provides guidance on the application of environmental economics, and specifically the analysis and valuation of ecosystem services, to analyze the costs of land degradation and the benefits of sustainable land management. The Toolkit is intended to assist technicians and decision makers in their analysis of land degradation and land management policy options. The Toolkit has been prepared in pa...

Despite the apparent abundance of land, agricultural land with a dependable growing period represents a fraction of the total land area in Ethiopia. Moreover, land degradation is extensive and severe, particularly in the highlands above 1500 meters above sea level, which account for about 40 percent of the total land area but home for 90 percent of the total population and 70 percent of livesto...

Demands are increasing for scientific research to be explicitly and demonstrably policy relevant. Research funders are requiring greater returns on their investments and scientists are expected to demonstrate clearly how their research can inform policy and regulation to deliver positive consequences for societal, economic and environmental wellbeing. Within the co-evolving context of environme...

The assessment of land degradation and the quantification of its effects on land productivity have been both a scientific and political challenge. After four decades of Earth Observation (EO) applications, little agreement has been gained on the magnitude and direction of land degradation in the Sahel. The large number of EO datasets and methods associated with the complex interactions among bi...

Urban water systems are impacted by land use within their source watersheds, as it affects raw water quality and thus the costs of water treatment. However, global estimates of the effect of land cover change on urban water-treatment costs have been hampered by a lack of global information on urban source watersheds. Here, we use a unique map of the urban source watersheds for 309 large cities ...

Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) is the most prominent cause of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) variability in any landscape. Kenyan Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) have been facing extensive land use/ cover changes in the last three decades prompting a review on the impacts it has on soil quality and consequently on land degradation. This study was carried out in 2016 in Olesharo Catchment, N...

Attempts to alleviate land degradation and water scarcity in arid/semi-arid regions of India have historically been carried out within the ambit of government schemes implemented disparately by concerned departments. These sectoral methods are being increasingly replaced by a watershed-based approach in which local communities are encouraged to assume ownership of development programs, albeit w...