Foreword: 10th Anniversary Review: Addressing land degradation and climate change in dryland agroecosystems through sustainable land management

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 594
Author(s):  
Camilla Toulmin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Sustainable Land Management ◽  
10Th Anniversary

scholarly journals ‘This country just hangs tight’: perspectives on managing land degradation and climate change in far west NSW

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Berry ◽  
Graciela Metternicht ◽  
Alex Baumber
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Rangeland Management ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Land Management ◽  
Strong Basis ◽  
Context Specific

Discussions of land degradation often display a disconnect between global and local scales. Although global-scale discussions often focus on measuring and reversing land degradation through metrics and policy measures, local-scale discussions can highlight a diversity of viewpoints and the importance of local knowledge and context-specific strategies for sustainable land management. Similarly, although scientific studies clearly link anthropogenic climate change to land degradation as both cause and consequence, the connection may not be so clear for local rangelands communities due to the complex temporal and spatial scales of change and management in such environments. In research conducted in October 2015, we interviewed 18 stakeholders in the far west of New South Wales about their perspectives on sustainable land management. The results revealed highly variable views on what constitutes land degradation, its causes and appropriate responses. For the pastoral land managers, the most important sign of good land management was the maintenance of groundcover, through the management of total grazing pressure. Participants viewed overgrazing as a contributor to land degradation in some cases and they identified episodes of land degradation in the region. However, other more contentious factors were also highlighted, such as wind erosion, grazing by goats and kangaroos and the spread of undesired ‘invasive native scrub’ at the expense of more desirable pasture, and alternative views that these can offer productive benefits. Although few participants were concerned about anthropogenic climate change, many described their rangeland management styles as adaptive to the fluctuations of the climate, regardless of the reasons for these variations. Rather than focusing on whether landholders ‘believe in’ climate change or agree on common definitions or measurement approaches for land degradation, these results suggest that their culture of adaptation may provide a strong basis for coping with an uncertain future. The culture of adaption developed through managing land in a highly variable climate may help even if the specific conditions that landholders need to adapt to are unlike those experienced in living memory. Such an approach requires scientific and expert knowledge to be integrated alongside the context-specific knowledge, values and existing management strategies of local stakeholders.

Dryland Degradation and Expansion: Implications for Mexican Policies from the Earth System Perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Gabriel Lopez Porras
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Sustainable Land Management ◽  
System Perspective ◽  
The Earth

Despite international efforts to stop dryland degradation and expansion, current dryland pathways are predicted to result in large-scale migration, growing poverty and famine, and increasing climate change, land degradation, conflicts and water scarcity. Earth system science has played a key role in analysing dryland problems, and has been even incorporated in global assessments such as the ones made by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. However, policies addressing dryland degradation, like the ‘Mexican programme for the promotion of sustainable land management’, do not embrace an Earth system perspective, so they do not consider the complexity and non-linearity that underlie dryland problems. By exploring how this Mexican programme could integrate the Earth system perspective, this paper discusses how ’Earth system’ policies could better address dryland degradation and expansion in the Anthropocene.

scholarly journals Soil Quality Characterization of Mediterranean Areas under Desertification Risk for the Implementation of Management Schemes Aimed at Land Degradation Neutrality

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Eleonora Grilli ◽  
Elio Coppola ◽  
Tommaso La Mantia ◽  
Micòl Mastrocicco ◽  
Fernando Pulido ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Soil Quality ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Mediterranean Areas ◽  
Desertification Risk

Soil is a key component of ecosystems as it provides fundamental ecosystem functions and services, first of all supporting primary productivity, by physical, chemical and biological interaction with plants. However, soil loss and degradation are at present two of the most critical environmental issues. This phenomenon is particularly critical in Mediterranean areas, where inappropriate land management, in combination with the increasingly harshening of climatic conditions due to Climate Change, is leading to significant land degradation and desertification and is expected to worsen in the future, leading to economic and social crisis. In such areas, it is of fundamental importance to apply sustainable management practices, as conservation/restoration measures, to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality. This approach is at the core of the LIFE project Desert-Adapt “Preparing desertification areas for increased climate change” which is testing a new framework of sustainable land management strategies based on the key concept that the maintenance of ecosystems quality is necessarily connected to economic and social security in these fragile areas. The project will test adaptation strategies and measures in 10 sites of three Mediterranean areas under strong desertification risk, Alentejo in Portugal, Extremadura in Spain and Sicily in Italy. We present the baseline data of soil quality analysis from 32 sites in the 10 study areas of the project. Key drivers of soil quality and quantity were identified and used as basis to select sustainable management strategies focused on the maintenance, improvement and/or recovery of soil-based ecosystem services, with particular attention to climate change adaptation and land productivity. The final objective of the project is to demonstrate, according to the LDN approach, the best adaptation strategies to recover degraded areas from low-productive systems into resource-efficient and low-carbon economies to preserve ecosystem quality and booster economy and social security

Cross-scale monitoring and assessment of land degradation and sustainable land management: A methodological framework for knowledge management

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. S. Reed ◽  
M. Buenemann ◽  
J. Atlhopheng ◽  
M. Akhtar-Schuster ◽  
F. Bachmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Sustainable Land Management
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