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NRD – Nucleo Ricerca Desertificazione

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International Conference on

Dryland ecosystem functioning and resilience: integrating biophysical

assessment with socio‐economic issues

Alghero (Italy), 6‐8 July 2011

PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS Organized in collaboration with:

Società Italiana di Agronomia

Drylands ecosystems functioning and resilience: integrating biophysical assessment with socio‐economic issues

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Session 1 Climate change and sensitivity of desertification Session chairs: Giuseppe Scarascia Mugnozza and Giuseppe Enne

Climate change impact and adaptation in the Mediterranena Region Vincenzo Artale, UR Climate Change Modelling, ENEA, Italy

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Land use changes on the hydrological cycle Ragab Ragab, Center for Ecology & Hydrology, Natural Environment Research Council, UK

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Semi‐arid afforestation and its effect on land‐atmosphere interactions Eyal Rotenberg, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

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Impact of desert aerosols on atmospheric properties Sandro Fuzzi, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Italian National Research Council (ISAC‐CNR)

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Session 2 Dryland resilience: the role of geo‐engineering and agroforestry systems

Session Chairs: Mauro Centritto and Pier Paolo Roggero Increasing water harvesting for improved agroforestry systems Pedro Berliner Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

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Improving resilience and water productivity of dryland agro‐ecosystems Rachid Serraj, ICARDA, Syria

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Geo‐engineering for the restoration of land and soil functions in arid areas Anton Imeson, Foundation 3D EC, The Netherlands

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Agriculture trigger Desertification processes. A view of the soil and water resources exhaustion in Eastern Spain Artemi Cerdà, Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group (SEDER), Valencia University, Spain

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Session 3 Integration of Bio‐physical and Socio‐Economic Issues –Generating Baseline Information for Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought (DLDD) Assessment

Session Chairs: Michael Cherlet and Stefan Sommer Implementation of novel scientific concepts to integrate bio‐physical and socioeconomic issues in land degradation mapping Michael Cherlet and Stefan Sommer, JRC ‐ Institute for Environmental Sustainability (IES), Ispra, Italy

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Participatory approaches to integrated evaluation of desertification problems from local to national level Elena Abraham, Argentine Institute of Arid Zones IADIZA‐CONICET, Argentina

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Valuating the economic and social impacts on desertification/degradation in the context of Alternative Cliamte change scenarios Cesar Morales, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Chile

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Climate change and adaptation: a systems perspective Kevin Collins and Ray Ison, Dept of Communication and Systems, Open University, UK

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Session 4: Global Perspective on Current Status and Options: Food Security and Food Sovereignty in Drylands

Session Chairs: Mariam Akhtar-Schuster and Lindsay Stringer Livestock as a means of sustaining livelihoods in drylands: resilience and adaptive capacity of the production system Brigitte Kaufmann, German Institute for Tropicaland Subtropical Agriculture, (DITSL), Germany

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Food production and environmental variability: from problem to asset? An insight from specialised pastoral systems Saverio Krätli, IUAES Commission on Nomadic Peoples

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Food sovereignty and trends in global markets: outlook for future for agricultural research? Anne‐Marie Izac, Consortium of the CGIAR Centres

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Climate vulnerability and food security Evan Fraser, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

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Session 5: The economics of land degradation and sustainable land management. 26

Session Chair: Richard Thomas The value of Land Resources in the Cardamom Mountains: suporting Evidence‐based Decision Making John Soussan, Stockholm Environment Institute

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Review existing values of land management Simone Quatrini Global Mechanism

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Valuation and resilience Melanie Requier DesJardins CIHEAM‐IAMM ‐ Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier, France.

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Measuring economic benefits of land management and political intervention Impact evaluation ex post and ex ante Stefan Sperlich, Département des Sciences économiques, Université de Genève

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Session 1 Climate change and sensitivity of

desertification Session chairs: Giuseppe Scarascia Mugnozza and Giuseppe Enne


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Climate Change, Impacts and Adaptation in The Mediterranean Region

V. Artale

Enea, Casaccia, Rome, Italy In the present talk we will discuss the main features and mechanisms of the climate variability at global and regional scale, using the observation analysis and the numerical results of climate models. We also discuss the annual sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) during the last 150 years that can be estimated using several datasets. An important characteristic of this mode of SST variability is that the SST anomalies have the same sign across the entire North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, resembling the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Moreover, for the Mediterranean case, the numerical results of a fully coupled regional climate models (Protheus Earth System) will be presented and will be analysed the interactions among the distinct components of the Mediterranean climate system (i.e. ocean, atmosphere, biosphere, etc…). Such models are expected to improve our skill in predicting reliable scenarios in complex regions such as the Mediterranean area, which is subject both to the influence of global scale dynamics (e.g. disturbances in the mid‐latitudes, strength and meridional extension of the Hadley circulation), and to the effects of local physical processes. As a future follow‐up of these studies the role of the Mediterranean Sea on nearby and remote regions will be investigated in the context of present and future climate change and impact on the climate system. Keywords: climate variability, Mediterranean Region, climate modeling and impact studies.


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The impact of climate and Land use changes on the hydrological Cycle

Ragab Ragab

Center for Ecology & Hydrology, Natural Environment Research Council, UK

The combination of possible impacts of climate change and land use requires a proper plan for water resources management and mitigation strategies. There is a delicate balance between Food security and Energy security when changing the land use from crops to biofuel. Land use changes if supported by droughts could lead to desertification Water resources management needs to be handled with an integrated approach that takes into account: The water resources availability (quantity and quality), the land use, the water demand, and the climate change. The Integrated Hydrological Modelling System, IHMS and SALTMED models are useful tools to: quantify water resources, investigate the impact of land use and climate changes on water resources, plant biomass, harvest and sowing dates and quantify the gap between water supply and demand.

Keywords: Aridity, land degradation, modelling, catchment hydrology, IWRM


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Semi‐arid afforestation and its effect on land‐atmosphere interactions

Eyal Rotenberg, Kadmiel Maseyk, Tongbao Lin, Ruth Ben Mair, and Dan Yakir

The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Forests both take up CO2, and enhance absorption of radiation, with contrasting effects on global temperature. Based on a nine‐year study in the forests’ dry timberline at the Yatir forest, Northern Israel, it shows that significant carbon sequestration (cooling effect of the Earth system) is maintained in the large dry transition zone (precipitation 200‐600 mm) by shifts in peak photosynthetic activities from summer to early spring. It estimates that if about 10% of the semi‐arid zone and part of the adjacent dry land areas (~3.5 Bha) is transformed from carbon neutral (most dry land areas are considered as carbon sources) to forests with carbon uptake similar to the Yatir forest; it will capture ~0.8 GTC per year, almost 1 ‘stabilization wedge’ and for probably >50 years. But this cooling effect is counteracted by the albedo reduction following afforestation that increases solar absorption (S) and longwave radiation (L) suppression, having togather warming effect on the atmosphere. Several decades of carbon accumulation are required to balance the twofold S+L effect. Desertification over the past several decades, however, contributed negative forcing at the earth’s surface equivalent to ~20% of the global anthropogenic CO2 effect over the same period, moderating warming trends. Keywords: dry land, land use change, afforestation, radiative forcing, carbon sequestration


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Impact of desert aerosol on atmospheric properties

S. Fuzzi

Istituto di Scienze dell’Atmosfera e del Clima, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bologna, Italy Huge quantities of dust, originated by the mobilization of arid soils, are transported through the atmosphere over great distances. Desert dust is a major contributor, second only to sea spray, to the aerosol loading in the atmosphere, with an estimated emission ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 Tg/year. Dust emission is a natural process, which can be altered by anthropogenic activities such as deforestation, agricultural mismanagement, urbanization, change in water usage. The most widespread, intensive and persistent dust sources are all located in the Northern Hemisphere, with North Africa being responsible of ca. 50% of the world’s dust sources. The environmental effects of desert dust include climate change and changes in precipitation patterns in the areas influenced by dust outbrakes, effects on human health due to the transport of allergens and other microorganisms, reduction of visibility, deterioration of materials. Mineral dust has been suggested to play an important role in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, the carbon biogeochemical cycle in particular. Dust deposition is, in fact, often the main source of iron to the open ocean, thus impacting on the ocean‐atmosphere carbon exchange. It has also been shown that the Bodele Depression, in Chad, which is the largest and most persistently active dust source in the world, supplies, through long‐range transport of dust, essential minerals to the Amazon rain forest. Keywords: desert dust, atmospheric processes, climate, precipitation, biogeochemical cycles.


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Session 2 Dryland resilience: the role of geo‐

engineering and agroforestry systems Session Chairs: Mauro Centritto and Pier Paolo Roggero


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Increasing water harvesting for improved agroforestry systems

P.Berliner

Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel Floods are frequent events in the drylands and have been utilized for agricultural production already in historical times. The principles of the technique, termed variously water harvesting, runoff agriculture or Nabatean agriculture, are presented and a brief description of the various important water fluxes described. One particular application of the technique, Runoff Agroforestry, is described in greater detail. Some results of the implementation of the technique in a field trial carried out in Turkana are presented. A salient feature is that the total yield and water use efficiency of the system are higher than if the two crops were grown separately. The implications of this approach for arresting desertification are discussed Keywords: Runoff, flood, agroforestry


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Improving resilience and water productivity of dryland agro‐ecosystems

R. Serraj, B. Rischkowsky, M. Louhaichi, A. Larbi, A. Haddad, C. Piggin and R.G. Singh International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA); PO Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria.

Drylands face a range of global challenges that constitute serious concerns for food security, rural poverty, desertification and environmental degradation. In most of these regions, the vicious circle of poverty and degradation of the natural resource base is often compounded by poor resource management, weak institutions, lack of capacity, inadequately implemented technologies, and unsustainable economic and political systems. Recent advances in dryland research for development (R4D) strategies and integrative approaches can deliver international public goods that can be applied and up‐scaled globally to improve the livelihoods of the 2.5 billion people living in the dry areas, while safeguarding biodiversity and protecting the environments. ICARDA’s research program on Diversification and Sustainable Intensification of Production Systems (DSIPSP) uses an integrated R4D approach that encompasses major components, i.e., cropping systems agronomy, small ruminants (SR) systems research, rangeland ecology and management, and horticulture. This strategy involves a large spectrum of stakeholders including dryland farmers, pastoralists and agro‐pastoralists, livestock keepers, policy makers, and NARS partners, aiming at improving rural livelihoods through productive and sustainable production systems that conserve the natural resources. Conservation agriculture (CA) is quickly gaining momentum globally; but has not yet been widely adopted in dry areas, although its potential benefits are multiple including effects on land and resource conservation, more efficient and sustainable use of water and nutrients, lower production costs, enhanced agroecosystem diversity and production. In collaboration with NARS partners, farmers, local manufacturers supported by AusAid and ACIAR, ICARDA has recently achieved tangible successes in promoting CA in dry areas. Efforts are now ongoing for up‐scaling these R4D activities across CWANA, taking into account efficient management of crop residues and grazing, as important systems components, towards the sustainable intensification of cereal‐ and legume‐based cropping systems. Rangelands are the most widespread land use in non‐tropical dry areas, and are home to most of their poorest populations. However, they have often been overlooked in terms of R4D. Innovative studies of rangeland ecology, management and rehabilitation are currently focusing on developing new methodologies for understanding and addressing the biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of dryland degradation and offer new opportunities for improving livelihoods and environmental sustainability in the dry areas. Keywords: dryland systems, intensification, conservation agriculture, rangeland rehabilitation, sustainable land management


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Geo‐engineering for the restoration of land and soil functions in arid areas

A. C. Imeson

Foundation 3D Environmental Change The objective of the presentation was to describe the state of the art with respect geo‐engineering and to describe its potential for increasing the resilience and functions in arid areas. This abstract reflects also the discussion at the meeting . Geo engineering is an emerging concept that involves planning interventions to improve the function of the land and soil so that targeted ecosystem services are enhanced. Although it is a new concept, there is an immense body of knowledge available to support action plans based on te understanding and monitoring of desertification in different parts of the world . The first two prerequisite for geo engineering are to identify and name the causes and then to develop management or political goals that would be supported by the population. The aims would be a) to recover and restore natural capital such as that provided by forests and groundwater, b) to Improve quality and health, food and land and ensuring that capital is not appropriated unsustainable from people by investments in ways that leads to land degradation. The approach, which is then the third aim would be to restore the 3 functions of nature, soil and land productivity and the soil and water conservation and protection function . The fourth is to promote human well being and safety In a sense what these all imply is the management of land and water resources of a country by the state as a basis for national prosperity. The prosperity of China 1000 years ago is attributed to the scientific knowledge of water and soil conservation and how these could be applied to protect people. It gave security and agricultural resources s that promoted economic growth but it was based on a scientific understanding of cause and effect. The first, forest clearance, induced a wave of desertification that started maybe 10,000 years ago with forest clearance for agriculture in than metal production and which is ending today in Amazon forest which is being used for charcoal to make pig iron exported to China. Iron and metal working and the things they give us are the pressure. Intensive and industrialised agriculture was present in China, India and the Near East and this together and the driver here maybe thought of as cheap agricultural surplus that could be used for labor to support the bureaucracy and power and appropriate other people’s resources. This is very similar to today where cheap food policies that lead to soil and land degradation. This is not really the mandate of the UNCCD but it could be. Many degraded areas are resilient and land could in theory recover but in practice the impacts of overgrazing caused by goats, sheep and cattle, with or without fire that have produced degrading landscapes on mountains that can be accessed on fragile hill and mountain soils from the Artic to the tropics. The driver here is the pastoral way of life which can also be sustainable and beneficial. Then there is the land degradation caused by the spread of agriculture as advances in ploughing and technology during the middle ages and sixteenth century caused the expansion of agriculture and population until there was a lack of land and great poverty. The driver here is the reliance of society on annual grasses (mainly wheat) for food because


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these invest in seed and not soil. It like maize is grown on areas that have soils that will degrade and erode because of it. The main threat to desertification today is the belief that it is possible to feed or support 16 billion people on earth and that this can be supported by what the director of IASA in his latest newsletter describes as the intelligent management of land ,water and soil resources. Even if this were possible it would require a kind of geo engineering that would be at the cost of the quality of all life. In the light of scientific evidence it is unrealistic to think of this as a realistic possibility and this has been made clear to world leaders who do not internalize this. It would be very simple to solve all problems overnight if there was an intelligent management of the human population and animals, each of which now has 0.4 Ha. If we planned for 6 or 7 billion or change our culture this would save trillions of dollars and promote global happiness. Odum (1971) said the following points required consideration. • People are mislead by agricultural bookkeeping that does not include the cost of energy subsidies and the cost to society of the environmental pollution that must accompany the heavy use of machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and other potent chemicals. • No more than 24 per cent of the land is truly arable in that it is suited for intensive farming. Irrigating huge areas of dry land and farming the ocean would have far reaching effects on the global weather and atmospheric balances, with no assurance that some of these effects might not be disastrous. • The global impact of the domestic animals and man’s need for animal protein have been underestimated. • As Elrich (1970) pointed out the under developed nations will become the never to be developed nations and the quality of life in the developed world is threatened by affluence that leads to pollution, crime and a growing population of underdeveloped. • The optimum population density should be keyed to the quality of the living space and not to food. He quotes Boulding (1966). The essential measure of success is not production and consumption at all but the nature, extent, quality and complexity of the total capital stock, including the state of the human bodies and minds, including in the system. He says should not man, like nature maximize for the quality and diversity of the biomass rather than for the rate of production and consumption as such. Odum (p.35) discusses also homeostatic mechanisms in cybernetics and how these apply at different levels in the environment and that there is a crisis because there is no negative feedback. Some populations are affected by density whereby feedbacks induce behavioral mechanisms that result in a lower reproductive rate. The strategy used could be similar to that in China which has a EU China watershed restoration and rehabilitation program. These can alter the micro and meso climate, Another strategy is to restore groundwater levels in areas where water is being over exploited by urban areas and for irrigation. Many new technologies and techniques have been developed for increasing interception from mist and clours, recucing evaporative soil loss, and for using the soil fauna and plants to restore the hydrological services. Terraces are very important for farming. Just as the Icelanders are restoring their birch forests, people in Crete and the Middle East could restore the Cedars of Lebannon and other forests that were with other forests the natural capital of the Pheonecians and ancient civiliations,


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Keywords: calibri 12, left justified. Desertification, sustainability, geoengineering, population , fodd security, global governance, soil and water conservation, natural capital and ecosystem services


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Agriculture trigger Desertification processes A view of the soil and water resources exhaustion

in Eastern Spain

Artemi Cerdà SoilErosion and Degradation Research Group. Department of Geography. University of Valencia.

Citrus production is a two centuries old farming in Eastern Spain. The Valencia region took the advantage of a mild winter climate that avoided the frost, and the springs from Karst aquifers to develop a very succesful bussines. As the oranges from Valencia are located near the north‐european market the production was sold at high prices for decades and transformed the traditional huertas or gardens into citrus orchards. The flooding irrigation system by gravity was improved during the XX century by means of pumping from the aquifer or the irrigation ditches to reach a higher altitude and increase the irrigated surface. Since 1990 a fast expansion of the citrus plantation took place due to the facilities supplied by cheap electricity, the reservoirs built by rubber and by the drip irrigation system. Now the land is not levelled and some of the old agriculture terraces were transformed into hilly slopes were soil and water losses are extremely high. The new agriculture is triggering soil erosion rates higher than 20 Mg ha‐1 yr‐1 and during the intense thunderstorms the soil losses reached values similar to badland landscapes. The lost of water by surface wash is high, and for simulated rainfall experiments of 50 mm h‐1 during 60 minutes the water losses surpasses 50%. The pollution of the aquifer by pesticides and chemicals (mainly nitrogen) is also part of the problem, as it is the lost of the rivers and the springs due to the depletion of the aquifer. The new citrus plantations are dependent on the oil production, and then they are not sustainable. Keywords: Citrus, Erosion, Water, Soil, Valencia


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Session 3 Integration of Bio‐physical and Socio‐Economic Issues – Generating Baseline Information for Desertification, Land

Degradation and Drought (DLDD) Assessment Session Chairs: Michael Cherlet and Stefan Sommer


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Implementation of novel scientific concepts to integrate bio‐physical and socio‐econmic issues in

land degradation mapping

M. Cherlet and S. Sommer

EC Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), 21027 Ispra (VA), Italy Baseline information for global and regional desertification assessments needs to integrate socio‐economic issues in order to really evidence the actual impact of land degradation on human well being as well as the benefit of preventive measures and counteraction, as expressed through land use and in particular sustainable land management (SLM). Though yet limited to regional pilots, initiatives are existing which aim to tackle the above mentioned issues considering human‐ecosystem interaction and land use dynamics in land degradation prone drylands. Current initiatives towards a new World Atlas of Desertification strive at being a pragmatic exercise and illustration of applying at global and regional levels novel scientific concepts of DLDD assessments that have been described in recent literature. They include the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment approaches, based on evaluation of ecosystem goods and services, the evaluation of complex Syndromes of global change and desertification proximate causes and pathways, having in common that they are integrating and addressing combined desertification issues in a structured but flexible way. However, besides aspects of tackling inherent problems of data availability/accessibility and quality, these approaches require methodological extension to allow for more direct expressions of socio‐economic cost and benefits of mapped land degradation states and trends.


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Participatory approaches to integrated evaluation of desertification problems from local

to national level

E. M. Abraham IADIZA‐CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina

Dealing with desertification entails taking into account its multiple dimensions and their interrelationships in what is a complex system with environmental and socio‐economic aspects. The importance of defining a solid conceptual framework for studying desertification processes through a participatory process is pointed out, as a basis for obtaining indicators and benchmarks to assess both current status and trends of such processes. The need is expressed to include the spatial as well as temporal dimensions (diachronic processes) as scales of analysis for understanding causes and consequences. The importance is stressed of developing a model of assessment for such indicators, based on the conceptual model, to initiate the process of establishing an assessment and monitoring system with active participation of all actors. This procedure incorporates an interdisciplinary and multi‐scale perspective, both in space and time. Practical examples of its implementation are pointed out both at national (Project LADA) and local scales. Keywords: desertification assessment, conceptual framework, participatory approach


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Valuating the economic and social impacts of desertification/degradation processes in the

context of alternative Climate Change scenarios

Cesar Morales Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Chile

The Economic Commission of United Nations for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC, and the Global Mechanism of the Convention of United Nations to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), have implemented a joint project in order to measure the economic value of land degradation taking in account some alternatives scenarios of clime change for Latin America and the Caribbean. Seven countries from Central America (Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize) and seven from South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru) are been analyzed; At the moment have been finished the first report for Central American countries, a report on the effects of drought for Central America and a report for Ecuador. Preliminary reports have been done for Chile, Bolivia and Peru, while reports for Argentina and Colombia have started. The main objective of this research is to support the national economic and social authorities at central, regional and local level in the process of to allocate resources to combat land degradation/desertification and the effects of drought. In those terms, the project will end with a Base Line of the cost of degradation/ desertification for all involved countries, and with an analysis on the possible effects on the long term of the clime change process. The main preliminary findings show that the cost of desertification varies between 8 to 14% of agricultural GDP, with significant differences inside each country region by region. Dynamics of degradation is an important issue, mainly in regions covered by tropical forests such as Ecuador and Peru. In the Central American countries, degradation affects all the countries, but with different intensity. In some cases, such as El Salvador for example, degradation has been so intense in recent past that additional increases in land degradation are less significant than others. According the obtained results, Clime change will affect all the countries in negative terms reducing agricultural production, mainly to the end of the century. One important issue is the fact that reductions will affect seriously basic crops such is the case with corn, beans and rice en Central American countries. In some cases, Clime change will express negative impacts increasingly after the second half of the century. This is the case for example, of Ecuador, where human activities are and will be the main degrading factor till around year 2050.


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Climate change and adaptation: a systems perspective

K. Collins & R. L. Ison

Open Systems Research Group, Communication & Systems Department, The Open University, UK. Climate change is now a key part of political agendas, policy concerns and calls for action at all levels. This paper explores some key aspects of the climate change debates from a systems perspective, namely ideas of system, adaptation and integration and in particular, how their use frames our understanding of climate change situations. We discuss our interpretation of systems as observer dependent constructs and different metaphors of adaptation, from the pervasive ‘adapt to’ to a more complex understanding based on ‘adapation as co‐evolution’. The coevolution model of adaptation is consistent with notions of a coupled social‐biosphysical system, where adaptation is an emergent outcome of the co‐evolutionary dynamic between biophysical and social components. This leads to a contextual examination of climate change situations – understood as poorly defined with multiple stakeholders and controversies. We argue that climate change situations requires new, complimentary forms of governance based on social learning because no single group has clear access to understanding the issue and its resolution. Thus adaptation is fundamentally dependent on processes of social learning if stakeholders’ different systems of interest are to be understood in order to bring about more integrated thinking and practice which leads to concerted action among stakeholders. The theory is explored in a number of case studies which highlight a range of experiences of social learning approaches to natural resource managing. We conclude that a commitment to social learning more accurately embodies the new kinds of role, relationship, practice and sense of purpose required to progress adaptive climate change agendas and practices. Keywords: climate change; adaptation; systems; social learning; coupled systems, integration


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Session 4: Global Perspective on Current Status and Options: Food Security and Food

Sovereignty in Drylands Session Chairs: Mariam Akhtar‐Schuster and Lindsay Stringer


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Livestock as a means of sustaining livelihoods in drylands: resilience and adaptive capacity of the

production system

Brigitte A. Kaufmann German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) Witzenhausen at the University of Kassel

The importance of pastoral livestock production is classically assessed in terms of the number of families depending on it, the share of the country’s livestock population kept in these systems, or the production system’s contribution to the country’s economies. However actor‐centered measures increasingly recognise in pastoralism its job creating potential and people’s job preferences, its role for creating income and wealth, and its wider socio‐cultural functions. Pastoral livestock production makes use of in‐build resilience mechanisms on the level of its different system components, i.e. the pasture and livestock resources as well as the household and the community. The presentation focuses on resilience mechanisms at the herd level based on empirical results from the author’s own research in northern Kenya. It shows that making use of diversity on the level of i. livestock species, ii. types within breeds, and iii. functions of different age and sex classes is a basic strategy by which pastoralists increase their action options and by which they can make use of the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the pasture resources. Herd size is a threshold variable in the system, because in small herds, offtake for human use will endanger maintenance and reproduction of the herd and finally lead to the breakdown of the entire livelihood system. Future development efforts should strive to make use of human and social capital of pastoralists communities, so that community members can have an active role in the change process. Possibilities to enhance pastoralists’ adaptive capacity are seen in the improvement of information flow (e.g. through modern communication media, such as mobile phones, radio or IT) and the improvement of capital flow (e.g. through marketing, accessible saving and insurance systems). Keywords: Pastoral production systems, resilience mechanisms, diversity, livestock, adaptive capacity


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Food production and environmental variability: from problem to asset? An insight from

specialised pastoral systems

S. Krätli IUAES Commission on Nomadic Peoples

The presentation is in two parts. In part one I give a brief introduction to the historical legacy of pastoral development as starting from stepping out of pastoralism, and the roots of understanding pastoralism as a problem rather than as a working model. On the other hand, a substantial strand of research on mobile pastoral producers in Africa now shows that dryland pastoralism can exploit environmental variability. That is, specialised pastoral production systems do not simply cope with the drylands but benefit from their ecological peculiarity – the transient concentrations of resources – turning it into a key resource for production. This opens up a new perspective on food production – targeting non‐uniform distribution of resources rather than uniformity and stability – which has relevance for small‐scale producers operating in increasingly unpredictable conditions also outside Africa. Part two looks at the institutional framework. Recent pan‐African policies recognise the comparative advantage of mobile pastoralism (with ecological sustainability) vis‐à‐vis other forms of land use in the drylands, especially as environmental variability is increasing with climate change. Nevertheless, there is still a wide gap between these positions and many national settings, were food security issues remain dangerously confused with large‐scale land conversion for ‘technical’ solutions and carbon trade. Few recommendations are given in conclusion. Keywords: pastoralism, climate change, Wodaabe, asymmetric distribution, policy


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Food sovereignty and trends in global markets: outlook for future for agricultural research?

Anne‐Marie Izac

Consortium of the International Agricultural Research Centres The paper examines global market trends for food and agricultural lands, and for investments in agricultural research. It takes into consideration relevant global non‐market trends. This provides a description of the context within which dryland agriculture needs to perform, if it is to be sustainable and respond to the needs of consumers and farmers. The significant upward trend in food prices and their increase volatility over the last 7 years, when combined, result in an increased probability of food insecurity, globally. At the same time, the demand for food has evolved toward more meat, fish, vegetable and fruits. Consumption of cereals, traditional in dryland areas, has been left behind relative to these other foodstuff. Investments in agriculture and agricultural research have been decreasing over the last two decades. This started changing when the 2008 food crisis demonstrated that the world is not able to deal with significant food price increases by ensuring that the poor continue to have access to food. Investments are now increasing, in particular in OECD countries. A global market for agricultural lands has emerged in which foreign interests have been buying agricultural lands in developing countries. The concept of national food sovereignty needs to be re‐visited in the light of these trends as there are now significant global dimensions of food sovereignty. In addition, trends in the degradation of soil fertility, water availability and quality and climate change are becoming very significant. Yields of key crops are, in parallel, either plateauing or in some cases decreasing, as natural resources become the most limiting factor. This context calls for significant changes in the global governance of food systems, as well as in research approaches. A new paradigm for agricultural research emphasises that land, water and biodiversity (including diversity of germplasm) are global resources and that food security and sovereignty, climate change, water availability, ecosystem services and biodiversity are interrelated and need to be addressed simultaneously. This is a far taller order than working on maximizing crop productivity or water availability or diversity. Agricultural research in drylands needs to evolve toward more international partnerships (because of the complexity of issues) ‘green growth’, with stronger agro ecological and system approaches (to decrease ecological footprint). This includes addressing the ‘gender gap’ in agriculture (FAO 2011). The reformed CGIAR has designed a new global research programme ‘Integrated Agricultural Production Systems for Dry Areas”, that is an example of this new approach. Keywords: food sovereignty, food security, global food prices, investment in agricultural research, new paradigm in agricultural research


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Climate vulnerability and food security

Evan Fraser, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

In early 2011, world food prices hit an all‐time high, surpassing even the peaks of 2008 when rioters spilled into the streets of dozens of countries. While experts disagree about the exact causes of this crisis (and blame a combination of oil prices, population growth, bioethanol policy, bad weather, commodity speculation, and changing diets), most agree that high, volatile food prices are here to say. Senior officials from the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and many European governments have all made statements that maintaining global food security for the next generation is one of our most pressing challenges. In this talk, Evan Fraser explored the past, present and future of the global food crisis, noting that, in many ways, today’s crisis bears a number of startling similarities with historic cases like the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the Irish Potato Famine, and 19th century England on the eve of an el niño‐caused famine that claimed an estimated 40 million of lives around the world. Searching for answers, he discussed how four broad strategies to meet these crises were debated by all these societies. These strategies are: market based incentives to promote ingenuity and technological development, governmental regulation to promote soil conservation, social welfare policy to protect the poor and marginalized, and communitarian solutions based on creating "alternative food systems." His talk concluded with the argument that a holistic solution to the present food crisis will involve developing a policy portfolio that addresses all four of these broad strategies.


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Session 5: The economics of land degradation and sustainable land management.

Session Chair: Richard Thomas


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The Value of Land Resources in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia: Supporting Evidence‐Based

Decision‐Making

John Soussan Stockholm Environment Institute /University of York

The presentation discussed the rationale behind and objectives of an initiative coordinated by the Global Mechanism to develop an understanding of and comprehensive methodology for the analysis of the inherent values of land resources and costs of land degradation. The rationale emphasised that land resources underpin rural livelihoods and national development around the world, but that these resources are typically under‐valued. The economic benefits of sustainable land management interventions are often not fully assessed or understood and decision‐making needs to be based on an appreciation of the full value of land resources. The analysis was supported by the presentation of the results of a study by SEI along with Conservation International and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests in the Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia. The study assessed the value of a complete set of ecosystems services in this area of special ecological significance, including their role in local livelihoods, biodiversity, watershed functions, provisioning services and carbon sequestration. Land resources are the basis of local livelihoods, including both agriculture and the management of forests and common property resources for grazing and gathering a range of products. The full range of ecosystems services were estimated to generate inherent values equivalent to over $3,000 per hectare a year, most of which are not included in conventional accounting systems. The results of the study have been integrated into the National Action Plan for Land Resources and were presented to the National Cabinet of the Government of Cambodia. Keywords: land resources valuation, ecosystems services, sustainable land management, Cardamom Mountains Cambodia


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Review existing values of land management

S. Quatrini Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)

Land resources and the associated ecosystem services sustain global production and consumption processes and are also the basis of the livelihoods of most of the world’s poor people. Where managed sustainably, natural resources can generate great value for both the local and global economy, while at the same time providing opportunities for poor people to improve their livelihoods and reducing vulnerability to climate change. However, the true economic value of these resources is often unknown or neglected. This may result in land use/management decisions leading to land degradation and other forms of natural capital depreciation. In recent years, an increasing emphasis has been placed on quantifying land and ecosystem services as a tool for moving towards sustainable development and the green economy. In cooperation with an inter‐disciplinary consortium of research and scientific institutions, the Global Mechanism launched a programme called OSLO (Offering Sustainable Land‐use Options) for the valuation of land resources and ecosystem services, total costs of land degradation and net benefits of sustainable land management (SLM). The objective of the programme is to generate evidence‐based arguments to demonstrate the contribution of responsibly managed ecosystems to global prosperity, sustainable development and poverty reduction. Inherent to the OSLO programme is the development of an integrated approach for the calculation of socio‐economic and environmental returns on investment (ROI) that challenges the current notion of ROI, limited to financial or monetary aspects only. Studies conducted between 2009 and 2011 under this programme are producing results and recommendations that are being integrated into governments policies, land‐use action plans and budget allocation decisions. Keywords: economics, sustainable land management (SLM), land degradation, drylands, natural capital, returns on investment, ecosystem services, green economy, sustainable development, poverty reduction, science‐policy interface, policy‐making, mainstreaming, resource mobilization.


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Valuation and resilience

Melanie Requier‐Desjardins

Ciheam‐IAMM Montpellier, UMR MOISA

Valuation of land and land degradation question the value of natural capital in relation with ecosystem services ; it is often quantified using exchange values of services or substitutes. Resilience broadly deals with the capacity to absorb a disturbance. Factors of resilience are identified but seldom, quantified. Thus, valuation and resilience are part of different scientific approaches. Meanwhile, they are both useful for decision‐making. The communication explores the possible links between valuation and resilience from land degradation and desertification perspective, relying on reviews of the costs of inaction, the costs and benefits of actions to combat desertification, the ecological and social resilience based on a series of case studies and examples. Keywords: cost of inaction, economic rate of return, social and ecological resilience, agroforestry, transhumance.


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Measuring economic benefits of land management and political intervention Impact evaluation ex post and ex ante

S. Sperlich

Université de Genève, Département des sciences économiques The aim of this work is to highlight the potentials of impact evaluation, ex‐post and ex‐ante, for combating desertification, land degradation and drought. We concentrate mainly though not exclusively on economic impacts of political intervention and inaction respectively. We are aware of the demand for a global assessment of a cost‐benefit analysis for DLDD but will motivate why such a local approach (which impact evaluation or also called treatment estimation) is helpful in many situations, and can additionally be used as a building blog for such a global consideration. We first discuss the target of our method, then the main problems caused by not being provided with experimental designs, i.e. the main data problem in impact evaluation. Afterward we introduce the basic concepts of what can be identified, measured and estimated. The existing literature, however, concentrates mostly on ex‐post evaluations. In the second part of our work we look at different extensions: to the definition of marginals, to the distributional consideration which allows us to see the consequences not just for the mean but for whole population, and to ex‐ante evaluation. The distributional approach allows us for example to look at poverty and inequality issues related to DLDD. Ex‐ante evaluation is an essential must for effective and efficient policy designing when experiences in form of historical data are lacking. Simple simulation exercises illustrate that for many world regions DLDD directed policy has a severe impact on poverty and inequality. For food security this might be even more evident. Keywords: Desertification, Land degradation and drought, Sustainable land management, Impact evaluation, Treatment effects, Poverty, Undernutrition, Food security.

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