Review article: Inferring permafrost and permafrost thaw in the mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalaya region

The cryosphere reacts sensitively to climate change, as evidenced by the widespread retreat of mountain glaciers. Subsurface ice contained in permafrost is similarly affected by climate change, causing persistent impacts on natural and human systems. In contrast to glaciers, permafrost is not observable spatially and therefore its presence and possible changes are frequently overlooked. Correspondingly, little is known about permafrost in the mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, despite permafrost area exceeding that of glaciers in nearly all countries. Based on evidence and insight gained mostly in other permafrost areas globally, this review provides a synopsis on what is known or can be inferred about permafrost in the mountains of the HKH region. Given the extreme nature of the environment concerned, it is to be expected that the diversity of conditions and phenomena encountered in permafrost exceed what has previously been described and investigated. We further argue that climate change in concert with increasing development will bring about diverse permafrost-related impacts on vegetation, water quality, geohazards, and livelihoods. To better anticipate and mitigate these effects, a deepened understanding of high-elevation permafrost in subtropical latitudes as well as the pathways interconnecting environmental changes and human livelihoods are needed

Contribution of community-based initiatives to the sustainable development goal of Land Degradation Neutrality

Where poor people rely on land that is degraded or vulnerable to degradation, they are at high risk of being locked into a downward spiral of poverty. It is estimated that over 1.5 billion people are affected by land degradation (UNCCD, 2014). The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) and Both ENDS and their networks of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), promote sustainable land management (SLM) as a necessary shift from degrading the land to sustainable use and restoration. However, many SLM initiatives started by communities remain below the radar of policy makers and government institutions and therefore, being unrecognised for what they are, do not get institutional support, i.e. an enabling policy environment, economic incentives, and the technical support that they need to develop and be adopted by others. This paper analyses the contribution of community-based initiatives to SDG15.3: Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), and the three LDN indicators: land cover, land productivity and carbon stocks. In addition, enabling conditions for community-based initiatives to contribute to the implementation of LDN are identified and discussed. The contribution of community-based SLM initiatives to LDN will be illustrated by the SLM practices documented in WOCAT’s global database and by the example of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). It is concluded that community-based SLM initiatives can make a relevant contribution to addressing land degradation and achieving LDN, particularly so by improving land productivity and carbon stocks, and to some extent and in the case of FMNR, vegetation cover also. Creating enabling conditions for community-based initiatives to develop include: knowledge development by scientists, local communities and policy makers, inclusive land governance (land tenure security, strengthening institutions and the recognition of local knowledge), and access to technical and financial resources

Synergizing global tools to monitor progress towards land degradation neutrality: Trends.Earth and the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies sustainable land management database

As part of the Sustainable Development Goals, countries are striving to achieve by 2030 a land degradation neutral world. Land degradation neutrality (LDN) is the state whereby the amount and quality of land resources remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales. Achieving this will require the uptake of sustainable land management (SLM) practices to increase the sustainable provision of ecosystem goods and services the human population will require. It will also require the development of systematic, robust, and validated methods for tracking progress at project, subnational and national scales. However, to date, no systematic comparison between the SLM practices and the indicators proposed for monitoring LDN has been performed. In this article, we used the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification primary recommended global sustainable land management database of World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), and an innovative tool designed to assess and monitor land condition via changes in land productivity, Trends.Earth, to evaluate the agreement between self-reported sustainable land management technologies and indicators derived from satellite-based earth observations. We found that a combination of two primary productivity indicators derived from annual integrals of normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI), trajectory and state, were able to identify increases in primary productivity in the locations where the SLM practices are implemented in comparison to control sites where SLM practices are not known to have occurred. Moreover, different SLM practices showed unique responses in terms of proportional area which experienced increase, decrease, or remained stable terms of primary productivity. We also found that the time since establishment of the SLM technology was critical for identifying improvements in the SLM sites, as only technologies with more than 10 years since implementation show statistically significant improvements. Our results show that satellite-derived land productivity indicators are successful at detecting the impacts of SLM practices on primary productivity, positioning them as essential elements of the monitoring and assessment tools needed to track land condition to assure the achievement of a land degradation neutral world

Achieving land degradation neutrality : The role of SLM knowledge in evidence-based decision-making

WOCAT – The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies with its unique methodology and global Sustainable Land Management (SLM) database - can help promote scaling out of SLM and thus contribute to land degradation neutrality. This paper focuses primarily on three Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) indicators: (i) land cover, (ii) land productivity and (iii) carbon stocks. It is demonstrated what can be achieved by analyzing SLM practices in the database and how these shed light on the LDN indicators. Different stages of interventions - from prevention (avoiding), to reduction (reducing), and restoration (reversing) of Land Degradation (LD) - are differentiated and analyzed. This highlights the fact that most efforts and achievements recorded by WOCAT focus on reducing and preventing LD: that stands in contrast to the current emphasis by many policy makers on the much more costly task of restoration. The use of the WOCAT-LADA (Land Degradation Assessment) mapping approach is illustrated, with a case study from Madagascar. Understanding and integrating mosaic pieces at the local level can help in comprehending impacts at the national and global levels as observed by remotely sensed imagery. Supporting land users with financial resources, an enabling legal framework and, in particular with knowledge and information about SLM practices is a logical and promising way forward to promoting adoption of SLM and, eventually, reaching LDN. With respect to creating an enabling environment for scaling out SLM and supporting land users, the analysis reveals that knowledge is the second greatest constraint after financial resources. This implies that further investment must be made in capacity building and sharing knowledge on impacts of SLM, costs-benefits and the spatial spread of SLM. Furthermore, this knowledge should be linked to a clear SLM mainstreaming and scaling out strategy, which will support countries to reach their LDN targets. A decision support framework was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WOCAT which guides countries in LD and SLM assessments, and the use of the results for formulating and informing SLM mainstreaming and scaling out.</p

Achieving land degradation neutrality : The role of SLM knowledge in evidence-based decision-making

WOCAT – The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies with its unique methodology and global Sustainable Land Management (SLM) database - can help promote scaling out of SLM and thus contribute to land degradation neutrality. This paper focuses primarily on three Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) indicators: (i) land cover, (ii) land productivity and (iii) carbon stocks. It is demonstrated what can be achieved by analyzing SLM practices in the database and how these shed light on the LDN indicators. Different stages of interventions - from prevention (avoiding), to reduction (reducing), and restoration (reversing) of Land Degradation (LD) - are differentiated and analyzed. This highlights the fact that most efforts and achievements recorded by WOCAT focus on reducing and preventing LD: that stands in contrast to the current emphasis by many policy makers on the much more costly task of restoration. The use of the WOCAT-LADA (Land Degradation Assessment) mapping approach is illustrated, with a case study from Madagascar. Understanding and integrating mosaic pieces at the local level can help in comprehending impacts at the national and global levels as observed by remotely sensed imagery. Supporting land users with financial resources, an enabling legal framework and, in particular with knowledge and information about SLM practices is a logical and promising way forward to promoting adoption of SLM and, eventually, reaching LDN. With respect to creating an enabling environment for scaling out SLM and supporting land users, the analysis reveals that knowledge is the second greatest constraint after financial resources. This implies that further investment must be made in capacity building and sharing knowledge on impacts of SLM, costs-benefits and the spatial spread of SLM. Furthermore, this knowledge should be linked to a clear SLM mainstreaming and scaling out strategy, which will support countries to reach their LDN targets. A decision support framework was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WOCAT which guides countries in LD and SLM assessments, and the use of the results for formulating and informing SLM mainstreaming and scaling out.</p

Management of water and agroecosystems in landscapes for sustainable food security.

Various food and financial crises have increased the pressure on natural resources while expanding on alternative ways of considering agroecosystems as potential long-term providers of ecosystem services if managed in a sustainable and equitable way. Through the study of interrelations between ecosystems, water and food security, this book has aimed to increase the understanding and knowledge of these interactions for better planning and decision making processes at various levels. This chapter concludes Managing Water and Agroecosystems for Food Security. It discusses the main findings of the preceding chapters, from analyses of drivers of sustainable food security, via agroecosystems with their ecosystem services and challenges for water use and scarcity, to specific challenges for environments such as drylands and wetlands. Using a comprehensive landscape approach, recommendations on water productivity, agroecosystem services and integrated water management are brought together succinctly. In addition, knowledge gaps and issues for further research have been identified that may support further implementation of the agroecological approach in many landscapes around the world

Report of the work of the expert group on maintaining the ability of biodiversity to continue to support the water cycle

rapport d'expertise pour l'UNEP (Programme des Nations Unies sur l'Environnement)The work of the expert group was based on peer-reviewed scientific or technical literature, supplemented by peer-reviewed examples of practice. Section II provides an overview of the processes that underpin ecosystem functions in relation to hydrology, and how these support the delivery of ecosystem services. Specific examples of these relationships, and how they can be managed in practice, are elaborated for agricultural systems and cities in section III . Social and economic aspects of this topic are largely self-evident and briefly discussed in section IV. Section V discusses the recent international policy landscape, highlighting the profile of this topic in the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20). It also discusses some institutional constraints to managing the biodiversity-water cycle relationship and identifies simple ways of enabling more rapid uptake of biodiversity-based solutions to water-related problems. Section VI identifies the immediate opportunity available to the Conference of the Parties to strengthen cooperation and partnerships on this subject as a means to enhance implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (2011-2020)