Riparian and stream forests carbon sequestration in the context of high anthropogenic disturbance in Togo

This research was carried out in order to estimate the amount of biomass available in riparian ecosystems of Sudanian areas in northern Togo. It aimed at evaluating the land cover pattern and the productivity of tree biomass. A field survey was carried out in order to sample trees’ diameter (DBH > 10 cm) and height using rectangular sample plots of 500 m2. An allometric equation was used to compute above and below ground biomass. Landsat ETM+ image (193r053p20160327) was then used to map the major land use cover patterns followed by the computation of net primary production (NPP) of green vegetation in buffer areas around rivers and streams. For the total area sampled in riparian landscapes, the total biomass density was estimated as 196.8±1.4 t.ha-1. Tree species such as Daniellia oliveri (32.7 ± 0.58 t.ha-1) contributed a high proportion of the total biomass. Significant trees total biomass was found in the forest (157.8±40.7 kg/ha) and savanna (122.0±21.64 kg/ha) ecosystem. Five major land use cover patterns (forests, savannas, fallows-croplands, sparse vegetation-barren land and wetlands-rivers) were defined. Savannas (304 450±1572.6 ha) and fallows-croplands (65 339±456.3 ha) represent important land use. The NPP for the investigated zone was estimated at 1 249 294 ± 267.0 gCm-2y-1. However, forest (8708.1±243.4 gCm-2y-1) and savanna (3821.0±86.2 gCm-2y-1) accumulate more atmospheric carbon dioxide. The study showed that high important values of total plant biomass were located in forest ecosystems. The research in the current situation could be useful in the framework of UNFCC programs such as REDD+ and NAMA. Key words: Biomass, NPP, carbon sequestration, land cover, riparian ecosystem, Tog

Modelling soil erosion response to sustainable landscape management scenarios in the Mo River Basin (Togo,West Africa)

The rural landscapes in Central Togo are experiencing severe land degradation, including soil erosion. However, spatially distributed information has scarcely been produced to identify the effects of landscape pattern dynamics on ecosystem services, especially the soil erosion control. In addition, relevant information for sustainable land and soil conservation is still lacking at watershed level. On this basis, using the LAndscape Management and Planning Tool for the Mo River basin (LAMPT_Mo), we (1) modelled soil erosion patterns in relation with land use/cover change (LUCC), land protection regime, and landforms, and (2) examined the efficiency of landscape redesign options on soil erosion amounts at basin scale. We found that Simulated historical net soil loss (NSL) for the Mo basin were approximately 26, 23, 27, and 44 t/ha/yr, for 1972, 1987, 2000, and 2014, respectively. These simulated NSLs were higher than the tolerable soil loss limits for the Tropics. Steep slopes (≥ 15°), poorly covered lands (croplands and savannas), and riversides (distances ≤ 100 m) are critical areas of sediment sources. The local appraisal of soil loss was in line with the simulated outputs even though quantification was not accounted for when dealing with rural illiterate people. Furthermore, results showed that the examined management measures, such as controlling the identified erosion hotspots through land protective measures, could help reduce the NSL up to 70%, to values closer to the tolerable limits for the Tropics. The model implementation in the basin showed insights for identifying erosion hotspots and targeting soil conservation planning and landscape restoration measures

Including soil organic carbon into nationally determined contributions: Insights from Ghana

Healthy soils are the foundation of sustainable and regenerative food systems and provide several vital ecosystem services. Sequestering carbon in agricultural soils, for example, can have mutual benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and nutrition security, biodiversity, and water resilience. Despite these benefits, there are few policies that incentivize farmers to invest in maintaining and improving soil health. This policy brief highlights opportunities for the inclusion of soil health and soil organic carbon (SOC) into the National Determined Contributions (NDC) as a key step for governments to support farmers to invest in their soil. This activity builds on recent assessments including a paper that extensively reviewed the first-round of 184 NDCs concluding that only 28 countries referred to SOC, peatlands or wetlands (Weise et al., 2021). This review and the subsequent interviews with experts (n=8) indicated the importance of understanding the impact of land management on SOC storage and dynamics (Weise et al., 2021). As a follow-up, Rose et al (202) focused on the updated NDCs and found that the number of countries that included SOC in their updated NDC increased compared to the first-round NDC process (Rose et al., 2021). This review also highlighted that 19 countries highlighted the need for financing for SOC and related measures (Rose et al., 2021)

Impact evaluation of SLM options to achieve land degradation neutrality in Tunisia: consultant monthly report (March 2017).

This report details mainly the author's professional activities performed with the ICARDA Centre in Amman (Jordan) for the period 1 ' 31 March 2017, under the supervision of Mr. Victor Kimathi (IMMAP, Jordan Office), Dr. Quang Bao Le (Systems- and GIS-based Sustainable Land Management ' SLM, at ICARDA Amman), and Mr. Enrico Bonaiuti (Monitoring Evaluation and Learning ' MEL, ICARDA Amman)

Impact evaluation of SLM options to achieve land degradation neutrality in Tunisia: consultant monthly report (February 2017).

This report details mainly the author's professional activities performed with the ICARDA Centre in Amman (Jordan) for the period 1 ' 28 February 2017, under the supervision of Mr. Victor Kimathi (IMMAP, Jordan Office), Dr. Quang Bao Le (Systems- and GIS-based Sustainable Land Management ' SLM, at ICARDA Amman), and Mr. Enrico Bonaiuti (Monitoring Evaluation and Learning ' MEL, ICARDA Amman)

Land cover changes in Tunisia using MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) MCD12Q1 yearly products.

Land cover is one of the important components of the global geosphere-biosphere-atmosphere continum and equilibrium. Regular information on land cover is necessary for a continuous monitoring of the Earth's ecological balance. This study used the MODIS MCD12Q1 yearly data at 500 m resolution to evaluate the spatio-temporal changes in the national land cover of Tunisia. Land cover maps were generated for two years (2001 and 2013) and evaluated by other existing Global Land Cover data (Globcover, Google Earth) and field collected data sets. The overall evaluation accuracies were 63 % and 78 % for the maps of 2013 and 2001, respectively. Areal distribution analysis showed that barren/sparse vegetation areas were the most important LUC types in Tunisia for both years (68.07 % and 62.43 % in 2001 and 2013, respectively), indicating an area loss. Agricultural areas were of 2279722.04 ha (14.70 %) in 2001 and 2938599.54 ha (18.95 %) in 2013. The proportion of forests increased (more than double) from 0.27 % in 2001 to 0.57 % in 2013. Most important changes showed that the highest gain proportions occurred in the mosaic forest-savanna-grassland (7.22 %) and agricultural areas (5.15 %). Globally, there is a net increase of agricultural lands of about 659250 ha (4.25 % of the national lands) over the period 2001-2013. With the spatial resolution of the MODIS data, and the time window considered, caution should be given to the conclusions derived in this study. Further detailed studies using finer resolution satellite images could give more insights to the real changes occurred in specific land use/cover type at the country level

Global Geo-Informatics Options by Context (GeOC) Brochure (English version).

This is the english version of the GeOC brochure done for participants the workshop "Systems Tool-aided Participatory Development of Sustainable Land Management Scenarios: 2nd Workshop". This activity is under the output activity "User-friendly, interoperable online tool, containing country-specific, accessible knowledge base of standardized, geo-referenced SLM, to enable stakeholders to query SLM options in different context" of the GIZ funded project 'Impact evaluation of SLM options to achieve land degradation neutrality'

Global Geo-Informatics Options by Context (GeOC) International poster (French version).

This is the french version of the international poster done for the workshop "Systems Tool-aided Participatory Development of Sustainable Land Management Scenarios: 2nd Workshop". This activity is under the output activity "User-friendly, interoperable online tool, containing country-specific, accessible knowledge base of standardized, geo-referenced SLM, to enable stakeholders to query SLM options in different context" of the GIZ funded project 'Impact evaluation of SLM options to achieve land degradation neutrality'

Global Geo-Informatics Options by Context (GeOC) National Poster (French version).

This is the french version of the national poster done for the workshop "Systems Tool-aided Participatory Development of Sustainable Land Management Scenarios: 2nd Workshop". This activity is under the output activity "User-friendly, interoperable online tool, containing country-specific, accessible knowledge base of standardized, geo-referenced SLM, to enable stakeholders to query SLM options in different context" of the GIZ funded project 'Impact evaluation of SLM options to achieve land degradation neutrality'

Global Geo-Informatics Options by Context (GeOC) Brochure (French version).

This is the French version of the GeOC brochure done for participants presentation for the workshop "Systems Tool-aided Participatory Development of Sustainable Land Management Scenarios: 2nd Workshop". This activity is under the output activity "User-friendly, interoperable online tool, containing country-specific, accessible knowledge base of standardized, geo-referenced SLM, to enable stakeholders to query SLM options in different context" of the GIZ funded project 'Impact evaluation of SLM options to achieve land degradation neutrality'