The Economics of Desertification, Land Degradation, and Drought

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In the present report, the conceptually covered ecosystems (and the services and benefits they provide to humans) include all terrestrial ecosystems, including anthropogenic ecosystems—that is, ecosystems that are heavily influenced by people (Ellis and Ramankutty 2008). These anthropogenic ecosystems include agroecosystems, planted forests, rangelands, urbanization, and so on. Meanwhile, a majority of the literature investigating the impacts of DLDD, its costs, and mitigation does so within the realm of agroecosystems. This fact is, of course, reflected in the outputs of this report. Nonetheless, agroecosystems (defined as spatially and functionally coherent units of agricultural activity) are strongly linked to conventional ecosystems, or those ecosystems with minimum or no human influence. The link between anthropogenic and conventional ecosystems is through the provision of certain ecosystem functions, such as support and regulation services (for example, nutrient cycling, climate regulation, and water purification). Hence, to also assess these impacts, DLDD and its costs should be assessed across all terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in terrestrial ecosystems are used to define land degradation or land improvement. Thus, we start by discussing the terrestrial ecosystems and how they are treated in this study. Terrestrial Ecosystem Services Recognizing that the term land refers not only to soil, the UNCCD (1996) defines land as “the terrestrial bioproductive system that comprises soil, vegetation, other biota, and the ecological and hydrological processes that operate within the system” (Part 1, Article 1e). Land as an ecosystem provides ecosystem services that have been defined by Costanza et al. (1997) and “represent the benefits human populations derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystem functions” (253). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) links ecosystem services to human welfare and concludes that degradation of ecosystems reduces human welfare. Ecosystem services are categorized into supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural services (see Box 1.1). Box 1.1—Ecosystem services � Supporting services: Services that maintain the conditions of life on Earth—soil development (conservation/formation), primary production, nutrient cycling � Regulating services: Benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes—water regulation, pollination/seeds, climate regulation (local and global) � Provisioning services: Goods provided—food, fiber, forage, fuelwood, biochemicals, fresh water � Cultural services: Nonmaterial benefits obtained from the ecosystem—recreation, landscapes, heritage, aesthetic Source: MA 2005b. The concept developed by MA (2005b) was instrumental in illustrating the importance of ecosystem services to human well-being. DLDD can be assessed as a loss in ecosystem services provided and in the resulting lost benefits to humans. The concept of ecosystem services, however, is not perfectly suitable for framing the economic valuation of land resources, as pointed out by various studies (Boyd and Banzhaf 2007; Wallace 2007; Fisher, Turner, and Morling 2009). Therefore, we will also draw from the concept of on- and off-site effects, which has been widely used in literature related to land degradation and which provides a coherent framework for economic valuation of the costs arising from the different effects. A comprehensive coverage of the issue of DLDD must address its impacts on the entire range of ecosystem services and their benefits to human well-being. Starting with the various services offered by agroecosystems is only one step in that direction, as drylands. 2
• other ecosystems offer benefits to humans that clearly cannot be neglected (see TEEB reports for illustrations); and • dynamic interactions between the costs of DLDD and the opportunity costs of changes in land use—that is, changing the nature of ecosystems and, therefore, of the services and benefits provided for humans—should be considered. As stated in the objective that follows, this study will review the current knowledge and the state of the art of analytical approaches to DLDD; will propose a pragmatic approach for assessing DLDD; and will describe the nature of the partnership required to implement a global E-DLDD study. Objectives The objectives of this report are as follows: 1. To assess the current knowledge and the state of the art of analytical approaches to DLDD and to identify knowledge gaps; the discussion focuses on − the causes and driving forces of DLDD; − the effects of DLDD on land productivity, including changes in the provision of terrestrial ecosystem services; − the social and economic costs of DLDD; and − the costs and benefits of enhancing land productivity and (re-) establishing ecosystem services. 2. To propose a methodology for an integrated evaluation of the aforementioned costs based on DLDD assessments at global, regional, and local levels. 3. To describe the nature of the partnerships required for regional and global assessments and to recommend potential partners. The outputs are as follows: 1. A wide range of state-of-the-art knowledge in the area of the economic costs of land degradation and sustainable land use, building, in particular, on the existing literature on the valuation of DLDD and its effects vis-à-vis the valuation of sustainable land management. The primary interest is in the comparison of cost of action versus cost of inaction. 2. A review of the available methodologies for assessing the social and economic costs of DLDD, with recommendations for selecting a methodology for choosing representative case studies whose results could be extrapolated to comparable sites in order to obtain an estimate of the global cost of DLDD and the global benefits of preventing or mitigating DLDD. 3. Requirements and advice on the methodology for carrying out representative case study assessments and the global study, as well as a consideration of the nature and type of partners and partnerships needed. Conceptual Framework This report first seeks to assess the existing knowledge and the state of the art of analytical approaches to DLDD, as well as the costs of DLDD, and to identify knowledge gaps in this regard. Second, the report proposes a methodology for prioritizing across possible geographic areas of intervention. The approach we recommend is based on an assessment of the costs of investing in the effective prevention and mitigation of DLDD against the costs of the loss in terrestrial ecosystem services and the benefits those services would deliver to human beings—that is, the cost of action versus inaction. Finally, this report reviews and advises on the methods that attempt to identify activities and areas in which investments would have the highest expected returns. 3
Page 1 and 2: IFPRI Discussion Paper 01086 May 20
Page 3 and 4: Contents Abstract vii Acknowledgmen
Page 5 and 6: List of Figures 1.1—Conceptual fr
Page 7 and 8: ABSTRACT Attention to land degradat
Page 9 and 10: ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ADB Asia
Page 11: SCAR Soil Conservation in Agricultu
Page 16 and 17: Framework: Confronting Action versu
Page 18 and 19: understand these arrangements in or
Page 20 and 21: Figure 1.3—Prevention, mitigation
Page 22 and 23: on assessments at the micro level (
Page 24 and 25: does not clearly distinguish betwee
Page 26 and 27: Figure 2.1—GLASOD (1991) global a
Page 28 and 29: International Earth Science Informa
Page 30 and 31: Box 2.1—Continued Normalized Diff
Page 32 and 33: Figure 2.4—Loss of annual NPP, GL
Page 34 and 35: Figure 2.7—Annual loss of NPP in
Page 36 and 37: Table 2.2—Nitrogen application ra
Page 38 and 39: Figure 2.12—Areas affected by hum
Page 40 and 41: output—which is a selection of su
Page 42 and 43: GLADIS also underlines the linkage
Page 44 and 45: Box 2.2—Continued A map on global
Page 46 and 47: Table 2.3—Global land degradation
Page 48 and 49: Table 2.3—Continued Project and d
Page 50 and 51: Table 2.4—Continued Location 10 2
Page 52 and 53: Table 2.6—Extent and severity of
Page 54 and 55: National Level Policies As discusse
Page 56 and 57: Such support has also been directed
Page 58 and 59: Migration, either as outmigration o
Page 60 and 61: The preceding discussion shows the
Page 62 and 63: Results Correlation Analysis Consis
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Figure 2.23—Relationship between
Page 66 and 67:
Effects of Land Degradation On-Site
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soils and higher land productivity.
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Acknowledging the work of GLADIS, a
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health, education, security, enviro
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Box 3.1—Recent major economic ass
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An appropriate economic tool for a
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Figure 3.4—Cost of action and cos
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enefit—for example, income. This
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Figure 3.6—Ecosystem services fra
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Replacement Cost Approaches The rep
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Box 3.2—Measuring land degradatio
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land degradation and conservation m
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Flooding and Aquifer Recharge Richa
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year (Diao and Sarpong 2007). Sonne
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Bringing together the different cos
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This section discusses the most imp
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governing land use patterns (Leeman
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promotion of community forest manag
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Box 4.3—Reducing emissions from d
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Soil Nutrient Depletion Soil nutrie
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that the yields of salt-tolerant wh
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Figure 5.3—Forest area as a perce
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Figure 5.5—Per capita water stora
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Introduction 6. CASE STUDIES Five c
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Salinity The effects of salinity on
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Third, to correctly decide which ac
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Costs of Action and Inaction We eva
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The NGOs and religious organization
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have a strong influence on NRM (And
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We estimated the cost of action (de
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Figure 6.15—Costs of action and i
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Of interest to us is the strategy t
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7. PARTNERSHIP CONCEPT The review o
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degradation. All this should be don
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Finally, the global assessment of D
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the experience of and lessons learn
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Table 7.3—Example of E-DLDD resea
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8. CONCLUSIONS Since the publicatio
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lowest in the region. From a socioe
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Table A.1—Land degradation assess
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Table A.2—Continued Author Region
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Table A.3—Continued Author Countr
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Page 152 and 153:
Page 154 and 155:
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Table A.5—Costs of land degradati
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Figure B.1—Land use systems of th
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REFERENCES Abelson, P. 1979. Cost B
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Benin S., E. Nkonya, G. Okecho, J.
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Clark, E. H. 1985. The Off-Site Cos
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De Jager a., D. Onduru and C. Walag
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Foster, V., and C. Briceño-Garmend
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Holden, S. and H. Lofgren. 2005. As
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Lapar, M. L., and S. Pandey. 1999.
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Nachtergaele, F., M. Petri, R. Bian
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Pender, J. L. 2009. “Food Crisis
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Sauer, J., and H. Tchale. 2006. Alt
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Tan, Z. X., R. Lal, and K. D. Wiebe
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———. 2010. “Assessment of L
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