Experience in Developing Land Degradation Neutrality Concept in the
Russian Federation
Abstract
The paper overviews and summarizes the results of the developing a
methodology for the land degradation neutrality (LDN) assessment basing
on LDN-based studies at national, regional and local levels in Russia.
The review of more one hundred available publications in Russian
language over the past 6-7 years allowed for analysis on the following
areas: development of LDN terminology, LDN assessment at the different
levels, adapting transition matrix; application of global and national
LDN indicators; using the LDN concept for economic valuation of land,
estimating LDN baseline, and using LDN as an integral indicator for
sustainable land management. With the LDN concept the issue of land
degradation (LD) has gone beyond the limited scope of desertification
and drylands, and enlarged the concept of “rational” or “effective”
land use and land management dominated in Russia. The LDN concept has
been broadened with the introduction of the LDN Index proposed to
evaluate the rate of LDN achievement; proposal on reconstructing
transition matrices and adding specific land cover sub-categories;
approach of integrating traditional national sectoral systems for
assessing land quality with an LDN add-on; justification for using
additional and specific LDN indicators at national and subnational level
(soil erosion, aridity, soil salinity, soil depletion, etc.); importance
of factoring natural background trends like climate change, natural
succession cycles linked with geological and geomorphological processes;
need for using different site-specific LDN baselines, not only those
time-based; approaches for LDN-based economic valuation of lands; and
the LDN-based typology of SLM practices and models.