Enhanced Decision-Making Based on Local Knowledge

Hanspeter Liniger & Gudrun Schwilch (2002)

Soil degradation is one of the most crucial processes of land degradation and environmental change. Over a quarter of the world’s  agricultural land has been damaged by long-term soil degradation, corresponding to one-tenth of the earth’s land surface. As is well known, mountain areas are especially vulnerable to land degradation. Because mountains are also water towers, providing water not only for highland areas but also for the surrounding lowlands, land degradation in the mountains has serious impacts on the global supply of freshwater and on growing water-related conflicts.

The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) has the mission of providing tools that allow SWC specialists to share their valuable knowledge in soil and water management, assist them in their search for appropriate SWC technologies and  approaches, and support them in making decisions in the field and at the planning level.