Land degradation is a serious environmental problem with widespread effect at differ- ent scales. Due to its complexity and wide geographical coverage, it is not economi- cally and technically possible to manage all areas affected. Tackling land degradation and restoring degraded landscapes thus require information on hotspots that require priority intervention. Long-term (1982–2003) satellite based vegetation greenness signal (NDVI) and rainfall data were used to analyse land productivity and identify major areas of concern in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Next, available literature has been consulted to identify suitable management options that can be adapted to the environmental conditions of hotspots. The impacts of the identi fi ed management and restoration options in reversing land degradation were then assessed using scenario analysis. Results show that application of conservation agriculture to restore degraded croplands can improve land productivity and food security of about 14 million people. Setting-aside degraded areas and allowing them to recover ( e.g. , through enclosures) could improve productivity of ca. 0.3 million km 2 land. However, this intervention requires designing ways of accommodating the needs of about 8.7 million people who utilise those ’marginal’ areas for cultivation or livestock grazing. The study illustrates the impact of land degradation on land productivity and the feasibility of suitable land management and restoration measures to tackle the problem. Such analyses can make an important contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals 1 and 7, enhancing food security without compromising ecological health and integrity.
Tag: degraded land
The Regreening Africa App [Poster]
The Regreening Africa App is part of an EU- funded project, titled Regreening Africa, which aims to restore 1million ha of degraded land across eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The Regreening App engages farmers and implementors to track restoration practices on the ground through assisted citizen science data collection. There are four modules in the App: farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR); tree planting; nurseries; and training.
Gender gap in perspectives of the impacts of degradation and restoration on ecosystem services in Ethiopia
The importance of land restoration has garnered increasing attention on the global stage through large-scale initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge. However, policies and strategies are often gender-blind and designed in compliance with entrenched social hierarchies, exacerbating pre-existing social inequalities that affect restoration initiatives. The challenge of developing gender-responsive policies and initiatives is accentuated by a persistent lack of sex-disaggregated data concerning men’s and women’s differing perceptions and experiences. This study aims to help fill this gap by capturing the differences in men and women’s perceptions of ecosystem services before and after restoration interventions in Ethiopia. Towards that end, in October 2021, we collected data from fifty-nine (59) paired husband-wife households and six gender-segregated focus group discussions in two regions of Ethiopia: Amhara and Southern Nations, and Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP). Kendall’s concordance analysis established a strong degree of disagreement between men’s and women’s ratings of restoration outcomes for most indicators. Men attributed degradation to landscape conditions and natural forces, while women considered the lack of appropriate restoration strategies as a precursor for accelerated degradation. The study also reveals that men tended to benefit more than women from enhanced ecosystem services post-restoration, with increased labour and land management burdens often falling on the shoulders of women. Based on these findings, we argue that including men’s and women’s perspectives from the earliest planning phases of restoration initiatives is essential to ensure greater equity in benefit-sharing, mitigate trade-offs for women, and build more nuanced, just and successful approaches to restoration.
Effect of rewetting degraded peatlands on carbon fluxes: a meta-analysis
Numerous studies claim that rewetting interventions reduce CO2 and increase CH4 fluxes. To verify the claim, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of rewetting on CO2 and CH4 fluxes and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). We identified 28 primary articles eligible for meta-analysis, from which we calculated 48 effect sizes for CO2 emissions, 67 effect sizes for CH4 emissions, and 5 effect sizes for DOC. We found that rewetting significantly decreased CO2 fluxes, with temperate zones showing the highest Hedges’ g effect size (−0.798 ± 0.229), followed by tropical (−0.338 ± 0.269) and boreal (−0.209 ± 0.372) zones. Meanwhile, rewetting increased CH4 fluxes, with the highest Hedges’ g effect size shown in temperate zones (1.108 ± 0.144), followed by boreal (0.805 ± 0.183) and tropical (0.096 ± 0.284) zones. In addition, based on yearly monitoring after rewetting, the CH4 emissions effect size increased significantly over the first 4 years (r2 = 0.853). Overall, the rewetting intervention reduced CO2 emissions by −1.43 ± 0.35 Mg CO2–C ha−1 year−1, increased CH4 emissions by 0.033 ± 0.003 Mg CH4–C ha−1 year−1, and had no significant impact on DOC. To improve the precision and reduce the bias of rewetting effect size quantification, it is recommended to conduct more experimental studies with extended monitoring periods using larger sample sizes and apply the before-after control-impact study design, especially in boreal and tropical climate zones.
The carbon sink of secondary and degraded humid tropical forests
The globally important carbon sink of intact, old-growth tropical humid forests is declining because of climate change, deforestation and degradation from fire and logging. Recovering tropical secondary and degraded forests now cover about 10% of the tropical forest area4, but how much carbon they accumulate remains uncertain. Here we quantify the aboveground carbon (AGC) sink of recovering forests across three main continuous tropical humid regions: the Amazon, Borneo and Central Africa. On the basis of satellite data products, our analysis encompasses the heterogeneous spatial and temporal patterns of growth in degraded and secondary forests, influenced by key environmental and anthropogenic drivers. In the first 20 years of recovery, regrowth rates in Borneo were up to 45% and 58% higher than in Central Africa and the Amazon, respectively. This is due to variables such as temperature, water deficit and disturbance regimes. We find that regrowing degraded and secondary forests accumulated 107 Tg C year−1 (90–130 Tg C year−1) between 1984 and 2018, counterbalancing 26% (21–34%) of carbon emissions from humid tropical forest loss during the same period. Protecting old-growth forests is therefore a priority. Furthermore, we estimate that conserving recovering degraded and secondary forests can have a feasible future carbon sink potential of 53 Tg C year−1 (44–62 Tg C year−1) across the main tropical regions studied.
Breaking Ground: A Facilitator’s Manual to Community Dialogues on Gender and Land Restoration
Land restoration initiatives can have varying impacts on men and women due to differences in their roles, responsibilities, and access to resources. Ignoring gender in the design and implementation of restoration activities can exacerbate existing gender inequalities and undermine the success of restoration efforts. Community Dialogues are a powerful tool to facilitate open and constructive discussions about gender perceptions, roles, constraints, and opportunities and how they impact people’s lives and ability to engage and benefit from land restoration.
Soil Fertility Recovery at the Kara River Basin (Togo, West Africa): Local Solutions at the Interface of Climate and Land Use Change
Degrading soils reduce the tolerance to a variable and changing climate; managing soil fertility is key to climate change adaptation. Rural communities of the Kara River Basin in Togo see soil and climate issues as closely linked. To identify local solutions to adapt to climate and land-use-change-induced soil fertility decline, this study employed semi-structured questionnaire interviews with 436 respondents (farming households) from 38 selected villages in the river basin, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews coupled with transect-walks in the landscape. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics through IBM IPSS version 25 and MS EXCEL 2016, and triangulation methods to verify results. The local solutions farmers mentioned beyond chemical fertilizers, were dominated by natural solutions such as: fallowing (53%), mixed farming (50%), composting (45%), contour cropping (43%), mulching (28%), agroforestry (8%), and (other) biological fertilizers (7%). All these solutions were rated 8.5 and 9 on a scale of 10 by farmers in terms of performance in improving soil fertility and increasing yields, respectively. The study concluded that local nature-based solutions as such are preferred by farmers and present huge potential to combat the soil fertility loss in existing land use in the basin that is aggravated by climate change. Such solutions should be prioritized for testing if rural households are to increase resilience vis-a-vis global environmental changes.
Drivers of field-saturated soil hydraulic conductivity: Implications for restoring degraded tropical landscapes
Water security represents a major challenge in East Africa, affecting the livelihoods of millions of people and hindering sustainable development. Predicted increases in rainfall intensity and variability are expected to exacerbate water insecurity and land degradation. Improving soil infiltrability is an effective strategy for addressing water insecurity and land degradation. Research on soil infiltrability is often highly localized; therefore, scientific understanding of the drivers of infiltrability on larger spatial scales is limited. The aim of this study was to understand the main drivers of infiltrability across five contrasting landscapes in Kenya. We measured field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs) in 257 plots and collected data for variables representing soil properties (sand content, soil organic carbon (SOC) and pH), land degradation (grazing pressure and presence of erosion), vegetation quantity (woody aboveground biomass), and vegetation quality (functional properties and diversity). We used generalized mixed-effects models to test for the effects of these variables on Kfs. Median Kfs for the five sites ranged between 23.8 and 101.8 mm h−1. We found that Kfs was positively associated with sand content (standardized effect 0.39), SOC content (0.15), and functional diversity of woody vegetation (0.09), while it had a negative relationship with the presence of erosion (−0.24) and grazing pressure (−0.09). Subsequently, we conclude that infiltrability can be enhanced through using land restoration strategies which specifically target parameters that affect Kfs. The results further support that Kfs is not solely dictated by inherent soil properties, and that management interventions which boost SOC, reduce erosion, and minimize unsustainable grazing can help address water scarcity by restoring soil hydrological function.
Farmer managed natural regeneration in Kenya: A trainer’s guide for farmers, pastoralists and other land users
This FMNR guide has been prepared through the Regreening Africa project to support grassroot actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), forestry and agriculture sectors’ extension staff, local institutions, farmers and pastoralists in Kenya to successfully establish trees on degraded lands. The information provided here has been largely adapted from the “farmer managed natural regeneration in Kenya: a primer for development practitioners”, alongside the authors’ experience.
Farmer managed natural regeneration in Somali context: Practitioners’ manual
The Somali geographical area covers approximately 637,540 km² of land mass with an estimated population of about 12.3 million (UNFPA 2014). The country is food deficient with a high dependence on food imports. Rainfall is typically low and highly variable in most parts of the country, ranging from 63 mm on the northern coastal areas to just under 600 mm at higher elevations in the south and in the north-west. Livestock production forms the basis of livelihoods for over 60% of the country’s population. Crop production is second to livestock and its contribution to household economics is growing in importance. Vulnerability to food crises and climate change has however diminished livelihood security and quality of life in the country.