regions/afr/ghai/

Yet another rich resource of information on food security issues in the Horn of Africa. Numerous maps (including a nice feature that lets you create a map with only those features you want), access to FEWS Bulletin materials, etc. Free access via gopher, telnet and e-mail too.

Soils and Environment: Soil Processes from Mineral to Landscape Scale.

K. Auerswald, H. Stanjek, and J.M. Bignam

Advances in Geoecology 30. CATENA Verlag. Reiskirchen. 1997. 422 pp.

The properties and spatial distribution of soils and their mineral constituents are especially useful indicators of both present and past environmental conditions. Through a series of case studies, the authors show that linkages can be made between measurable soil and mineral properties and the processes that shape the weathering environment. The papers emphasise that spatial and temporal variability are inherent attributes of soils and landscapes that must be quantified and properly managed if ecological and environmental harmony are to be attained.

Bioremediation: Field Experience

P. E. Flathman, D. E. Jerger, and J.H. Exner (Editors).

Lewis Publ. Boca Raton, USA. 1994

The book contains a large number of field case studies about bioremediation techniques used in contaminated soils and ground-water. Examples of successful programs in different countries are given. Some of the more common techniques and some exotic methods are described.

State of the World, 1997. A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society.

L. R. Brown, C. Falvin, H.F. French, et al.

W.W. Norton & Co., New York. 1997

In this annual report, an analysis of the State of the World since the UNCED Conference in 1992 is given. The authors believe that though there is evidence for some gains in the goal towards sustainable development, the balance of evidence suggests that the earth's environmental and resource degradation trends still persists. They describe the contracting base of cropland and the global climate change threats to disrupt the ecological foundations of the global economy. They point to land degradation and its lack of control as root cause. They conclude that if this goes unchecked , global food security will be threatened.

The Political Economy of Land Degradation: Pressure groups, foreign aid, and the myth of man-made deserts.

1995. Julian Morris. Published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 107 pp.

Drawing on diverse literature, the report presents a critical assessment of the theory underpinning the United Nations Convention on Desertification. The report is divided into two parts. Part one begins with a brief history of the ideologies and interventions that have led to the Convention on Desertification. This is followed by a discussion of the evidence for and against a number of competing theories, which seek to explain the evolution of deserts and the causes of desertification. Part two begins with a very brief overview of the political economy of Africa. This is followed by an explanation of the root causes of land degradation and some tentative proposals for resolving the related problems of poverty, hunger, and land degradation in the developing world. An appendix discusses the problem of land degradation in the United States.

Letter to the Editor

It is with some interest that I heard of an international effort to develop standard indicators of soil quality and methods to measure and analyse the effects of variations in soil quality. This interest arose on account of a paper on land degradation and the Australian agricultural industry, which I co-authored.

From an analytical point of view, one of the main concerns expressed in the Australian land degradation paper was the scarcity of uniformly classified land degradation information and lack of integrated environmental and economic information upon which to base environmental-economic assessments of the implications of land degradation. My co-author and myself worked very hard with data from several agencies to complete our project. A project at an international level to guide improvements in the quality and comprehensiveness of environmental-economic information in the field of agricultural soil quality would seem to be most worthwhile in the light of our experience. In terms of government involvement in land management issues, the case for improving analysis appears strong.

I wish to draw your attention to a couple of concepts and definitions in our paper that you might find of use and to make a comment about the coverage of an undertaking to improve analytical and policy making capabilities.

First, we define land degradation as "…the decline in the biological productivity or usefulness of land resources for their current predominant intended use caused through the use of the land by humans" (p.27). It seemed to us that land can have many uses and to provide an anchor, degradation needs to be defined in respect of some use. This concept is implicit in scales of "soil condition" which should form the basis of any internationally accepted set of soil quality indicators.

Second, after studying quite a few analyses and published statements of the economic effects of land degradation in Australia, we distinguished between the:

1) Production equivalent of degradation, that is, the production revenue measured in a currency unit of degradation. The production equivalent can be represented as a "cost" of degradation. Such measures seem to be most popular in reports on the extent of degradation that focus on the purely negative side of degradation; and

2) The costs and benefits of amelioration of degradation. Such measures may be positive or negative. This possibility will be recognised, as a standard finding in the economics of renewable resources which is applicable to many, but not all, forms of land degradation (p.44).

The key point of the analysis is that land degradation is something that can be controlled by the land manager who is making optimising decisions about the costs and benefits of higher or lower levels of degradation. This kind of analysis may not be acceptable to those who emphasise the need for preserving land in a certain physical condition. Perhaps the framework ultimately developed will help policy makers navigate around alternative approaches to assessing the importance of differing land conditions.

A major problem is that different values may apply to different uses and that the value for any one use will differ with the circumstances of land use. In some circumstances, it may be optimal to mine the land (eg just before subdivision for urban use), in other circumstances it may be optimal to maintain some steady state level of degradation, and so on. I therefore see a need to develop a program for reporting the condition of land in particular regions and allow environmental-economic analysis to trace out the effects of that condition on activity levels. For example, in our paper, we provided an empirical study of the effects of land degradation in the Australian State of New South Wales.

There is also a need to focus on institutional issues such as: impediments to farmers making optimal decisions in farming, the evaluation of the externalities of intensive land use in agriculture, and the evaluation of the amenity value of land resources including its value as sink for environmental waste. In my view, standard indicators of soil quality and methods to measure and analyse the effects of variations in soil should take into account the institutional issues important to effective land management.

I hope that these few comments make some contribution to the development of international standard relating to soil quality and agricultural land management.

Paul Gretton>
Trade and Economic Studies
Productivity Commissions
Australia

Reference

Gretton, P. and U. Salma. 1996. Land Degradation and the Australian Agricultural Industry. Industry Commissions Staff Information Paper, AGPS, Canberra, June 1996. (Also available on http://www.pc.gov.au)

Announcements

5th International Meeting on Mediterranean Soils

Barcelona, Spain, July 4-9, 1999

This meeting is being organised by the Working Group on Mediterranean Soils in collaboration with the International Society of Soil Science and others. A range of subjects from Soil genesis and classification, to land degradation and sustainable agriculture, will be discussed. Two post-workshops are being planned. Those interested, please contact:

Dr. J. Bech

Chair of Soil Science

Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona

Avda Diagonal 645, E-080828, Barcelona, SPAIN

Fax: + 34 934 112 842 e-mail: jabechbo@portos.bio.ub.es

10TH INTERNATIONAL SOIL CONSERVATION ORGANISATION CONFERENCE

May 23-28, 1999, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

The United States, in cooperation with North American partners, is pleased to offer land and water conservation professionals throughout the world an invitation to participate in the 10th International Soil Conservation Organisation (ISCO) Conference, May 223-28, 1999, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. ISCO is an independent organisation that promotes international exchange on the science, technology, policy, and application of land and water conservation.

Soil and water are critical natural resources that sustain human life and the lives of all other creatures on our planet. The careful husbandry of these natural resources is essential to world food security and environmental protection. When used in sustainable ways, soil and water produce the food, forestry, and fiber products that we all depend upon, and they will do so indefinitely. Sustainable use of these resources also is essential to socially, economically, and ecologically viable communities. It is imperative, therefore, that we invest adequately in research, the development of new technologies and the effective transfer of those technologies. These are the roots of sound science on which the sustainable use of soil and water resources is based. Sound science also supports sound conservation policy, which is the basis for local action. It is the local action, either at the community, farm or ranch level, that yields land stewardship that will sustain our "global farm". Thus, the theme of the 10th ISCO is "SUSTAINING THE GLOBAL FARM: Local Action for Land Stewardship".

The Meeting Focus

The defining characteristics of ISCO is its "inclusiveness." Thus, the scope of the conference may encompass, but is not limited to, the following:

• Science and technology for conservation planning and assessment;
• Soil survey and natural resource assessment for environmental protection;
• Socioeconomic elements of land and water conservation;
• Conservation policy: a basis for action;
• Conservation action: sustaining our land and water

There will be oral and poster presentations. One page abstracts are required by September 1, 1998. Guidelines for preparing the abstracts and papers will sent to those who express their interest in participation.

Several tours are being planned and details will made available to those who register. For more information and to register, consult the ISCO website

http://topsoil.nserl.purdue.edu/fpadmin/isco99/pdf/ISCOdisc/tableofcontents.htm) or contact:

ISCO99

Purdue University, 1196 SOIL Building

West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1196, USA

Tel: + 1 765 494 8683, Fax: 1 765 494 59 48 e-mail: isco99@ecn.purdue.edu

2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LAND DEGRADATION:

MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF LAND DEGRADATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Khon Kaen, Thailand January 22-31, 1999

Land degradation, either natural or induced by humans, is an important concern affecting the wealth of nations, food security, and the quality of life. AGENDA 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED 1992) emphasized the need for and proposes a wide range of activities to address land degradation in general and desertification in particular. Although much has been said and written about land degradation, there is still much conjecture on the subject as few countries have developed the techniques to measure degradation and subsequently develop spatial or other databases which enable the quantification of the process. Some of the immediate needs include:

• improved procedures to assess degradation at different scales- global, national, and local;
• evaluation of resilience capacities of land and methods to implement the concept;
• development of indicators of land degradation for use at all planning levels;
• development of mitigating technologies, and
• assisting development and implementation of appropriate national policies.

The First International Conference organized in Adana, Turkey (June 10-14, 1996), expressed the need to evaluate the science of land degradation. This was in response to the very high amounts of donor funds allocated to address land degradation without adequate information of the kinds, degree, and extent of the degradation problem prevailing in the country. In some instances, as the causes of degradation are not well appreciated, corrective measures through such bi-lateral projects have minimal impact. Land Degradation science is the domain of soil scientists. However, the processes are human induced and consequently social sciences and the understanding of socioeconomic factors causing the degradation is an important factor in developing mitigating technologies. There are also examples of situations where poor national land use policies have accelerated erosion and decline in quality of the soil. Land degradation science is thus an excellent example of the need to integrate, not only the sub-disciplines of soil science but also other disciplines including the policy arena. The 2nd International Conference is organized to address some or all of these issues.

The purpose of the conference stems from the fact that:

• sustainable development requires an active national program of natural resource conservation and management;
• sustainable land management, of which soil, water, and nutrient management are the most critical components, contributes to food security and income generation;
• a partial solution to the problem of addressing land degradation includes providing information to decision makers which enables them to make assessments on locations and rates of degradation and target appropriate technology;
• through the collection of vital quantitative data on all aspects of degradation and their use in information technology, a powerful tool becomes available for decision making;
• the larger goal of making agriculture friendly to the environment, is only attained by appropriate land management.

The conference will be organized around technical presentations, poster sessions, and working group discussions on the following topics:

• identification
• processes, resilience characteristics of land systems
• use of information technologies
• application of system models

• deforestation, shifting cultivation
• urban and peri-urban linkages
• soil pollution
• mismatch between agricultural systems and ecosystems conditions

• economics of land degradation
• societal role
• indigenous knowledge
• policy framework

• conservation tillage
• ecosystem based management
• water quantity and quality

• quality of life
• environmental friendly agriculture

• soil conditions

To obtain subsequent circular letters and further information on the conference, contact

Mr. Charoen Charoenchamratcheep

Department of Land Development

Phaholyothin Road, Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, THAILAND

Fax: + 662-579 2902, email: vearasilp@access.inet.co.th

Acknowledgment

This newsletter was made possible through the financial and logistical support of the US Consulate at Adana, Turkey, The British Council at Ankara, Turkish Soil Science Society, University of Çukurova Agriculture Faculty, Adana. The Task Force wishes to express our appreciation and gratitude.(3)

Editors

Dr. Hari ESWARAN

Dr. Selim KAPUR

For information and contributions to the newsletter, contact managing editor:

Mr. Erhan AKÇA

Department of Soil Science

University of Çukurova

01330 Balcali, Adana, TURKEY

Fax: + 90 322 338 66 43

e-mail: akerintn@pamuk.cu.edu.tr

Please send your complete contact information to the managing editor for receiving the Land Degradation Newsletters

(1) Excerpted from J. Morris (1995). See Section on Book Review.

(2) Turkish acronym of one of the largest irrigation projects in the Middle-east (1.700.000 ha)

(3) Printed in the University of Çukurova, Faculty of Agriculture press, Adana, Turkey

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