Mohamed A. M. Ahmed Social, Economic and Policy Research Program ICARDA

Dryland Degradation and Restoration Drylands occupy 41% of earth’s land area Hold 1/3 of the world population Nearly 1.9% of the total 3392 Mha of degraded lands worldwide Global annual loss of 75 billion tons of soil costs US$3 / ton of soil for nutrients and US$2 /ton of soil & water). Losses about US$400 billion/ year US$70 per person/ year

Land degradation is decline in land quality or productivity A result of natural or anthropic factors Results from a mismatch between land quality and land use Land Degradation Irrigation induced-erosion and faulty tillage  Rate of land degradation determined by the agents/ causes of LD.  Initially degradation ‘creeps’ slowly A collector draining into river-

Wind erosion Water erosion Salinization/waterlogging Degradation- range/pastures Forest land degradation Carbon-losses Excessive Tillage Overgrazing Deforestation Erosion Loss of covers Inappropriate Practices Forms Declining soil fertility & crop yields Reduced biodiversity Declining factor productivity Declining livestock productivity Escalating prod/rehabilitation costs Greenhouse Gas emissions Low farm incomes- livelihoods Loss of labor Impact Causes Desertification spiral is driven by interlinked biophysical and socio-economic factors- feeding each other. Cause – Effect Relations of Land Degradation

Estimates of Land Degradation Estimates of the global extent (in million km 2 ) of land degradation (Oldeman, 1994). TypeLightModerate Strong + extreme Total Water erosion Wind erosion Chemical degradation Physical degradation Total

Land Degradation (LD)  Biophysical: Land use, land management, tillage methods, climate changes and climatic variability etc.)  Socioeconomic: Land tenure, marketing, institutional support, income sources, input Infra- structure, subsidies andValue chains  Political: Incentives, pricing policies,, political stability (Lal, 1994). Land degradation is a biophysical process driven by socioeconomic and political causes.

Drivers of Landuse Changes Demographic pressures Economic and policy swings Competition for water Soil fertility and land degradation Climate changes Food, fiber, fuel, fodder needs Technological changes Land use policy prescriptions

The OASIS Challenge OASIS supports 5 major dimensions of integration of key Knowledge Streams to action oriented flow of knowledge Disciplinary research integration to support informed policy decision making Diagnosis-to-treatment integration Landscape scale integration Climate change-dry land degradation integration Local scientific knowledge integration

K-Stream 3  Research approach and methods  Development domains will build on typology factors comprising of productivity drivers, socio-economic factors, and policy and institutional factors.  Dry land economies will be classified based on their degree of isolation from outside economies and degree of inequality  The technological, market, policy or institutional failure cont ributing to land degradation and poverty, and the options f or addressing them, will be assessed using a hierarchical diag nostic approach

OASIS Land health approach

Combating Dryland Degradation Project One-year project funded by USAID Focus on four countries: Jordan Morocco Pakistan Yemen Collaboratively between ICARDA and ICRISAT

Severity and scale of land degradation in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and YemenJordanMoroccoPakistanYemen Wind erosion ** L *** L ** L Water erosion ** S *** L Salinity * S *** L ** S Soil fertility depletion * S *** L Loss of biodiversity ** L ** M Rangeland degradation *** L Entrees are severity and scale of the problem. Severity of the problem: *** = severe, ** = moderate, and *=minimum. Scale of the problem: S= small, M=medium and L =large

The Approach for Diagnosis, Implementation and Evaluation

OASIS Hierarchical approach to diagnosis and solutions for land degradation

The Participative Integrated Assessment  Complex and dynamic bio-economic models will be used for realistic assessment  Qualitative participative methods of data collection will be used for primary level data from stake holders  Network approaches to illumine research policy-linkages with an effective combination of semi-structured interviews and discussions will be used