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Introduction
DIS4ME editor: Jane Brandt <desertlinks@medalus.demon.co.uk>
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This
site gives access to some 148 indicators of relevance to Mediterranean
desertification. It is being designed by the DESERTLINKS research
project to provide a tool to enable users from a wide range of backgrounds,
including scientists, policy makers and farmers, to:
- identify
where desertification is a problem,
- assess how
critical the problem is,
- better understand
the processes of desertification.
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The indicator system
contains a variety of information and calculation tools.
Desertification and
DIS4ME
- Desertification and indicators:
questions and answers.
- Take part in the evaluation
of DIS4ME.
Indicators
- Review background information
about indicators and the indicator system: choosing and using indicators,
development of DIS4ME, sources of indicators for DIS4ME, review of other
indicator systems.
- View the complete
indicators list (grouped according to their relevance to ecophysical,
economic, ecological and institutional aspects of desertification).
- Access the DIS-DataBase.
Sort and search the data base of indicators. As a registered user you
can add new indicators to the system.
- View indicators
relating to specific desertification issues (such as intensive
irrigation, land abandonment or institutional organisation).
Using and combining
indicators
- Headline
indicators are single indicators integrating several aspects of a more
complex system.
- Assess the sensitivity
to desertification of your local area with the ESI tool, based
on the ESA methodology.
- See examples of how the ESA metholology
can be used to develop different scenarios based on changes in
land use or management practice.
- Calculate desertification
risk from salinisation and erosion under specific land
uses (such as pine forest, cereals).
- Assess the economic and enviromental
consequences of the decisions land users make concerning the various
agricultural practices used.
- View indicators
of relevance to national and Mediterranean-wide scales.
- View indicators
of relevance to the Annex IV National Action Programmes.
Linking science and
stakeholders
- Obtain information which has been
developed to disseminate scientific information about desertification
to the stakeholder community.
- The consultation of stakeholders
about their experience and perception of desertification, land management
measures they take to combat desertification and factors affecting their
decision making has been of fundamental importance to the development
of DIS4ME.
- Some of the methodologies and indicators
contained in DIS4ME have already been used and applied in other
areas.
- Many people have taken part in
the evaluation of DIS4ME during its development. View the comments
and suggestions made.
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