Work Package 3.3 Incorporating sensitivity to long term impacts in to policy and management schemes: development of a methodology for UNCCD with application example for Guadalentín basin. (FUEMUR-DCN)

A considerable effort has been made over the last 10 years by United Nations bodies, regional entities (in particular the European Commission), and national authorities in the assessment of environmental and natural resources, as well as in the formulation of related plans and policies. The National Action Programmes to Combat Desertification (NAP) prescribed by the UNCCD constitute a recent and substantive addition to this catalogue. However, in most cases these plans lack descriptions of effective approaches for the incorporation of the concepts of preventive policies, feed back in policy formulation and the consideration of global environmental changes as an essential element for policy design. This work package represents a contribution to address this omission.

Using the wealth of relevant, information concerning the evolution of natural resources and policy design processes contained in several of those plans in Spain (National Action Programme to Combat Desertification 2000, National Strategy against Climate Change 1998, National Hydrological Plan 2000, Hydrological Plan of the Segura River Basin 1998, National Strategy for Biological Diversity Conservation and Use 1998, National Forestry Strategy 1999, National Plan for Agricultural Irrigation 2000) it is possible to describe and map, the expected changes in natural vegetation, agricultural land use and water resources for the next 30 years. From the same sources, the land use and water policy-making process will be tracked and described at local, national and European levels.

The set of current policy instruments (regulations, funds) active in shaping the landscape/land use will be analysed in relation to the expected situation and recommendations will be extracted. Those recommendations may range from the level of the global orientation of policies to that of the specific resources/instruments involved. The aim of the recommendations will be to modify/adapt the current set of policies to avoid/diminish the future negative collateral effects on resources degradation and eventually to improve the future situation in respect to desertification progression. In other words the purpose is the incorporation of sensitivity to global change into current policies determining land use.

The information about policy instruments being compiled by DESERTLINKS project in the Guadalentín will be used in the analysis of the triggering and spinning causes of changes in land uses affecting desertification.

Results. This work package is of particular relevance to the implementation of NAPs in the affected EU member countries. The methodology will be applied to the Guadalentín basin as an example, but should be a trigger point to open up a wide range of possible approaches to future formulation of environmental relevant policies in other affected areas. The methodological process will be applied in detail to the Guadalentín Basin. The methodology accompanied with the preliminary results for the Guadalentín basin will be presented in the framework of WP 3.4 during the last semester of the project, in a seminar for the stakeholders responsible for NAP formulation. The seminar is designed to facilitate the application of this dynamic tool for policy formulation in the rest of the three target areas as an element for NAP application at watershed/project scale.