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Policies for land use to combat desertification (MEDACTION 4)

Deliverables

OVERVIEW: Policy acts both as driver and potential solution for desertification in areas under investigation. Agricultural policy under the CAP emerges as a key driver for landuse change in the 4 target areas (especially encouraging intensification), with potentially disastrous repercussions for sustainable management of areas already severely affected by desertification. Positive trends are also apparent, especially where conservation and environmental policies have operated in conjunction with strengthened actor networks (i.e. where local stakeholders can actively shape policy formulation and implementation). POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: At EU level, results strengthen the argument for a holistic and integrated desertification policy package that directly addresses desertification problems in Southern Europe through applied policy solutions. END USERS: - End users at the EU level will be able to use results to both strengthen the case for a further dismantling of CAP subsidies and to call for a unified and holistic EU desertification policy. - Local stakeholders will be able to use results to lobby regional and national decision-makers to better target existing and future policies at desertification-related issues, while also providing financial packages that are not aimed at further agricultural intensification but that financially reward sustainable management of desertification-affected areas. INNOVATIVE FEATURES AND BENEFITS: This is the first project that highlights policy both as a driver and mitigator of desertification in Southern Europe. The analysis goes beyond traditional instrumental interpretations of policy as the ultimate panacea for desertification and highlights that the policy environment is both reason, as well as solution, for desertification in Southern Europe. MARKET SECTOR: There are significant implications of the results for livelihoods and community survival, as past experience shows that wrong policy pathway can engender spiral of decline and depopulation which, in turn, can have severe repercussions for desertification. POTENTIAL BARRIERS: The results are only applicable to desertification-affected areas in Southern Europe; the possibility for generalisation to other desertified areas in Europe and beyond still needs to be assessed. POTENTIAL OFFERED FOR FURTHER DISSEMINATION AND USE: All results from Module 2 on the effects of past policies on desertification in the 4 target areas will be made available through the internet, as well as through a series of books and other publications (in progress). Results will be available for education, training, collaborative projects and consultancy at the grassroots level in our 4 case study areas, as well as at the regional, national and supra-national EU levels. PROFILE OF ADDITIONAL PARTNERS FOR FURTHER DISSEMINATION AND USE: Research groups, consultancies and end-users (such as farmers, local decision-makers, policy-makers) interested in, and affected by, policies affecting landuse decision-making in the 4 target areas; EU and national policy-makers in charge of formulating and implementing policies affecting land use (and thereby desertification) in Southern Europe.
The result is an Internet based Public Participation Geographical Information System (GIS) concerning land degradation and land use change in the Mediterranean climate region of the European Union. The base of the system is a Unix server running the Apache Web Server and the servlet container jakarta-tomcat. The system is held together via PostNuke - a Web Content Management System written in PHP (a language for generating dynamic web content). The main components of the system are: Data Viewer - a GeoTools-lite applet running in a Sun Java enabled browser that communicates with a MySQL database running on the server via a servlet. This enables users to explore input data and model results. Data Commenter - this uses the data viewer and enables users to add comments about data layers. Fuzzy Inference tool - an applet that enables users to develop fuzzy models. Neural Network programs - written in Java, these are feed forward multi-layer perceptrons with optional genetic algorithm initialisers. Java Grids Package - a package of Java code for the manipulation of geographical raster data. Customised PostNuke site - the default Web Content Management System configured to communicate with the MySQL database and manage the information content of the site. Dissemination and use potential: The first beta version of the system has been operational since june 2003. Since then, there has been a rapid development of web based GIS and considerable changes in standards for information exchange and web accessibility. This result was already effectively a prototype and it demonstrated one way forward, however, because of the way things have gone, it is not likely to be something to survive in its entirety. Despite this, the main components of the Synoptic Prediction System (SPS) that have been developed (3, 4 and 5 from above) are far from obsolete. Indeed they offer a generic technology that can be very useful for future GIS development. Key innovations and features of result: It is the SPS components that are the most important features of this result. They are ope source and available to all.
Using the policy analysis methodology especially developed for complex problems, guidelines & recommendations for introducing the desertification dimension in specific EU and national level (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) policies have been developed. The selected policies are those that directly or indirectly contribute, negatively or positively, to land degradation and desertification. They include: the National Action Programmes of the four Annex IV EU member states (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece), EU common policies (economic, social, regional development, transport, rural development, horizontal environmental, forest, water resources, biodiversity protection, soil protection) and national policies (economic, social, regional development, transport, tourism, spatial, rural development, horizontal environmental, forest, water resources, biodiversity protection, soil protection). For each policy examined, the guidelines & recommendations concern - General proposals that are necessary to improve the performance of the policy, - Proposals for introducing the desertification dimension as regards the policy object, policy goals and objectives, policy actors and actor networks and their relationships with other policy actors, and policy instruments. Necessary relationships that should develop among particular policies for the purpose of addressing holistically the desertification threat in the affected regions of the EU are indicated also in terms of the above items (object, goals, actors, instruments). This is a first step towards policy integration that should be eventually promoted in order to address effectively complex policy problems such as desertification. Potential applications of the guidelines and recommendations include: - Formulating new policies, - Evaluating extant policies and - Revising and modifying them appropriately to address the desertification threat (and not only). EU and national public organizations that are involved in formulating and administering the respective policies can use the guidelines and recommendations in order to examine the possibility of introducing the necessary changes to make these policies more appropriate for coping with desertification. They can be used also by interested groups of stakeholders (professional, social, academic, NGOs) to complement their own recommendations as regards policy interventions in selected policy areas to address particular aspects of the desertification threat. It should be noted that the end users of the recommendations offered for the particular case of desertification at closer examination may recognize that these recommendations are meaningful and helpful in addressing other complex policy problems (e.g. climate change, biodiversity decline, etc.) as well. The innovative features of the proposed policy recommendations are that they emphasize the procedural aspects of the respective policies and the relationships with other policies for increased effectiveness. The thrust of the recommendations is on developing policy integration procedures and in using policy instruments with high integration potential. Potential barriers to adopting and, most importantly, applying the proposed guidelines and recommendations include the different policy cultures of both policy administering bodies as well as of policy recipients and lack of horizontal relationships among policy making bodies.
OVERVIEW: The SHETRAN Decision Support System has been applied to the 1532-km2 Agri (southern Italy) and 701-km2 Cobres (Alentejo, Portugal) target basins to give runoff and sediment yield response and farmer choice of crop for a range of land use, crop subsidy and climate scenarios. The output provides a basis for developing illustrative guidelines for future land management in the target areas. In view of the uncertainty associated with scenario development and model parameterisation (typical of advanced modelling systems), the results are appropriate more for showing directions of change rather than providing madgnitudes. Interpretation of the results suggests that: change of crop (with different evapotranspiration characteristics) affects runoff total and hydrograph magnitude; change of agricultural technique may beneficially affect hydrograph shape and sediment yield; land use changes must occur over significant proportions of a basin if they are to affect the basin response; the annual water balance is affected more by climate change than land use change in the Cobres basin but the impacts of the two changes are more equal in the Agri basin; certain crops may dominate farmer choice in particular parts of the basin but there is no dominant choice of crop at the basin scale, suggesting that a mixture of crops is sustainable. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Selecting land management options to maximize river flow and minimize sediment yield. END-USERS: Land use planners in the target areas; consultancies; EU agencies concerned with sustainable land management in a region potentially at risk from land degradation (desertification). INNOVATIVE FEATURES/BENEFITS: Analysis of runoff and sediment yield for a range of possible future land uses, crop subsidies and climates. MARKET SECTOR: The outcome is aimed at local land use planning agencies and (as illustrative material) at the educational sector. POTENTIAL BARRIERS: Lack of funding for follow-up discussion with target area end-users to ensure transfer of the analysis and its inclusion in the planning process.
Scenarios have been developed for the European and Mediterranean level and for three Target Areas, the Guadalentín in Spain, the Val d'Agri in Italy and the Alentejo in Portugal. Scenarios were developed for the period 2000-2030. Scenarios are qualitative in the form of narrative storylines. Local scenarios focus more on short-term developments. The scenarios integrate the socio-economic and ecological driving forces in combination with policy-related factors, linking short-term objectives with long-term perspectives. Development of European scenarios is closely linked to a set of existing scenarios developed during a previous EC-financed project, VISIONS (EC DG-XII RTD Programme - Project ENV4-CT97-0462). Main products are an update of the Factor Actor Sector framework from the scenarios developed within VISIONS and a description of the main developments within the FAS at European level between 2000 and 2030. Full storylines were not developed. Information is available for the following three scenarios: - Knowledge is King (KiK): What if technological development is such that a mass migration to the Mediterranean is initiated and a European Sunbelt is formed? - Big is Beautiful? (BiB): What if the 'merger principle' oversteps all limits, creating an oversized EU and powerful multinationals, thus initiating societal degeneration? - Convulsive Change (CoC): What if climate change is as disruptive as some are now predicting, triggering a series of severe droughts and desert formation, and outpacing society’s ability to adapt? The Mediterranean scenarios were derived by downscaling the European scenarios, thus resulting in the same three scenarios, yet with more specific country-level and sectoral (particularly agriculture and tourism) information. Full storylines of 20-25 pages have been developed that describe main future changes of all Factors Actors Sectors in the Mediterranean and for Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal. Description in each scenario are subdivided into three periods: 2000-2010/15; 2010/2015-2025; 2025-2530. One-page summaries of the main developments are also available. A wealth of products is available at the Target Area level for three of the four local case studies that were part of MedAction: the Guadalentín in Spain, the Val d'Agri in Italy, and the Alentejo in Portugal. Four main products can be distinguished: a story of the present characterising the perception of the local stakeholders on the situation in their region; a story of the future in 2030 that was obtained during a forecasting session; an extension of the present representing the situation in 2008 based on an extrapolation of current trends; and a backcasting exercise, reasoning back from a desirable end-point in 2030 to short-term measurements that are necessary to realise this future. All products were developed during a number of participatory scenario workshops with 15-25 local and regional stakeholders. Below is a short summary of the products based on the stories of the future and the backcasting exercise: The stories of the future were developed for the Alentejo, the Guadalentín, and the Val d'Agri and can be characterised as exploratory visions of the future developments between 2000 and 2030. Exploratory scenarios are linked to the Mediterranean scenarios. All scenarios comprise of a 2-10 page storyline that emphasises the dynamic changes and a collage of pictures that illustrates the end-point. Scenarios include: - Guadalentín: Elimination of the Middlemen (BiB); Sunbelt Formation (KiK); Aquatic Change (CoC). - Val d'Agri: Local tensions (KiK); Big is NOT Beautiful (BiB); Human Desertification. - Alentejo: Dominance of the Rich (BiB); Slow Change (KiK); Major Territorial Change (CoC). The backcasting exercises were developed for the Val d'Agri and the Guadalentín and can be characterised as normative desirable futures between 2000 and 2030. Scenarios are linked to Mediterranean developments, although in a less strict top-down procedure. Scenarios include: - Guadalentín: Sustainable Agriculture (BiB); Scientific Agriculture (KiK); Sustainable and sustained tourism (CoC); Controlled water distribution (CoC). - Val d'Agri: Multifunctional Sustainable Agriculture (BiB); Multiple Solutions (CoC); Sustainable Tourism with Local Identity (KiK).
Scientific result and Key innovative features: The research and development work carried out in the project has lead to a prototype version of a Decision Support System aimed at integrated planning and policy support at the watershed level in Mediterranean regions prone to desertification and land degradation. This information system features an integrated model representing the main processes leading to and affected by desertification. Processes included are among others: climate scenarios and weather generator, soil, surface and aquifer hydrology, salinisation, erosion, plant growth, transitions in natural vegetation types, water management, farmers decision making, crop selection, and urban land uses. The models are spatially-dynamic and represent processes at the appropriate spatial scales ranging from the watershed level to the 1 ha plot, as well as the appropriate temporal scales varying from daily to the yearly time steps. The system enables evaluating the effects of autonomous dynamics, policy measures and external scenarios for a period of some 30 years into the future. Policy relevant information and in particular the status of the desertification and degradation of the watershed is available in the form of state variables (mostly represented as maps) but also a large number of indicators including a dynamic version of the Environmentally Sensitive Areas indicator. The current version of the Decision Support System is applied to the Guadelintin watershed. Applying it to similar watersheds is possible, but it is not straightforward and not supported by the graphical user-interface of the system. The MedAction PSS is fairly unique in both the level of integration achieved and the level of operational usage and usability achieved within a system running on the pc (MS Windows) of the individual policy maker. Great progress has been made in linking socio-economic and physical processes typifying Mediterranean watersheds. Thus the system enables analysing both the physical and the socio-economic drivers that cause land degradation and desertification in an explicitly dynamic and spatial manner. Commercial and Use potential: With due care, the current version of the system can be applied for practical policy-making in the Guadelintin river basin by technical users and consultants. The commercialisation of the system is not to be foreseen in the immediate future. This would require more research and development work (among others in terms of calibration and validation of the models), more support via the user-interface for setting up the system for new watersheds, and not in the least the production of training materials and courses for educating the intended end-users of the system. It is expected that an investment in the order of 300-500 kEuro is required to achieve this goal. A well calibrated, well documented and more user-friendly version of the system would potentially have many end-users, hence may be a commercially viable product. The group of potential end-users of the system is large. It includes in particular managers of watersheds, but also technicians, planners and decision makers at the national, regional, provincial and municipal levels. The intended end-users of the system should have a more than average technical and scientific background in geography, soil sciences, hydrology, modelling, GIS, or ecology. Thus, research organisations, engineering and consulting companies are likely users of the tool. They could support the administrations in setting up and running the tool. The social relevance of the Policy Support System developed is its capability of enabling an integrated assessment of policies and planning actions targeted at preventing, mitigating or reversing the problems caused by desertification in Mediterranean watersheds and in particular the Guadalentin river watershed. Thus, the system is instrumental in developing exploitation schemes that are sustainable, and in maintaining or increasing the level of wealth of the local population, in particular the local farmers population. The PSS provides this kind of support through its analytical power, but its interactive and graphical nature makes the likely outcomes of policy actions and scenarios very tangible. It thus is a very useful tool for communicating a complex message to local inhabitants and stakeholders. Dissemination: The current version of the system together with its technical documentation and user manual will be made available to interested users via the web-site of RIKS (www.riks.nl/projects/medaction). Interested users can request a demonstration license. This license is free of charge but for a limited duration of 1 year.
Policy makers are called to address complex socio-environmental problems which are not tractable, they are ill- or multi-defined and for which solutions are neither easy to devise nor to implement. Rational policymaking requires that solutions to policy problems be based on a systematic analysis of the policy problem that focuses on strategic and critical elements and, thus, helps formulate effective policies. A general methodology for policy analysis has been developed that adopts an institutionalist, process- and actor-oriented approach, placing emphasis on the so-called policy networks, the formal and informal actors involved in the formulation and the implementation stages of the policy process and their interactions. On this basis, the analysis of the content and structure (structural and procedural features) of a policy is made using a systematic format that links the policy object to policy goals and objectives, formal and informal actors, implementation mechanisms and diverse types of policy instruments. The latter are classified into certain categories such as administrative, legislative, institutional, economic, financial, technical, infrastructural, educational, etc. The methodology provides also for specific formats for the analysis of policy implementation, of relationships among policies, for policy evaluation, as well as for formulating proposals for policy improvement. These formats are congruent with the policy analysis format and ensure consistency between policy analysis and making policy proposals and recommendations. With respect to the latter, the methodology provides guidance to formulating coordinated interventions targeting the policy object, policy goals, policy actors and networks, policy procedures and instruments. When policies implicated in a particular socio-environmental problem are analysed using the proposed methodology, their relationships can be analysed systematically and important and critical links among them in terms of their objects, goals, actors and instruments can be identified and used to properly manipulate them to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their joint functioning. More importantly, however, the proposed methodology can be used to support the design of policy integration schemes that seek to produce either vertically integrated or horizontally integrated policies. The latter have greater potential for adding value to the policy stock at hand and at responding to the needs of managing the natural and institutional complexity of socio-environmental policy problems. One such problem is that of combating desertification in the Southern member states of the European Union as well as in other countries that face problems of land degradation and desertification. The complexity of these problems cannot be addressed through a unitary, single-purpose policy but through proper synthesis, harmonization, and coordination of extant or new environmental and socio-economic policies that impinge on the determinants of the phenomenon. The proposed methodology can be used basically by public sector entities responsible for policy making at the EU and the national level. Practically, all public organizations are involved in the context of complex policy problems especially when doing something about these problems is within their mandates. The organizations adopting the proposed methodology will be in a better position to design new and/or evaluate and possibly modify existing policies that account for their interactions with other policies. At the moment, it has been applied in the context of the research project to analyse selected EU and national level (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) policies that contribute directly or indirectly to desertification, such as, economic policies, regional development, rural development, spatial policies, tourism, forest, water resources, biodiversity and soil protection policies. The end users of the application of the methodology are policy implementation agencies and policy recipients who will benefit from the provision of mutually supportive and non-conflicting policies. Indicative application/users combinations include EC DGs, national ministries, local administrations and local population (farmers, businesses). The main innovative features/benefits of the proposed methodology is that it deviates from the output-oriented, linear model of policy analysis and places emphasis on the agents of the policy system, the processes through which policies are formulated and implemented and their relationships (continuous feedback loops between formulation and implementation) with the purpose of promoting integrated solutions to complex socio-environmental problems such as desertification. The most significant potential barrier to the adoption and application of the proposed methodology is the vertical organization and sectoralization of policy making at both the EU and the national level.
The design of a Desertification Policy Support Framework (DPSF) is proposed to serve as an organizational scheme to guide the horizontal and vertical synthesis and integration of currently disparate and mostly uncoordinated policies (and the associated organizational/ institutional structures) in order to address as holistically as possible the phenomenon of desertification while taking into account non-policy factors. Two versions of the DPSF are proposed one for the EU and one for individual countries. Proposals for alternative ways for making each DPSF operational are offered also. The proposed DPSF draws on the comprehensive/integrated approach to problem solving and policy making where solutions to complex socio-environmental problems, such as desertification, are developed by considering the interrelationships among their bio-physical and socio-economic determinants and, consequently, the relationships among the policies impinging on these determinants. Policy integration is the center-piece of this approach that may range from loose and simple arrangements among policy milieus to tight and regulated arrangements. Because the realization of a comprehensive approach meets with considerable conceptual, scientific, ethical and practical problems, the proposed DPSF provides a middle ground characterized by an informed, democratically derived, selective emphasis on critical, tactically or strategically defensible, points of intervention and by the acceptance of inevitable errors and of the need to correct them through a continuous and open policy making process. The choice, suitability, feasibility and effectiveness of its several variants depend on the prevailing value systems and priorities of the socio-cultural and political context of their application. The proposed DPSF can be used in cases of - Programme and project financing, - Current policy implementation to ensure that implementation mechanisms are properly coordinated so that the different policies work in harmony and efficiently and they do not counter the goal of combating desertification, - Policy evaluation and revision to identify and correct problems with extant policies (e.g. CAP, regional policy, etc.) especially as regards problems with their coordination, - New policy formulation to ensure that links develop between existing and new policies that ensure policy coordination, avoidance of overlaps as well as of conflicts and - Public participation and awareness raising to activate the complete set of formal and informal actors involved in the problem and connect them properly towards cooperation and coordination. The end users of the DPSF-EU are the DGs most closely involved in desertification-related policy making (Regio, Agri, Environment) or any other Community service that is defined as the lead organization that will adopt and manage it. The end users of the DPSF-country are national ministries with horizontal competencies preferably or the national Committees to Combat Desertification or any other organization a country chooses to administer the DPSF. The innovative features of the DPSF is its orientation towards integrated policy making, and more specifically on horizontal policy integration, the emphasis on policy actors and their relationships, the provision a scheme that ensures consistency at all levels of decision making from that of the spatial system of reference to the actors involved and their relationships, to the combinations of policies down to the information and monitoring systems. Potential barriers to its adoption and application are the departmentalized character of policy making and the lack of horizontal relationships among policy communities and organizations.
Over the past decades an increasing awareness has developed of the interrelatedness of our society and of the relationships that exist that govern our existence on this planet. Furthermore humans now have more power and control over things and are more closely connected with one another than ever before. Given this, it is not surprising that planning processes have begun to incorporate dialogue directly from people who are being affected by or have an interest with the issues discussed - individuals more commonly referred to as stakeholders. Stakeholders are generally accepted as being the greatest experts on their own situation and are thus crucial in feeding into planning and decision-making processes. Furthermore stakeholder participation is seen as crucial for enabling democracy. Therefore participatory methods are increasingly being valued as a useful and necessary tool to enable this. Many diverse and exploratory participatory techniques have thus become commonly used tools to facilitate this process of stakeholder involvement in many communities, institutions and organisations. Participatory techniques are valued as a useful and necessary tool for drawing stakeholders into the decision-making process. They facilitate a flow of information within and between the public and experts, and through their more qualitative nature, serve as grounds for communicating the deeper meaning of the information collected. Additionally, rather than polarizing different actors (citizens, experts and so on), with an interest in the particular area or issue of concern, it offers an open forum in which they are invited to participate in dialogue exchanging thoughts, ideas and opinions with one another through a variety forms. Although the research team were responsible for the production of European and Mediterranean level scenarios, it was decided to have workshops in each of the MedAction target regions to involve local stakeholders in the production of local level scenarios. In three of the four target areas a series of workshops have been implemented, and were designed to address a number of topics. The overall objectives of the MedAction stakeholder workshops are the following: - Enhance the local public perception of driving forces and effects of land degradation and desertification, in order to develop a set of common indicators and integrated scenarios; - Enable wider implementation and dissemination of project research results and presentation of the Desertification Policy Support Framework; - Provide a basis for long-term involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making process. To facilitate involvement and enhance feedback of the stakeholders in the target areas of the MedAction project, Stakeholder Groups have been formed in each target areas. Each Stakeholder Group is made up of 15-20 persons including representatives of the main actors related to land management and desertification issues, as well as other principal groups of interest. The main groups invited to both series of workshops included: - Members of national institutions; - Members of regional institutions; - Members of local communities; - Representatives of non-governmental organisations; - Farmers; - Journalists; - Students; - Free-thinkers/artists. To build upon the output developed from the first series of workshops, it was decided to run a second series of workshops that used the material produced from the first in a process more commonly referred to in the research community as backcasting. The backcasting process asks participants to identify incremental steps in the form of policy solutions, projecting them in a chronological order over the time-period, gradually leading them to the end scenario. So whereas in the first workshops much of the focus was upon creation of the scenarios with reference to dominant trends, little time was allocated to detailing or explaining the storyline. In contrast the second workshop devoted attention to the development of the scenario over a period of time in a more structured manner. Theoretically the task involves a process of working from the future back to the present. The main outcomes can be distinguished as follows: - A two part participatory scenario construction and development workshop. This included the development of firstly a participatory scenario development process, and secondly, a participatory backcasting process. - Local area networks have been developed incorporating stakeholders not just from the local level but from the regional and national level also. - Increased awareness and understanding of the issues and perceptions of all involved. - Key faciliation and organisation skills for the development of participatory processes of those in the research and local organisation teams. - Improved understanding and appreciation of the opportunities and benefits of participatory planning processes.
OVERVIEW: The SHETRAN Decision Support System (DSS) combines the SHETRAN basin-scale hydrological and sediment yield modelling system with the EPIC crop growth model and a simple farmer response model (by which farmers choose next year's crop according to which crop from the past year has proved the most profitable). The DSS has been set up for the 1532-km2 Agri (southern Italy) and the 701-km2 Cobres (Alentejo, Portugal) target basins and baseline simulations have been carried out for the period 1985-88 (Agri) and 1995-98 (Cobres). Scenario simulations were then carried out for different land uses (seed drilling, land abandonment, afforestation of the higher ground), crop subsidy level and a future climate (late 21st century). Ouput on meteorological data, hydrographs for the river gauging stations, monthly and annual runoff and sediment yield and the predicted crop distributions for each year is displayed on the MEDACTION project website. Comparison of the scenario with the baseline results show the sensitivity of basin response to the scenario conditions. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Educational material on the impact of land use, subsidy and climate change; an input to developing guidelines for sustainable land management in the target areas. END USERS: Land use planners in the target areas; consultancies; EU agencies concerned with sustainable land management in a region potentially at risk from land degradation (desertification). INNOVATIVE FEATURES/BENEFITS: Overview of variation in runoff, sediment yield and farmer choice of crop for the target areas for a range of land use, subsidy and climate scenarios. MARKET SECTOR: The material is illustrative and should be on interest to the educational as well as the land planning sectors. POTENTIAL BARRIERS: The material is already in the public domain. A wider problem is transforming the SHETRAN DSS into a more user-friendly product which does not require the dedicated Newcastle team for its application.

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