Desertification indicators as diagnosis criteria for desertification risk assessment in Europe

Rubio, J. L.; Bochet, E.

doi:10.1006/jare.1998.0402

Cited by 161 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Interpretable. A potential indicator should be easy to interpret and capable of distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable conditions in a scientifically and legally defensible way (Rubio & Bochet 1998). The discussions above clearly illustrate that this is possible for catchment SY.…”

Section: Cost Effectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is seen as the result of a series of natural and anthropogenic processes, leading to gradual environmental degradation or loss of the land's biological or economic productivity. These processes include degradation of the vegetation cover, biological, physical and chemical degradation of soils, water erosion and wind erosion (Rubio & Bochet 1998). Over the last decades, methods have been developed to analyze desertification processes as well as their response to biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of desertification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of these methods is the use of indicators. Indicators have the advantage of providing simplified, synthetic information on the state and tendency of the complex desertification process (Rubio & Bochet 1998) and have been used in various research and mitigation programs (e.g. Kosmas et al 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Soil erosion by water is often regarded as one of the most intense and widespread desertification processes (e.g. López-Bermúdez 1990;Pimentel et al 1995;Poesen 1995;Rubio & Bochet 1998). Table 1 gives an overview of potential indicators from the DIS4ME Indicator system that can be related to this process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Sediment yield as a desertification risk indicator

Vanmaercke

Poesen

Maetens

et al. 2011

Science of The Total Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soil erosion is often regarded as one of the main processes of desertification. This has lead to the use of various desertification indicators that are related to soil erosion. Most of these indicators focus, however, on small spatial units, while little attention has been given to the amount of sediment exported at the catchment scale. Such a small spatial unit approach neglects the transfer of sediment through catchments as well as the scale-dependency of erosion processes. Furthermore, this approach does not consider important off-site impacts of soil erosion, such as sediment deposition in reservoirs, flooding as well as ecological impacts.This study aims to illustrate the importance of also considering catchment sediment yield (SY, t km -2 y -1 ) in desertification assessment studies. Based on recently established databases of SY and soil loss rates in Europe and examples from previous studies, we illustrate that soil erosion rates at the plot scale are not representative for catchment SY, as they are often several orders of magnitude smaller. Also, the erosion response of catchments to changes in land use or climate often differs strongly from responses to those changes at the plot scale.We further discuss several of the impacts of SY and their link with desertification: i.e. the sedimentation of reservoirs, problems related to flooding, catchment hydrology, export of nutrients and ecological implications.Using earlier established criteria we evaluate the potential for using catchment SY as a desertification indicator and conclude that this could give an important added value to desertification studies. SY, used in combination with other indicators, allows the identification of other sediment sources than those considered at the plot scale and can reflect the results of desertification processes over longer time periods than periods over which assessments at the plot scale have been made. We argue therefore, that SY is a strong complementary indicator of desertification providing valuable information on the catchment response to changes in drivers of desertification.

show abstract

Section: Cost Effectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Sediment yield as a desertification risk indicator

Vanmaercke

Poesen

Maetens

et al. 2011

Science of The Total Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Assessing multi-faceted biophysical effects might also require more sophisticated ecological field assessment methods (e.g. Rubio and Bochet 1998;Kosmas et al 2000), combined with comprehensive geospatial assessment (Buenemann et al 2011) to support model development and conservation planning. As the gridbased assessment on a 1 ha-basis essentially mimics the field scale, with no interaction between cells, a financial assessment was deemed particularly appropriate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%