Innovative Solution

Sustainable Land Management, water management, soil and water conservation, Knowledge Management, Decision Support, WOCAT

technical

Educational, Policy

WOCAT, the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies is a thriving knowledge management hub for Sustainable Land Management (SLM) providing information on water and land resources and their use (including databases for data storage and retrieval), with direct application to knowledge of soil and water conservation and outstanding potential to help deliver current agendas in sustainable land management, climate change adaptation and climate resilience planning.

The WOCAT Knowledge Management (KM) and Decision Support (DS) tools consists of the documentation of SLM Technologies and Approaches, the mapping of Land Degradation (LD) and SLM and the assessment of impacts, climate change adaptations, disaster risk reduction and SLM at watershed level.

By definition, all SLM Technologies function in relation to water – usually in relation to control runoff and increase infiltration, and as a result, increase water storage in the soil. Some technologies are more specifically related to drainage, and some specifically harvest water. On-site impacts / benefits of SLM Technologies are assessed in relation to water availability, water use efficiency and water quality (water harvesting, soil moisture increase, reduced runoff, evaporation, etc.). The most striking water-related off-site benefits of SLM Technologies are reduced downstream flooding and siltation leading to disaster risk reduction. Furthermore, the WOCAT assessment includes the conditions under which the SLM Technologies and Approaches work, for whom they work and the benefits to be derived from implementing them in terms of rural livelihoods, ecosystem goods and services and financial security.

The WOCAT assessment clearly shows that SLM can improve water management reducing pressure and conflicts on the water resource and improving livelihood at the same time.

Global network with regional and national nodes, WOCAT Secretariat (CDE, Switzerland)

The WOCAT network was initiated by a concerned group of soil and water conservation professionals after the Rio Conference in 1992. Key partners from the beginning are CDE, FAO, ISRIC who are part of the WOCAT Management Group. In addition WOCAT is supported by a broad and strong global network with over 50 national, regional and international institutions involved in degradation/desertification issues and sustainable land management, where the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) provides the main funding for global coordination and secretariat and partly for development of the WOCAT knowledge management (KM) and Decision Support (DS) tools for up-scaling SLM. In addition, participating national, regional and global partner organizations and institutions fund field activities on SLM documentation, assessment and upscaling. In collaboration with these partners standard tools and methods for documentation, evaluation and sharing of SLM knowledge have been developed and made available through an online, open-access database.

WOCAT, the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies, was initiated nearly 20 years ago. Today WOCAT is a thriving knowledge management hub for Sustainable Land Management (SLM) providing information on water and land resources and their use. Through the WOCAT network different stakeholders can get information on SLM Technologies and Approaches improving water management. Hence, this information can be used to improve land management and to reduce pressure on the water resource improving livelihood at the same time. Many examples have been documented through WOCAT partners in the WOCAT database.

How to improve water management?

The WOCAT assessment analyses among others water-related impacts of different land management practices and shows that SLM can improve water management. Up to date many conservation practices (SLM Technologies and Approaches) are already in use, which hold the key to sustainable land management. However, they are insufficiently documented, assessed and information is not easily accessible. As a result, errors and sub-optimal planning and decision continue to be repeated, resulting in money wasted, negative side-effects, continuing degradation and ultimately lower food production and reduced ecosystem services.

WOCAT tries to foster knowledge exchange to support innovation and decision-making processes on SLM, specifically on water-related impacts. This is done by: connecting stakeholders, analysing and synthesising experiences and setting direction, enhancing capacity and knowledge, developing and applying standardized tools for documenting, monitoring, evaluating, sharing and using knowledge.

The WOCAT network offers among others a basket of options on how to improve water management.

A broad range of SLM Technologies and Approaches in different Agro-Ecological Zones improving water management are documented and available in the WOCAT database. Some technologies are more specifically related to drainage, and some specifically harvest water. On-site and off-site impacts / benefits of SLM Technologies are assessed and documented. Hence the WOCAT user can use this information as decision support in the planning process.

WOCAT has the ambition to become the professional standard SLM knowledge management (KM) and decision support (DS) platform for up-scaling of SLM best practices. Key indicators are:

i)              How many countries and institutions / persons are using the WOCAT tools.

ii)             How many SLM examples, specifically related to water management, are documented and shared

iii)            Weather different organisations / institutions at local, national and international level use and further develop the tools and methods and weather they agree to share their knowledge.

The WOCAT assessments of different SLM Technologies and Approaches clearly show that SLM can improve water management reducing pressure on water. Hence, different stakeholder groups dealing with SLM should be most interested in the solutions offered through the WOCAT network and the on-site / off-site impact analysis. The network users will get inspired by different SLM options and can make better decisions on a local and regional level and can learn from each other. It has to be considered that each option works in a specific environmental context and has to be reassessed specifically for other environmental contexts.

We would highly recommends that interested stakeholders (institutions, organisations, etc.) join the WOCAT network to share their experiences and best practices related to SLM, specifically water management and also to learn from other examples.

WOCAT is a broad and strong global network of over 50 national, regional and international institutions. Out of this network a high number of WOCAT users got inspired by the knowledge shared through the network and implemented various SLM Technologies related to water management.

University of Bern, Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), 

Hallerstrasse 10

CH-3012 Bern

Switzerland

www.wocat.net