Desire for Greener Land

No. of case studies
Improved harvesting / collection of water
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Cropping
management
Water
management
Cross-slope
barriers
Grazing land
management
SLM technology groups
no
little
medium
high
(aridification, decline in surface water), reveals that this
problem was best tackled with the Jessour technology of
Tunisia. However, the other water management technologies
also seem to adequately mitigate this major problem.
It is also remarkable that many of the technologies have a
positive impact on water availability in one way or another
(water harvesting, soil moisture increase, reduced runoff,
etc.). This confirms that even in cases where water decrease
was not specifically reported as a degradation problem,
increased water availability on the surface or in the soil is a
desired and achieved impact.
Increased water quality and reduced salinity, rather than
improved water quantity, was an impact of the water
management technology in Nestos, Greece (transport of
freshwater from local streams), as the major problem at this
study site was the salinization of irrigation water. The Nestos
example is also one of the seven technologies that report an
impact on groundwater availability. The recharge of groundwater
table / aquifer was mainly an issue for the water management
technologies, where a small to medium increase
was assessed for four technologies in Greece, Spain and
Tunisia, and a high increase for the Recharge Well of Tunisia
due to its specific target on this. Two forest management
technologies also found a recharge of groundwater, namely
afforestation in Cape Verde (medium) and the assisted cork
oak regeneration in Morocco (little).
Forest
management
DESIRE - WOCAT 2012
Figure 21: Improved harvesting / collection of water across
the SLM technology groups.
Soil issues
Soil erosion by water or wind is one of the most common
degradation problems mentioned within the DESIRE project.
Figure 22 shows that most technologies do indeed manage
to decrease soil loss. And even those for which it was not
identified as a problem report reduced soil loss, especially
in the groups of grazing and cropping management technologies.
Once again, these mainly concern the crop rotation
examples and less the no / minimum tillage technologies.
This means, that crop rotation is preventing soil loss
even where it was not considered a problem. On the other
hand, there are three technologies for which soil erosion
was mentioned as a degradation problem, but for which no
reduction in soil loss was measured after the application of
the technology. This concerns Gully Treatment with Fodder
Shrubs in Morocco and Woven Wood Fences in Turkey. These
technologies were installed only very recently and a soil loss
reduction will probably only be measurable after some time.
no soil erosion, but reduced
soil loss
no soil erosion - no impact
no impact
medium impact on soil
loss reduction
high impact on soil loss
reduction
Organic matter and soil fertility decrease was only indicated
as a degradation problem in those sites where a cropping
management technology was applied. None of the other
sites seem to suffer from this problem. This could be because
it is not deemed as relevant in these locations. Looking at
the impact assessed after implementation, increased soil
52 DESIRE – WOCAT Desire for Greener Land
No. of case studies
Reduced soil loss where soil erosion indicated as degradation problem
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Cropping
management
Water
management
Cross-slope
barriers
Grazing land
management
SLM technology groups
Forest
management
DESIRE - WOCAT 2012
Figure 22: Reduced soil loss where soil erosion was indicated
as a degradation problem.
Portugal, Gudrun Schwilch Turkey, Felicitas Bachmann