INFORMATION ON THE COURSE
APPLICATION
FORM
Advanced Course
ASSESSING AND MONITORING OF
DESERTIFICATION
AND LAND USE SYSTEMS VULNERABILITY
DeSurvey – Course 1
Zaragoza (
Objective
of the course
Organization
Admission
Registration
Scholarships
Insurance
Teaching organization
Programme
Guest lecturers
Desertification
is a worldwide phenomenon that affects more than 100 countries and 2.6 billion
people. Designing effective mitigation actions for desertification requires
reliable assessment and diagnosis. Desertification
surveillance is required for making one-off and periodic assessments of
desertification status, for forecasting possible trajectories (early warning),
and for evaluating the performance of management programmes. However,
assessment procedures have hitherto been largely empirical and focused on the
symptoms of desertification (land degradation) rather than on the underlying
human-environment interactions and processes. As a consequence most of the
available approaches are impractical to use at regional or global scales for
reasons of cost. Furthermore, they cannot address critical human-environment
driver and process synergies and dynamics, and only provide limited
possibilities for quantifying uncertainty.
DeSurvey is a large EU research project that has been developing
state-of-the-art prototypes for multi-scale, low cost and flexible Surveillance
Systems that will provide land managers and policy makers with early warning
and monitoring capacity to enable decisions before irreversible desertification
impacts occur. To this aim, three main tools have been developed and tailored
to the requirements of national and international user organisations and
consortia of local stakeholders.
This
course focuses on the first and third main DeSurvey
products, the monitoring desertification (MP1) and the vulnerability assessment
(MP3) tools, which provide support for policymakers needing to know the
changing extent and severity of desertification and to assess the long term
susceptibility of land use systems to collapse. Using remote sensing and geomatics, MP1 provides policymakers and technical advisers
with spatial information about the impact of climatic and socioeconomic
fluctuations and management policies over time, and shows trends in land use
changes and land condition. MP3 is based on systems dynamics modelling and can
assess the risks of irreversible degradation of land and land use systems to
improve policy options.
The course will provide participants with:
-
An introduction to
approaches to monitoring and modelling of desertification processes.
-
An overview of the three
main modelling products developed within the DeSurvey
Integrated Project.
-
Detailed guidance on the
principles and application of two of these products
· MP1: Assessing and monitoring desertification
· MP3: Assessing land use system vulnerability
-
Hands-on practical
experience of running and working with these two modelling products.
-
A basis for independent
application of these products for sustainable land management.
A further course on “Desertification
forecasting in the medium term” (18-23 January 2010) will provide comparable experience with MP2: Integrated assessment and
forecasting model. Candidates can apply for either one of
the courses or for both.
The
course is jointly organized by the International Centre for Advanced
Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM), through the Mediterranean
Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza (IAMZ), and the European Commission,
through the DeSurvey Project (A
Surveillance System for Assessing and Monitoring of Desertification; FP6 –
Global Change and Ecosystems).
The course will be held at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of
Zaragoza and will be given by well qualified
lecturers from universities, research centres and consultancy firms who are
participating in the DeSurvey Integrated Project.
The course will be held over a period of 1 week, from 28 September to 3
October
The course is designed for a maximum of 25 participants with a university
degree and is intended for professionals
already involved in the operational aspects of assessing and managing
desertification, working in public administrations, research centres,
universities, consulting services, etc.
Simultaneous interpretation into English, French and Spanish will be
provided for lectures. Nevertheless, in order to have an efficient
communication during practical sessions, a working knowledge of English will be
required.
Application
forms may be obtained from:
Instituto Agronómico Mediterráneo de Zaragoza
Avenida de Montañana 1005, 50059 Zaragoza (Spain)
Tel.: +34 976 716000 - Fax: +34 976
716001
e-mail: iamz@iamz.ciheam.org
Web: www.iamz.ciheam.org
Candidates
should send the completed application form to the above address, accompanied by a detailed curriculum
vitae, stating degree, diplomas, experience, professional activities,
language knowledge and reasons for applying to the course. Copies of
certificates should be enclosed with the application.
The deadline
for the submission of applications is 6
July 2009.
Applications
from those candidates who cannot present their complete records when applying,
or those requiring authorization to attend the course, may be accepted
provisionally.
Registration
fees for the course amount to 450 euro. This sum covers tuition fees only.
Candidates
from CIHEAM member countries (Albania, Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy,
Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey), UNCCD Annex IV
countries and from Chile, China and Senegal may apply for scholarships covering
registration fees, and for scholarships covering the cost of travel and full
board accommodation in the Hall of Residence on the Aula
Dei Campus.
Candidates
from other countries who require financial support should apply directly to
other national or international institutions.
It is
compulsory for participants to have medical insurance valid for
The course requires personal work and interaction
among participants and with lecturers. The international characteristics of the
course favour the exchange of experiences and points of view.
The course will be taught with a combination of
lectures and practical sessions that will provide the participant with hands-on
experience on the use of the DeSurvey monitoring desertification (MP1) and the vulnerability
assessment (MP3) tools for the
formulation and evaluation of policy options in affected areas.
Participants will be required to prepare before the
beginning of the course a brief report on the current assessment practices and
future priorities related to desertification policy in their countries/regions.
A technical visit to Northern Monegros
(
1.
Introduction and background (3 hours)
1.1. Desertification
problems, policy needs and addressing stakeholder perception
1.1.1.
Desertification and land use
1.1.2.
Scales of assessment and mitigation
1.1.3.
Forecasting needs and applications
1.1.4.
Current approaches and needs identified by
participants
1.2. Overview of existing evaluation systems
1.2.1.
Broad drivers and controls
of desertification process
1.2.2.
Indicator systems and benchmarks
1.2.3.
Synthetic assessment systems
1.3. DeSurvey assessment products
1.4. Discussion
2.
DeSurvey Main Product 1: Assessing and monitoring
desertification (15 hours)
2.1. Lectures on functionality of the main components
2.1.1.
Analysis of continuous and discontinuous time
series at local and regional scale
2.1.2.
Assessing land transformations based on the
syndrome approach
2.1.3.
Assessing land condition based on rainfall use
efficiency
2.2. Selected
case studies
2.3. Practical
exercises at local and regional scale
2.3.1.
Data acquisition and pre-processing
2.3.2.
Guided tour through the
software. Playing with what-if questions
2.3.2.1.
Time series analysis with Timestats
2.3.2.2.
Land transformation based on syndrome approach
2.3.2.3.
Rainfall use efficiency (2dRUE) software
2.4. Discussion on the overall framework of
a monitoring system for drylands considering scale
and integration of the main components
3.
DeSurvey Main Product 3: Assessing land use systems
vulnerability (12 hours)
3.1. Lectures on functionality of the main approaches
3.1.1.
Approaches to assessing
vulnerability of land use systems to desertification
3.1.2.
The conceptual
desertification model (CMD)
3.1.3.
The generic desertification
model (GDM)
3.1.4.
Stability analysis in
coupled human-environment dynamic systems
3.2. Practical exercises
3.2.1.
Presentation of syndrome
case studies
3.2.2.
Adaptation of CMD to case
studies
3.2.3.
Adaptation of GDM to case
studies
3.2.3.1. Model
formalization
3.2.3.2. Data and
calibration
3.2.4. Model outputs
3.2.4.1. Qualitative
analysis. Isoclines
3.2.4.2. Simulations
and scenarios
3.2.5.
Sensitivity analysis.
Desertification risk
3.3. Discussion on the complementarity
of the alternative approaches
4.
Links, complementarity and
applicability of MP1, MP2 and MP3: open discussion (2 hours)
5.
Technical visit: Northern Monegros,
Huesca (
M. CHERLET, JRC-IES, Ispra (Italy)
G. DEL BARRIO, CSIC-EEZA, Almería (Spain)
U. HELLDEN,
J. HILL, Univ.
J. MARTÍNEZ, CSIC-EEZA, Almería (
B.S. McINTOSH,
J.
PUIGDEFÁBREGAS, CSIC-EEZA, Almería (
M. STELLMES, Univ.
Please take note that from 18
to 23 January
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