View/download the WOCAT newsletter as pdf: WOCATEER07 (218 KB)

THE WOCATEER (No. 7- Summer 2003)
(WOCAT Newsletter)

The WOCAT Newsletter is distributed by Email to those who are subscribed to the WOCAT-L mailing list (or as hard copy to those without Email). You can check whether your address data are correct by opening the on-line Address Database. If they are not, or missing altogether, or if you wish to be removed from the WOCAT Address database, please inform the WOCAT Secretariat!
Please inform us of any changes in your Email address! About 20% of every mailing is returned with an error message because of invalid Email addresses or full mailboxes!
The WOCAT Newsletter is distributed only in English for the time being, but Websites like http://babelfish.altavista.com/ or http://www.google.com/ language_tools offer fairly good translation facilities. The result is not perfect but quite understandable.

8th WOCAT Workshop and Steering Meeting (WWSM)
28/10 - 3/11 2003, Kathmandu, Nepal

Since 1996, WOCAT has organized seven Annual Workshops and Steering Meetings (known as WWSM) with the goal (a) to bring together the main collaborating and funding institutions and the core collaborators, (b) to assess the progress and to exchange experiences, (c) to further develop the programme and (d) to plan for the future.

The 8th Annual WOCAT Workshop and Steering Meeting will take place from October 28 till (and including) November 3, 2003. According to the decision of the previous WWSM in Rome, 2002 the meeting was to be held in China, but due to the recent SARS problems we had started the process to cancel the meeting in China and move it to another location. Although the SARS situation has by now sufficiently improved, too many steps have unfortunately been taken to turn back this decision and our Chinese hosts understandably prefer to postpone hosting the meeting till next year - depending on approval by the WWSM. We of course regret but understand and respect this decision (taken initially at our instigation and beyond anyone's fault). The meeting will now be hosted by ICIMOD in Nepal, which has made this offer this since several years. We are very grateful to ICIMOD for offering a venue at least as grandiose as the Chinese venue would have been.

Invited for this meeting are those involved in the coordination of WOCAT activities at the global, regional or national level, and/or involved in any of the WOCAT Task Forces. Availability of sponsorship to participants for this meeting is very limited and we do urge participants to find their own funding sources.

The following topics for discussion are being suggested:
Topic 1: Progress reports '02-'03: Global and Task Forces; Regional and national initiatives.
Topic 2: Quality assurance & Use of WOCAT, enhancement of data collection and outputs
Topic 3: CD-ROM v.3 and digital products
Topic 4: World map
Topic 5: Task Forces operation
Topic 6: Planning next year / phase

A formal announcement and registration form will be distributed in August among active WOCATeers.

News from regional and national initiatives:

From several institutions information was received about their national or regional WOCAT initiatives. Many thanks to the contributors! The WOCAT Newsletter needs such contributions, which also strengthen the WOCAT Network. We know that more is going on than what is reported here and we therefore encourage everyone to keep us more or less up to date of progress or problems, even very briefly.

Ethiopia (Daniel Danano)

Updating of the existing information is underway in 3 of the regions:

1. In Oromyia Region questionnaires for 9 QTs and 5 QAs have been completed.
2. In the Southern Region 4 QTs and 3 QAs are completed and a workshop will be held (23rd - 25th June 2003) at Soddo for technicians participating in the completion of questionnaires. It is expected that more 4 QTs and 2 QAs will be completed by the technicians after the workshop.
3. The collection of data for completing the questionnaires of about 3 QTs and 2 QAs is underway for Tigray region.

HKH region (Godert van Lynden)

Since several years plans have existed to start a WOCAT initiative in the Himalaya -Hindu Kush (HKH) region with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal as a coordinating institution. During the annual WOCAT workshop in Rome in November 2002 Roger White, coordinator of the PARDYP initiative at ICIMOD had again expressed ICIMODs interest to participate and he also mentioned that WOCAT activities had been included in the third phase of PARDYP. A DFID-funded Symposium on Renewable Natural Resources Management for the Hindu-Kush/ Himalayas organised by ICIMOD in February/March was attended by Hanspeter Liniger and Godert van Lynden. This was a good opportunity to organise a first introductory workshop on WOCAT for selected participants from the symposium. The workshop was attended by representatives from Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan.

The HIMCAT group (Photo H.P. Liniger)

The meeting closed with an agreement to test the methodology in the next half year and to appoint a HIMCAT coordinator at ICIMOD in the person of Dr. Sanjeev Bhuchar, from the G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment & Development in Dehradun, India.

Click here for a full report on the symposium, associated workshop/ fieldtrip and the WOCAT workshop in Kathmandu.

Indian participants doing group work (Photo H.P. Liniger)

After the introductory workshop in March, activities were started in several countries. The delegate from Bangladesh for instance, Dr. Sudibya Khisha, convened a consultative meeting of SWC experts from Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) for two days, following the guidelines for Getting Started with WOCAT. A group-exercise was carried out on the Questionnaires. All participants enjoyed the CD and the exercise. All were committed to work on documenting the SWC technologies and approaches. Each of the participants shared the responsibilities with enthusiasm. A work-plan and a budget were also prepared. Six SWC technologies being widely used in CHT were identified out of which two technologies will be documented for the moment. Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB) and Dr. Khisha will have to take the lead as agreed by all participants. A team is currently working on filling the questionnaires as an exercise. Base maps have been prepared. A budget proposal will be submitted to the next Board meeting of the CHTDB. A GIS team member for digitizing maps is still being sought. A training programme could be held in September or October.

In Nepal, WOCAT will be used at PARDYP sites in the Jikhu Khola and Yarsha Khola watersheds. These first experiences will be evaluated during the regional workshop/training that will take place in Nepal directly after the WWSM8, which will also be held in Kathmandu (see above).

China (Niu Zhiming)

In March this year, Dr. Niu Zhiming, a WOCAT Management Group member who represents, was invited by Dr. Malcolm Douglas, development consultant, to give an introduction of WOCAT to officials at the China National Center on Combating Desertification (CCCD), with a discussion on the development of partnership in WOCAT nationwide.

The WOCAT team of China was recently invited to give a presentation at a LADA (Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands) Project workshop in Yanchi, Ningxia Province in the northwestern part of the country that has seriously suffered from desertification. Ms. Nie Bijuan, from the Fujian SWC office, participated in the team and demonstrated the WOCAT questionnaires in Chinese language for documenting SWC through WOCAT methods. The participants expressed great interest in this tool and actively discussed the potential of using WOCAT in LADA for desertification assessments.

China had offered to host this year's Annual Workshop and Steering Meeting (WWSM) but unfortunately the SARS problems impeded this (see above). Hopefully WOCAT will be able to have its next year's annual meeting in China.

South Africa (Rinda van der Merwe)

After the Annual workshop and Steering Meeting in Italy, 2002, our priority was to work through all questionnaires already in the database and decide which should be included in the new WOCAT CD-ROM (v. 3). The Images database was updated and new images included. All this data was sent to Berne. At present we are busy putting an Info-book together, using data from the 4-page summaries and appropriate figures. South Africa is also planning a one-day seminar in a couple of months time, where we want to inform all stakeholders of the progress of WOCAT in South Africa up till now, and also incorporating WOCAT in our LandCare initiative. WOCAT will be available on our AGIS - webpage in the near future and a link to WOCAT will be available not later than the end of June 2003 on the Agricultural Research Council site.

India (David Gandhi, Gudrun Schwilch)

After the introductory workshop in Ratlam, Madya Pradesh, in April 2002, a follow-up workshop-cum-training was organised in October, again in Ratlam. Significant achievements have been made in a relatively short time and some first case studies were already added to the Technology and Approach databases. A report on the two workshops and on the pilot application of WOCAT in Madya Pradesh has been prepared and is available on the WOCAT Website. In February 03, an additional WOCAT exercise was conducted in Tamil Nadu (within the Danida Watershed Development Programme). As a result, two technologies (agroforestry and shelterbelt) were documented using the WOCAT questionnaires. Other institutions showed interest in a collaboration with WOCAT, e.g. TERI, Peermade Development Society, Integrated Rural Development Organization (IRDO).

Regional training course in Kyrgyzstan 17-28 March 2003 (Hanspeter Liniger)

Within the programme of the "National Centre of Competence in Research North - South (NCCR): Research Partnerships for Mitigating Syndromes of Global Change" a regional training course has been carried out for the Individual Project 2 on Natural Resources and Ecology.

20 graduate and postgraduate students from the 3 Central Asian countries Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have been trained in field methods and research methodologies. In this context the WOCAT methodology was presented and used during field days. Soil degradation is a major issue for Central Asian countries, be it soil erosion by water and wind or degradation through salinisation. On the other hand conservation efforts have been made and experiences gained to various degrees depending on the countries and regions. However, there are no recent assessments of the state of land, the impact of land use and land conservation practices on the natural resources, nor on their economic and social consequences.

NCCR researchers using the WOCAT mapping methodology to assess degradation (in the background) and conservation (Photo H.P. Liniger)

For the assessment of land degradation, and the assessment of conservation, the WOCAT mapping tool was extensively tested. First, there were some reservations to use assessment criteria with qualitative categories for the different aspects like extent, degree of degradation and effectiveness of conservation. However, the group work showed that this method is useful for the assessment in the field and thus was appreciated. This also provided a good opportunity for WOCAT to test the mapping tool. In follow-up activities, this qualitative assessment will be complemented by well-selected measurements of key indicators for land degradation and conservation. The use of remote sensing and the use of Fallout Radionuclides (FRN) (see report about the IAEA meeting in Vienna in this newsletter) as well as the selection of sampling spots and detailed study sites, poses a key challenge to research. Several studies will address the impact of land use and conservation practices on water, soil and vegetation resources in that region. The involvement of the coordinator of WOCAT in this NCCR programme offers good opportunities but also challenges for testing and further developing the WOCAT training tools in education, and for enhancing research. This research is related to key knowledge gaps, which have been identified through WOCAT. WOCAT will assist in the dissemination of research findings through the network.

The NCCR Website offers general information on this programme or more details on the above.

Kazakhstan (Aigul Zhanserikova, Irina Skorinseva)

A highlight for the Kazakh WOCAT team was the visit of Hanspeter Liniger to Kazakhstan from 23 till 26 March. The WOCAT team is formed by Dr. Irina Skorintseva, Institute of geography of Ministry of science of Republic of Kazakhstan, Professor Ilya Alimaev, pasture control specialist, professor V.H.Myhamedzhanov, water facilities specialist, and professor A.K. Kereev, specialist on arable lands.

Activities during Hanspeter's mission were
o Visit to the centre of mechanization, show of described technology.
o Visit to Institute of Agriculture. o Visit to Institute of geography.
o Visit to Institute of meadows and pastures, meeting with director of Institute.
o Field trip to Almaty region: demonstration of possible technologies, work with technology and approach questionnaires. Meetings with potential partners for establishing a WOCAT focal point.

Occurring problems were shown (wind erosion, deflation, accumulation, chemical pollution, salinization of soils, vegetation degradation as a result of excess of allowable loads on pastures, vegetation degradation of Haloxylon forests) and ways of their remediation were discussed.
A database of Kazakhstan farms (720 farms) has been made as well as a database on SWC technologies and approaches (115 technologies). Five technologies have been described. These are:
o Technology of creation of ameliorative plantings on the grounds of the drained bottom of Aral sea.
o Technology of creation of zoomeliorative plantings in Kazakhstan.
o Planting saxaul (Haloxylon aphyllum) windbreaks in semi-desert areas with 190-227 mm of annual precipitation, for accumulation of water on account of snow and protect pastures from wind erosion.
o Technology of creation of artificial fitocinoses pasture in arid zones.
o Water Conservation technology for cultivation of the cotton.

Questionnaires were filled in for 50 farms, revealing various problems of land degradation in Kazakhstan.

SOWAP (N. & C. Europe) (Godert van Lynden; Mike Lane)

A proposal for a three-year project jointly submitted to the EU Life-Environment department by Syngenta, Cranfield University (Silsoe), University of Leuven and WOCAT was recently approved. The project is entitled SOWAP, which stands for: Soil and Surface Water Protection Using Conservation Tillage in Northern And Central Europe. SOWAP seeks to address some of the current environmental, social and economic concerns of practising conventional arable crop production in northern and central Europe (in particular UK, Belgium and Hungary). Present arable cropping systems rely on intensive mechanical cultivation of the soil to ensure a good quality seedbed for crop establishment, and a clean tilth to reduce competition between crop and weed species. The agronomic benefits of this system are however counterbalanced by the environmental consequences of such intensive soil management. The potential for soil erosion, reduced soil biodiversity, lack of opportunity for sequestering carbon and damage to aquatic ecosystems from transported sediments. SOWAP aims to assess the viability of a more "conservation-oriented" agriculture, where fewer tillage practices replace the numerous cultivations carried out under more "conventional" arable farming systems. The use of appropriate herbicides is tested, and their potential for off-site contamination assessed, to ensure that any suggested approaches are environmentally sound.

Role of WOCAT:
One criterion for the success of such a project is the potential for independent assessment of the environmental and economic benefits of the approaches suggested, and a suitable manner for transmitting this information. This is in essence is the role of WOCAT, whose standard methods for evaluation of soil and water conservation approaches are now being adopted on a global scale, and these data are used by a wide variety of workers in many countries to promote such practices. WOCAT, which will be represented in this project by ISRIC (Godert van Lynden), is eager to expand in Europe and sees this project as a significant opening in that respect. WOCATs role will also be in disseminating information via the WOCAT (and a new SOWAP) Website, CDs and farmer workshops. It is proposed that Syngenta NCs and the European business support the project when results are suitable for use in influencing at the country and European level. WOCAT will also support this work.

A project launch meeting was held in May at Syngenta's experimental station in Jealott's Hill, England and was attended by Godert van Lynden. Various organisational and project administrative issues were discussed here. The project will terminate in September 2006 and has a budget of € 3.6M.

Philippines (Joe Rondal)

For this year, we concentrated on the QM for Luzon Island. We now have a "first edition" of the QM for Luzon so what remains are the other islands in the Visayas. This map can always be improved as more data comes in but at least I think the level of information is just on the level (scale) of the base map. We also reproduced flyers on SWC technologies culled from the WOCAT database. These flyers are handy for extension workers and farmers alike. We are making a vigorous advocacy campaign on the use of Natural Vegetative Strips (NVS) as an effective soil erosion control measure in marginal/ sloping areas. We are planning to set up more demonstration farms anchored on the use of NVS as an effective yet cheap technology.

Kenya / East Africa (Hanspeter Liniger)

Ceris Jones, a former Syngenta employee, received support from the Syngenta Foundation for the following activities:

o 1 week with CDE in Bern for familiarization with WOCAT processes and the database, data quality assessment and validation.
o 1 month in Kenya to document the experiences in conservation agriculture for small-scale and large-scale technologies in the Nanyuki Timau region. Additionally, the agroforestry system of Grevillea robusta was revised together with the Kenya WO-Coordinator Kithinji Mutunga. The result is that these three Technologies and Approaches are documented and will be presented in the global database very soon.

Ceris also visited the NRM3 (Natural Resource Monitoring, Modelling and Management) project in Nanyuki to assess the potential for further collaboration, and made contact with the Unilever-Brooke Bond project in Western Kenya.

IAEA (Hanspeter Liniger)

First Research Co-ordination Meeting of the Co-ordinated Research Project "Assess the effectiveness of Soil Conservation techniques for sustainable watershed management and crop production using fallout radionuclides". 19-23 May 2003, Vienna.

Through the initiation of Felipe Zapata, an agreement was signed between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and WOCAT (CDE) and such that WOCAT takes an active role in the above mentioned Coordinated Research Project (CRP). The first CRP meeting was held in May 2003 and Hanspeter Liniger was invited to present the WOCAT activities and to identify together with the 20 participants from 17 countries how WOCAT can be incorporated into the CRP.

Over 15 projects presented their results in using fallout radionuclides (FRN) to assess the effectiveness of soil conservation, which according to the WOCAT experiences is a very much needed issue to be addressed by research since for many SWC Technologies the impact on erosion is not known.

WOCAT was assessed by the participants and the decision was made that the WOCAT method should be used by all collaborating projects in order to document, evaluate, monitor and disseminate the SWC technologies tested by the projects. This would allow the IAEA projects to present their SWC technologies and approaches in a standard way and share them within the WOCAT network. In fact, through the initiative of Felipe Zapata several presentations already used the WOCAT categorization system for the SWC Technologies. It was discussed that the additional information concerning the use and results of the FRNs could be added in a separate database that could be linked to the WOCAT database.

Opportunities for additional research collaboration were discussed within the frame of WOCAT and the NCCR programme on Research Partnerships for Mitigating Syndromes of Global Change (http://www.nccr-north-south.unibe.ch/) for Kenya, Ethiopia and Central Asia (see newsletter report about the NCCR regional training course in Kyrgyzstan). The aim of this technical collaboration would be to apply the methods of FRN in these countries through the NCCR project in order to assess state and dynamics of degradation and effectiveness of conservation. Through the collaboration, training would be provided as well as facilities for the analysis and interpretation of soil samples to assess erosion and sedimentation rates.

Under the signed research agreement between IAEA and WOCAT, WOCAT will be again invited to participate in the next meeting planned for fall 2004. This collaboration opens a nice opportunity to include most recent research results and information about the effectiveness of SWC into the WOCAT database and at the same time to provide a useful tool for research and sharing of knowledge.

For more information about IAEA and its activities related to WOCAT contact Felipe Zapata: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Section, Wagramerstrasse 5, P.O. Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria.

Testing the WOCAT methodology and tools in Switzerland (Nicole Güdel and Hanspeter Liniger)

With the WOCAT secretariat being based in Bern, we have often been asked why we are not applying the WOCAT methodology in Switzerland. A student is currently using the WOCAT methodology in order to document and compare the 3 different vineyard technologies: (a) tilling and leaving soil bare between the rows of the grapes which are up and down the slope, (b) having a green cover (again between the rows which are up and down the slope) and (c) having terraces. This is done in 3 regions of Switzerland (Wädenswil at the Lake of Zurich, Twann at the lake of Bienne and in Salgesch in the Valais).

Green cover between the rows (Photo H.P. Liniger)

The WOCAT Technology and Approach questionnaires were translated into German and farmers were interviewed. This method of comprehensively assessing the different aspect was appreciated by the farmers. The interviews of the farmers were complemented with interviews with experts and the consultation of the literature. Major issues are water competition and water stress, input (machinery, chemicals). Some specific measurements were made concerning soil organic matter and soil moisture and plant water stress. Final results will be available towards the end of this year.

Other News

Database and digital products (Gudrun Schwilch)

During the WWSM7 in Rome, several countries promised to provide new and updated data to be included in the global database and to be put onto the website by end of March. Even though we did not receive all what was promised, we did get new data from the Philippines, China, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. The on-line Technologies database was updated. The on-line Approaches database is now available as well. If anyone still wants to include new or updated data in CD-ROM version 3, they should send these before August 30th.

Recently, new installation files for the WOCAT database suite were put on the website (http://www.wocat.org/databs.asp). Unfortunately, the file size is too large (98 Mb!) to be downloaded with an average Internet connection, but the new CD-ROM v.3, which will be ready in October/November, will also contain all these files.

Some new sites have been added to the Links page on the WOCAT Website, but the list could be much longer. Please send us URLs of sites that should be added, in exchange of mentioning the WOCAT site on theirs!