WOCAT Questionnaire for Mapping Land Degradation and Sustainable Land Management

Editor's Notes

• #9: A Mapping Unit consists of a LUS within a Municipality e.g. the pink coloured area called Savanna (LUS) in Ratlou municipality (administrative unit) (example from South Africa). Each LUS within an administrative unit constitutes a unique mapping unit (see Figure 2) for which information on degradation and conservation should be provided in the matrix tables (one table per mapping unit, see Q2-3). Note that each mapping unit has one clearly defined LUS, but the same LUS may occur in other administrative1 units and hence form additional mapping units.
• #11: Data collection, harmonization and quality assurance should be done in a team of specialists. National specialists involved in this exercise should cover an array of subjects related to land degradation, land management, land use and soil and water conservation in the country.
• #13: a) Area trend of the LUS (Direct driver2) Changes in land use area may be an important factor in soil degradation assessment and evaluation of conservation activities. Note that if the area for one or several LUS is increasing, this will be at the expense of one or several other LUS, which should show a decreasing area trend. Consider the increase or decrease in area over approximately the past 10 years. The changes in area extent of the LUS are represented by the following five classes: 2: area coverage is rapidly increasing in size; i.e. > 10% of the LUS area/10 years 1: area coverage is slowly increasing in size, i.e. < 10% of the LUS area/10 years 0: area coverage remains stable -1: area coverage is slowly decreasing in size, i.e. < 10% of the LUS area/10 years -2: area coverage is rapidly decreasing in size, i.e. > 10% of that specific LUS area/10 years b) Land use intensity trends (Direct driver) A change in the intensity of land use is another significant trend with respect to land degradation and conservation. It is expressed through changes in inputs, management, or number of harvests in crop based systems, the introduction of rotational grazing and fencing for instance in grazing lands or the introduction of paved roads in urban systems. The estimate required is to cover the period of approximately the last 10 years. Only changes within the same land use system are to be considered here - not changes from one land use system to another! 2: Major increase: e.g. from manual labour to mechanisation, from low external inputs to high external inputs, etc. 1: Moderate increase, e.g. a switch from no or low external inputs to some fertilizers/pesticides; switch from manual labour to animal traction. 0: No major changes in inputs, management level, etc. -1: A moderate decrease in land use intensity, e.g. a slight reduction of external inputs. -2: A major decrease in land use intensity, e.g. from mechanisation to manual labour, or a large reduction of external inputs.
• #16: Soil Degradation: => Vorlesung K. Herweg
• #17: Früher nur Vegetation aber mehr Wasser: mussten wir in WOCAT kategorisieren und definieren (momentaner Stand!)
• #21: Früher nur Vegetation aber mehr Wasser: mussten wir in WOCAT kategorisieren und definieren (momentaner Stand!)
• #25: In the case of different degradation types affecting the same area within a LUS, these can be indicated as overlapping up to a maximum of three types per overlap (indicated as i, ii, iii horizontally in example of Table 2: Ha, Pc). The other attributes such as extent, degree etc. should be indicated for the overlap as a whole, not for the individual constituting types. Degradation types occurring in different areas of the LUS should be listed vertically. See example of Table 2: Ha/Pc as first (overlapping) type occurring in one area of the LUS, Bs as second type occurring in another area of the LUS (see also Figure 3).
• #26: Repetition to Karl but with nice pictures and explanantions: This you should remember!!! And combinations All local water (and land management) options: great importance is the green water